TERMS STARTING WITH
The saintly throng in the form of a rose by Dore. Illustration to Canto 31 of Dante’s Paradiso. 232
The saintly throng in the form of a rose by
TERMS ANYWHERE
745 c.e. “unearthed and turned out of the saintly
allhallows ::: n. --> All the saints (in heaven).
All Saints&
All Saints’ Day, All-Hallows, Hallowmas. A festival originally on the first of May, said to have been instituted for the martyrs in European countries about the 4th or 5th centuries. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface instituted it on May 13 to replace a pagan festival of the dead. In 834 the day was moved to November 1st by Gregory III and was then celebrated for all the saints. The Greek Church celebrates it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Closely connected with the celebration was the keeping of the preceding evening, known as the vigil of Hallowmas or Halloween. This was especially kept in Scotland and in Brittany, France. In Scotland an important item was the lighting of a bonfire at each house. The Celts kept two festivals, one called Beltane (Bealtine or Beiltine) in which fires were lighted on the eve of May 1st, and the other called Samtheine on the eve of November 1st, in which people jumped over two fires placed very close together. “The Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore, when, while all the fires were extinguished on the 1st of November, their sacred and inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon, like those of the Magi and the modern Zoroastrians” (SD 2:759). The Germanic nations had their Osterfeuer and Johannisfeuer.
anagogical ::: a. --> Mystical; having a secondary spiritual meaning; as, the rest of the Sabbath, in an anagogical sense, signifies the repose of the saints in heaven; an anagogical explication.
bilocation ::: n. --> Double location; the state or power of being in two places at the same instant; -- a miraculous power attributed to some of the saints.
bollandists ::: n. pl. --> The Jesuit editors of the "Acta Sanctorum", or Lives of the Saints; -- named from John Bolland, who began the work.
Citta-suddhi (purification of the mental or moral habits form- ed in the citta) was preached by the yogins as a first movement towards realisation and they got by it the saintliness of the saint and the quietude of the sage but the transformation of the nature of which w« speak Is something more than that, and this trans- formation does not come by contemplation alone.
de Bles, Arthur. How to Distinguish the Saints in Art.
hagiographa ::: n. pl. --> The last of the three Jewish divisions of the Old Testament, or that portion not contained in the Law and the Prophets. It comprises Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.
The lives of the saints.
hagiographer ::: n. --> One of the writers of the hagiographa; a writer of lives of the saints.
hagiography: A study of the lives of the saints.
hagiologist ::: n. --> One who treats of the sacred writings; a writer of the lives of the saints; a hagiographer.
hagiology ::: n. --> The history or description of the sacred writings or of sacred persons; a narrative of the lives of the saints; a catalogue of saints.
"He who is the high and low, the saint and the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the knowable, the real, the omnipresent; break all other idols. In whom there is neither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor coming, in whom we always have been and always will be one, Him worship; break all other idols."" The Synthesis of Yoga*
“He who is the high and low, the saint and the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the knowable, the real, the omnipresent; break all other idols. In whom there is neither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor coming, in whom we always have been and always will be one, Him worship; break all other idols.’’ The Synthesis of Yoga
hijiri. (聖). In Japanese, "holy man" or "saint." The term hijiri is polysemous and may refer generally to an eminent monk or more specifically to those monks who have acquired great merit through rigorous cultivation. A hijiri may also refer to an ascetic monk who rejects monastic life in favor of a more reclusive, independent lifestyle and practice. Historically, the term hijiri was also often used to refer to itinerant preachers, who converted the masses by means of healing, divination, and thaumaturgy, as well as by building basic infrastructure, such as bridges, roads, and irrigation systems. The holy men of KoYASAN, the Koya hijiri, and the saints of the JISHu tradition, the Yugyo hijiri, are best known in Japan. See also ĀRYA.
How to Distinguish the Saints in Art, p. 52.]
kyrie eleison ::: --> Greek words, meaning "Lord, have mercy upon us," used in the Mass, the breviary offices, the litany of the saints, etc.
The name given to the response to the Commandments, in the service of the Church of England and of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
menology ::: n. --> A register of months.
A brief calendar of the lives of the saints for each day in the year, or a simple remembrance of those whose lives are not written.
Mi la ras pa. (Milarepa) (1028/40-1111/23). The most famous and beloved of Tibetan YOGINs. Although he is associated most closely with the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, he is revered throughout the Tibetan cultural domain for his perseverance through hardship, his ultimate attainment of buddhahood in one lifetime, and for his beautiful songs. The most famous account of his life (the MI LA RAS PA'I RNAM THAR, or "The Life of Milarepa") and collection of spiritual songs (MI LA'I MGUR 'BUM, or "The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa") are extremely popular throughout the Tibetan world. The themes associated with his life story-purification of past misdeeds, faith and devotion to the GURU, ardor in meditation and yogic practice, and the possibility of attaining buddhahood despite the sins of his youth-have inspired developments in Buddhist teaching and practice in Tibet. Mi la was his clan name; ras pa is derived from the single cotton robe (ras) worn by Tibetan anchorites, an attire Milarepa retained for most of his life. The name is therefore an appellation, "The Cotton-clad Mi la." Although his dates are the subject of debate, biographies agree that Mi la ras pa was born to a wealthy family in the Gung thang region of southwestern Tibet. He was given the name Thos pa dga', literally "Delightful to Hear." At an early age, after the death of his father, the family estate and inheritance were taken away by Mi la ras pa's paternal aunt and uncle, leaving Mi la ras pa, his mother, and his sister to suffer poverty and disgrace. At the urging of his mother, Mi las ras pa studied sorcery and black magic in order to seek revenge. He was successful in his studies, causing a roof to collapse during a wedding party hosted by his relatives, with many killed. Eventually feeling remorse and recognizing the karmic consequences of his deeds, he sought salvation through the practice of Buddhism. After brief studies with several masters, he met MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS, who would become his root guru. Mar pa was esteemed for having traveled to India, where he received valuable tantric instructions. However, Mar pa initially refused to teach Mi la ras pa, subjecting him to all forms of verbal and physical abuse. He made him undergo various ordeals, including constructing single-handedly several immense stone towers (including the final tower built for Mar pa's son called SRAS MKHAR DGU THOG, or the "nine-storied son's tower"). When Mi la ras pa was at the point of despair and about to abandon all hope of receiving the teachings, Mar pa then revealed that the trials were a means of purifying the negative KARMAN of his black magic that would have prevented him from successfully practicing the instructions. Mar pa bestowed numerous tantric initiations and instructions, especially those of MAHĀMUDRĀ and the practice of GTUM MO, or "inner heat," together with the command to persevere against all hardship while meditating in solitary caves and mountain retreats. He was given the initiation name Bzhad pa rdo rje (Shepa Dorje). Mi la ras pa spent the rest of his life practicing meditation in seclusion and teaching small groups of yogin disciples through poetry and songs of realization. He had little interest in philosophical discourse and no tolerance for intellectual pretension; indeed, several of his songs are rather sarcastically directed against the conceits of monastic scholars and logicians. He was active across southern Tibet, and dozens of locations associated with the saint have become important pilgrimage sites and retreat centers; their number increased in the centuries following his death. Foremost among these are the hermitages at LA PHYI, BRAG DKAR RTA SO, CHU DBAR, BRIN, and KAILĀSA. Bhutanese tradition asserts that he traveled as far as the STAG TSHANG sanctuary in western Bhutan. Foremost among Milarepa's disciples were SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN and RAS CHUNG PA RDO RJE GRAGS. According to his biography, Mi la ras pa was poisoned by a jealous monk. Although he had already achieved buddhahood and was unharmed by the poison, he allowed himself to die. His life story ends with his final instructions to his disciples, the account of his miraculous cremation, and of how he left no relics despite the pleas of his followers.
perseverance ::: n. --> The act of persevering; persistence in anything undertaken; continued pursuit or prosecution of any business, or enterprise begun.
Discrimination.
Continuance in a state of grace until it is succeeded by a state of glory; sometimes called final perseverance, and the perseverance of the saints. See Calvinism.
sadhunam rajyam ::: the reign of the saints.
SAINT Emotional genius, man on the highest level of the higher emotional stage, or the stage of culture. The saint has attained the emotional ideal of a loving relationship to all living things. However, it remains to realize the mental ideal - knowledge of reality and the purpose of action - before the self is finished with the human kingdom. (K 1.34.17)
When the self can maintain itself in the highest emotional consciousness (48:2), the individual is what Christian mysticism calls a saint. K 7.17.12
saint-simonianism ::: n. --> The principles, doctrines, or practice of the Saint-Simonians; -- called also Saint- Simonism.
semi-pelagian ::: n. --> A follower of John Cassianus, a French monk (died about 448), who modified the doctrines of Pelagius, by denying human merit, and maintaining the necessity of the Spirit&
souls of just men (the saints). In The Zohar, they
Subhuti. (T. Rab 'byor; C. Xuputi; J. Shubodai; K. Subori 須菩提). Sanskrit and Pāli proper name of an eminent ARHAT who was foremost among the Buddha's disciples in dwelling at peace in remote places and in worthiness to receive gifts. He was the younger brother of ANĀTHAPIndADA and took ordination on the day the JETAVANA grove was dedicated, when he heard the Buddha preach. He mastered the ubhatovibhanga, the two collections comprising the VINAYAPItAKA, after which he retired to the forest to practice meditation. He attained arhatship on the basis of maitrīdhyāna (P. mettājhāna), meditative absorption cultivated through contemplation of loving-kindness (MAITRĪ). On his alms-rounds, Subhuti would cultivate loving-kindness at the door of every house where he stopped, thus expanding the amount of merit accrued by his donor. Subhuti taught the dharma without distinction or limitation, for which reason the Buddha singled him out for praise. Subhuti was widely revered for his holiness and was sought out as a recipient of gifts. King BIMBISĀRA once promised to build a cave dwelling for him in RĀJAGṚHA but later forgot. Without a dwelling place, Subhuti sat in the open air to practice meditation. Over time, this caused a drought in the region, for the clouds would not rain lest this disturb the saint's meditations. When Bimbisāra became aware of this issue, he built a grass hut for him, and as soon as Subhuti sat inside it, the clouds poured down rain. During the time of Padmottara Buddha, Subhuti had been a famous hermit named Nanda with forty thousand disciples. Once when the Buddha was visiting his hermitage, he directed one of his monks proficient in loving-kindness and foremost in worthiness to receive gifts to preach to his host. Upon hearing the sermon, all forty thousand disciples of Nanda became arhats, while Nanda, enthralled by the charisma of the preaching monk, resolved one day to earn the same distinction. Subhuti also plays a prominent role in a number of MAHĀYĀNA sutras. The most famous of these roles is as the Buddha's chief interlocutor in PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ sutras like the VAJRACCHEDIKĀPRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRA. In the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA, Subhuti is one the four sRĀVAKAs who understands the parable of the burning house; later his buddhahood is prophesied by the Buddha. In the VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, Subhuti is one of the arhats who is reluctant to visit Vimalakīrti. Among the Buddha's ten major disciples, he is said to have been foremost in the knowledge of insubstantiality.
Sultanul Awliya ::: King of the Saints, a title of Hz. Abdul Qadir Geylani
tejokasina. (S. tejaskṛtsnāyatana; T. me zad par gyi skye mched; C. huo bianchu; J. kahensho; K. hwa p'yonch'o 火遍處). In Pāli, "fire device"; one of the ten devices (KASInA) described in the PĀLI tradition for developing meditative concentration (P. JHĀNA, S. DHYĀNA); the locus classicus for their exposition is the VISUDDHIMAGGA of BUDDHAGHOSA. Ten kasina are enumerated there: visualization devices that are constructed from the elements (MAHĀBHuTA) of earth, water, fire, air; the colors blue, yellow, red, white; and light and empty space. In each case, the meditation begins by looking at the physical object; the perception of the device is called the "beginning sign" or "preparatory sign" (P. PARIKAMMANIMITTA). Once the object is clearly perceived, the meditator then memorizes the object so that it is seen as clearly in his mind as with his eyes. This perfect mental image of the device is called the "eidetic sign," or "learning sign" (P. UGGAHANIMITTAs), and serves as the subsequent object of concentration. As the internal visualization of this eidetic sign deepens and the five hindrances (NĪVARAnA) to mental absorption are temporarily allayed, a "representational sign" or "counterpart sign" (P. PAtIBHĀGANIMITTA) will emerge from out of the eidetic image, as if, the texts say, a sword is being drawn from its scabbard or the moon is emerging from behind clouds. The representational sign is a mental representation of the visualized image, which does not duplicate what was seen with the eyes but represents its abstracted, essentialized quality. Continued attention to the representational sign will lead to all four of the meditative absorptions of the subtle-materiality realm (RuPADHĀTU). In the case of the tejokasina, the meditator begins by making a fire of dried heartwood, hanging a curtain of reeds, leather, or cloth in front of it, then cutting a hole four fingerwidths in size in the curtain. He then sits in the meditative posture and observes the flame (rather than the sticks or the smoke) through the hole, thinking, "fire, fire," using the perception of the flame as the preparatory sign. The eidetic sign, which is visualized without looking at the flame, appears as a tongue of flame and continually detaches itself from the fire. The representational sign is more steady, appearing motionless like a red cloth in space, a gold fan, or a gold column. With the representational sign achieved, progress through the various stages of absorption may begin. The tejokasina figures prominently in the dramatic story of the passing away of the Buddha's attendant, ĀNANDA. According to FAXIAN, when Ānanda was 120 years old, he set out from MAGADHA to VAIsĀLĪ in order to die. Seeking control of the saint's relics after his death, AJĀTAsATRU followed him to the Rohīni River, while a group for Vaisālī awaited him on the other side. Not wishing to disappoint either group, Ānanda levitated to the middle of the river in the meditative posture, preached the dharma, and then meditated on the tejokasina, which caused his body to burst into flames, with his relics dividing into two parts, one landing on each side of the river.
the prayers of the saints.” According to Charles,
the prayers of the saints to God” (according to
The saintly throng in the form of a rose by Dore. Illustration to Canto 31 of Dante’s Paradiso. 232
The saintly throng in the form of a rose by
who followed him. In Psalms 91:13, “the saints
KEYS (10k)
1 Wei Wu Wei
1 Tolstoy
1 Thomas A Kempis
1 Saint Théodore Guérin
1 Saint Philip Neri
1 Saint John Vianney
1 Saint Apollinaris
1 Saint Alphonsus Liguori
1 Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King
1 Lao- Tse
1 John of Salisbury
1 Jalaluddin Rumi
1 Imitation of Christ
1 Sri Ramakrishna
1 Saint Thomas Aquinas
1 Saadi
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
12 Anonymous
7 Ralph Waldo Emerson
6 Oswald Chambers
6 Charles Haddon Spurgeon
5 C S Lewis
4 G K Chesterton
3 Thomas Watson
3 Sri Ramakrishna
3 Saint Teresa of Avila
3 Saint Alphonsus Liguori
3 Pope Francis
3 Pope Benedict XVI
3 Leslie Charteris
3 John Vianney
3 Graham Greene
3 Gilbert K Chesterton
3 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
3 Dorothy Day
3 Charles Spurgeon
3 Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1:For the saint there is no death. ~ Tolstoy, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
2:The saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The sage is a man who rids himself of his ego." ~ Wei Wu Wei, #KEYS
3:The inner consciousness of the saint is the true mosque all should worship, God lives there." ~ Jalaluddin Rumi, #KEYS
4:Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity. ~ Saadi, #KEYS
5:Accurate reading on a wide range of subjects makes the scholar; careful selection of the better makes the saint. ~ John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, [T5], #KEYS
6:The saint does not seek to do great things; that is why he is able to accomplish them. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
7:Thence comes it that the saint occupies himself with his inner being and not with the objects of his eyes. ~ Lao- Tse, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
8:Even the saint and the sage continue to have difficulties and to be limited by their human nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga, #KEYS
9:All other vanities can be gradually extinguished, but the vanity of the saint in his saintliness is difficult indeed to banish. ~ Ramakrishna, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
10:The saint does good and makes not much of it. He accomplishes great things and is not attached to them. He does not wish to let his wisdom appear. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
11:Man's nature is made up of four elements, which produce in him four attributes, namely, the beastly, the brutal, the satanic, and the divine. In man there is something of the pig, the dog, the devil, and the saint. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #KEYS
12:The saint who has arrived at a perfect contemplation, sees the All as one only spirit and his soul loses itself in this spirit, as water is dissolved in water, as fire is united to fire, as air is made one with air. ~ Shankaracharya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
13:Four roads to perfection: the way of the novice, the way of the warrior, the way of the conqueror, the way of the saint. Four conditions that we may enter into the way: the society of the just, an ear given to instruction, vigilance, a life of righteousness. ~ Anguttara Nikaya, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
14:the priest and the mage, the man of piety, the just man, the man of wisdom, the saint, the prophet, the Rishi, the Yogi, the seer, the spiritual sage and the mystic ... the saint, the devotee, the spiritual sage, the seer, the prophet, the servant of God, the soldier of the spirit
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
15:11. The Ultimate Boon:The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
16:Many are God's forms by which he grows in man;
They stamp his thoughts and deeds with divinity,
Uplift the stature of the human clay
Or slowly transmute it into heavens gold.
He is the Good for which men fight and die,
He is the war of Right with Titan wrong;
He is Freedom rising deathless from her pyre;
He is Valour guarding still the desperate pass
Or lone and erect on the shattered barricade
Or a sentinel in the dangerous echoing Night.
He is the crown of the martyr burned in flame
And the glad resignation of the saint
And courage indifferent to the wounds of Time
And the heros might wrestling with death and fate.
He is Wisdom incarnate on a glorious throne
And the calm autocracy of the sages rule.
He is the high and solitary Thought
Aloof above the ignorant multitude:
He is the prophets voice, the sight of the seer.
He is Beauty, nectar of the passionate soul,
He is the Truth by which the spirit lives.
He is the riches of the spiritual Vast
Poured out in healing streams on indigent Life;
He is Eternity lured from hour to hour,
He is infinity in a little space:
He is immortality in the arms of death.
These powers I am and at my call they come.
Thus slowly I lift mans soul nearer the Light.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:The stamp of the Saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 2:The humorist has a good eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 3:The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic. ~ george-bernard-shaw, @wisdomtrove 4:The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. ~ oscar-wilde, @wisdomtrove 5:God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 6:The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 7:I'm not nearly the saint some of my fans imagine and I'm nowhere near the devil my detractors wish, so you simply take both of those with a grain of salt. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 8:His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 9:All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 10:The inclination to digress is human. But the dramatist must avoid it even more strenuously than the saint must avoid sin, for while sin may be venial, digression is mortal. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 11:The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 12:How can you possibly believe he really loves you?‚Äù Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier's hand.‚ÄúYou have no choice,‚Äù Mr. Whittier tells her. ‚ÄúIf you need to be loved. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 13:I want to start two institutions, one in Madras and one in Calcutta, to carry out my plan; and that plan briefly is to bring the Vedantic ideals into the everyday practical life of the saint or the sinner, of the sage or the ignoramus, of the Brahmin or the Pariah. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 14:I am a man and alive. For this reason I am a novelist. And, being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, te scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog... .Only in the novel are all things given full play. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 15:[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove 16:I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 17:Most of the world's great souls have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness... Always remember: you cannot carry a cross in company. Though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, his cross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart. Society has turned against him; otherwise he would have no cross. No one is a friend to the man with a cross. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 18:There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father's palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 19:When Bayazid was asked how old he was, he replied, ‘Four years.’ They said, ‘How can that be?’ He answered, ‘I have been veiled from God by the world for seventy years, but I have seen Him during the last four years. The period during which one is veiled does not belong to one’s life.’” On another occasion someone knocked at the saint’s door and cried, “Is Bayazid here?” Bayazid answered, “Is anybody here except God?” ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 20:Love wouldn't deny a breath. It wouldn't deny a grain of sand or a speck of dust. It is totally in love with itself; and it delights in acknowledging itself through its own presence, in every way, without limit. It embraces it all, everything from the murderer and the rapist to the saint to the dog and cat. Love is so vast within itself that it will burn you up. It's so vast that there's nothing you can do with it. All you can do is be it. ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 21:Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 22:Rather than seeking total control, relinquish it. You can't run the world, but you can entrust it to God. This is the message behind Paul's admonition to "rejoice in the Lord." Peace is within reach, not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord. Rather than rehearse the chaos of the world, rejoice in the Lord's sovereignty, as Paul did. Sovereignty gives the saint the inside track to peace. Others see the problems of the world and wring their hands. We see the problems of the world and bend our knees. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 23:The angels were perplexed. They took counsel and resolved upon the following plan: Every time the saint's shadow fell behind him it would have the power to cure disease, soothe pain, and comfort sorrow. As he walked, behind him the shadow made arid paths green, caused withered plants to bloom, gave clear water to dried up brooks, fresh color to pale children, and joy to unhappy men and women. The saint simply went about his daily life diffusing virtue as the stars diffuse light and the flowers scent, without ever being aware of it. The people respecting his humility followed him silently, never speaking to him about his miracles. Soon they even forgot his name and called him "the Holy Shadow. ~ rachel-naomi-remen, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:The saint, we are told, ~ Nissim Ezekiel, #NFDB
2:For the saint there is no death. ~ Tolstoy, #NFDB
3:Men who ape the saint and play the sinner. ~ Juvenal, #NFDB
4:In museums I always enjoy stopping at the Saint Jeromes. ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
5:Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
6:Each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
7:Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
8:The author is the successor of the saint, everyone respects the author. ~ Roberto Calasso, #NFDB
9:The stamp of the Saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
10:Revolutions can, and often have, begun with reading.
The Doctor and the Saint ~ Arundhati Roy,#NFDB
11:Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35) ~ Rollo May, #NFDB
12:The Saint is a man who disciplines his ego. The Sage is a man who rids himself of his ego. ~ Wei Wu Wei, #NFDB
13:For the modern consciousness, the artist (replacing the saint) is the exemplary sufferer. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
14:The humorist has a good eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
15:God: But it is my creation...!
The Saint of Killers: It's outgrown you. ~ Garth Ennis,#NFDB
16:The saint and the sinner are twin brothers...one was born but the moment before the other. ~ Khalil Gibran, #NFDB
17:I was able to do The Saint of Fort Washington, on the relationship between two homeless men. ~ Danny Glover, #NFDB
18:The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
19:The Saint didn’t look like he knew all the answers. He looked like he was still searching. ~ Tracy Banghart, #NFDB
20:Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity. ~ Saadi, #NFDB
21:Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity. ~ Saadi, #NFDB
22:“Even in the eyes of believers, the libertine is nearer to the saint than the man without desire.” ~ Bataille, #NFDB
23:The saint does not seek to do great things; that is why he is able to accomplish them. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King, #NFDB
24:The saint and the atheist, seekers both, bowed to each other and went their separate ways. ~ Anand Neelakantan, #NFDB
25:Thence comes it that the saint occupies himself with his inner being and not with the objects of his eyes. ~ Lao- Tse, #NFDB
26:The sinner's ego is crude that of the saint refined, distilled. Careful! It may be more poisonous! ~ Frederick Franck, #NFDB
27:Warner Bros offered me the next Batman, and the only reason that I didn't do it was because of The Saint. ~ Val Kilmer, #NFDB
28:The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic. ~ George Bernard Shaw, #NFDB
29:St George!’ the English shouted, but the saint must have been sleeping for he gave the attackers no help. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
30:The trials of the saint are a divine husbandry, by which he grows and brings forth abundant fruit. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
31:Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
32:The saint and the angel are not the only divinities; admire also the Titan and the giant. ~ Sri AurobindoThoughts and Aphorisms, #NFDB
33:While the Doctor was searching for a more lasting cure, the Saint journeyed across India distributing a placebo. ~ Arundhati Roy, #NFDB
34:Conversation in society is found to be on a platform so low as to exclude science, the saint, and the poet. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
35:Despite the Saint-Nectaire, this analysis would be absolutely reasonable if it did not sin grievously by omission ~ Georges Perec, #NFDB
36:It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
37:The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
38:To redeem creation the saint wages war on the entire fabric of creation, with the bare weapons of truth and love. ~ Jacques Maritain, #NFDB
39:Every level of inheritance requires a disinheritance from the devil. Satan must be moved off before the saint can move in. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
40:God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
41:It is astonishing the sense of innocence that goes with sin--only the hard and careful man and the saint are free of it. ~ Graham Greene, #NFDB
42:There will be no sickness for the saint of God. ... If your body belongs to God, it does not and cannot belong to sickness. ~ Benny Hinn, #NFDB
43:I love to dwell on the thought that the artist is next in divinity to the saint. He, like the saint, performs miracles. ~ Stanley Spencer, #NFDB
44:The popular gospel of this day, is the laughing-stock of Hell; it dare neither damn the sinner, nor sanctify the saint. ~ Catherine Booth, #NFDB
45:The Saint finds her true reason for living in unconditional love and in her ability to give without asking anything in return. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
46:The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
47:All other vanities can be gradually extinguished, but the vanity of the saint in his saintliness is difficult indeed to banish. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
48:the saint told her that more tears were shed over prayers that were granted than ever were shed over prayers that were refused. ~ Patrick O Brian, #NFDB
49:God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
50:I worked with Roger Moore on three episodes of The Saint. He is a lovely man, a good director, and was my favourite actor to work with. ~ Shirley Eaton, #NFDB
51:The peace of mind which permeates the saint's atmosphere is the only means by which the seeker understands the greatness of the saint. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
52:The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
53:To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
54:Accurate reading on a wide range of subjects makes the scholar; careful selection of the better makes the saint. ~ John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, [T5], #NFDB
55:Value is relative,” said the saint. “A man with his house on fire and a man dying of thirst each place a different value on a glass of water. ~ Jonathan Maberry, #NFDB
56:The saint endeavors to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall. ~ Arthur Machen, #NFDB
57:Even the saint and the sage continue to have difficulties and to be limited by their human nature. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, The Difficulties of Yoga, #NFDB
58:Regretfully, I have decided that if the Saint Saga must remain permanently in print in its entirety, then it can only do so in its original form. ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
59:I'm not nearly the saint some of my fans imagine and I'm nowhere near the devil my detractors wish, so you simply take both of those with a grain of salt. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
60:Jude is my favorite of all the saints,” he says. “Patron saint of lost causes. The saint to call on when all hope is gone. The one in charge of miracles. ~ Jandy Nelson, #NFDB
61:The saint does good and makes not much of it. He accomplishes great things and is not attached to them. He does not wish to let his wisdom appear. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King, #NFDB
62:I hadn’t slept with anyone in two years. Frankly, it was unnatural. The way I reacted to Will made me think that I really needed to give up the saint act, ~ Renee Carlino, #NFDB
63:The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
64:The here, the now and the individual have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet and -- from time immemorial--the woman. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
65:Then, when the Saint performed the first miracle, many pilgrims found their newly visible darkness just as daunting as invisible darkness—possibly more so. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
66:Even the tombs of Christian saints received visitors, due to the practice of posthumously declaring the saint to have actually been a Muslim in his earthly life. ~ Michael Rank, #NFDB
67:The saint is precisely one who has no “I” to protect or project. His or her “I” is in conscious union with the “I AM” of God, and that is more than enough. Divine ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
68:The saint is the apology for the Christian religion. He is holy, however, because he allows Christ to live in him and it is in Christ that he "glories". ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, #NFDB
69:the Saint did not seem to be aware that he was multiplying miracles with an easy grace that would have made a Grand Lama look like a third-rate three-card man. ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
70:His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
71:Perhaps Aquinas’s notably soft line on gluttony may have had something to do with the fact that the saint was said to have had what today we might call a weight problem. ~ Francine Prose, #NFDB
72:The Gucci woman - you know what she’s after. The Saint Laurent woman - she’s going to torture you a little bit. You might have sex, but she will drip a little hot wax on you first. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
73:She smashes her knuckles into winter As autumn's wind fades into black She is the saint of all the sinners, the one whose fallen through the cracks... (iViva la Gloria!) ~ Billie Joe Armstrong, #NFDB
74:The inclination to digress is human. But the dramatist must avoid it even more strenuously than the saint must avoid sin, for while sin may be venial, digression is mortal. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
75:The saint and poet seek privacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of culture, to interest the man more in his public, than in his private quality. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
76:All is the Self or Brahman. The saint, the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing else. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
77:I like visiting peoples homes on Saint Josephs Day, when people set up altars, serve food as a tribute to the saint, and invite the public - I enjoy that much more than Mardi Gras. ~ Poppy Z Brite, #NFDB
78:They don't want you to wear the Saint Lauren fur, they don't want you to break App Store, they don't want you to be the biggest boss in the game. So what we go'n do is we go'n win more. ~ DJ Khaled, #NFDB
79:Whenever I have a problem, I ask the Saint (Thérèse of Lisieux) not to solve it, but to take it into her hands and to help me accept it and I almost always receive a white rose as a sign. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
80:The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
81:The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
82:How can you possibly believe he really loves you?” Miss Sneezy looks from the Mother to the Saint to Mr. Whittier’s hand.“You have no choice,” Mr. Whittier tells her. “If you need to be loved. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
83:I'm called the Saint," he murmured. "But don't let us get melodramatic about it, son. The last man who got melodramatic with me was hanged at Exeter six months back. It don't seem to be healthy! ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
84:The transition from the good man to the saint is a sort of revolution; by which one for whom all things illustrate and illuminate God becomes one for whom God illustrates and illuminates all things. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
85:We are all called to be saints, St. Paul says, and we might as well get over our bourgeois fear of the name. We might also get used to recognizing the fact that there is some of the saint in all of us. ~ Dorothy Day, #NFDB
86:In order to walk the path of the edge of the penknife the patience of the Saint Job is needed. In order to walk the path of the edge of the penknife the tenacity of the well tempered steel is needed. ~ Samael Aun Weor, #NFDB
87:Peter had said they should think on it, and they had, not because he told them, but because it was their natures. It was the Saint Leonard way. Engage brain. Think before you speak. Begin at the beginning. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
88:his hand and picked up the Saint Francis de Sales medal that I wore around my neck. “He’s the patron saint of journalists, but you said you weren’t a journalist. He’s the patron saint of the deaf, too. ~ Jamie Bennett, #NFDB
89:There is no difference between the saint who gives food to starving children and the worker who operates the gas chamber to kill them, except that one is making money and the other is losing it. ~ Nicholas Lamar Soutter, #NFDB
90:For the modern consciousness, the artist (replacing the saint) is the exemplary sufferer. And among artists, the writer, the man of words, is the person to whom we look to be able best to express his suffering. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
91:Man's nature is made up of four elements, which produce in him four attributes, namely, the beastly, the brutal, the satanic, and the divine. In man there is something of the pig, the dog, the devil, and the saint. ~ Al-Ghazali, #NFDB
92:Monsier Saint Laurent was pathologically shy, and he made the Saint Laurent woman in his own image. Like her, I am shy. And to protect myself, I adopted something of an androgynous look, just as his women did. ~ Carine Roitfeld, #NFDB
93:Don’t you know, Fat Antoyne, that three old men in white caps throw dice for the fate of the universe?’ No, Fat Antoyne said, he had never heard that. ‘Their names are Kokey Food, Mr Freedom and The Saint. ~ M John Harrison, #NFDB
94:The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light. ~ Felix Adler, #NFDB
95:The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
96:If an angel should fly from heaven and inform the saint personally of the Saviour’s love to him, the evidence would not be one whit more satisfactory than that which is borne in the heart by the Holy Ghost. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
97:The saint who has arrived at a perfect contemplation, sees the All as one only spirit and his soul loses itself in this spirit, as water is dissolved in water, as fire is united to fire, as air is made one with air. ~ Shankaracharya, #NFDB
98:A self-denial, no less austere than the saint's, is demanded of the scholar. He must worship truth, and forgo all things for that,and choose defeat and pain, so that his treasure in thought is thereby augmented. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
99:The anguish of the neurotic individual is the same as that of the saint. The neurotic, the saint are engaged in the same battle. Their blood flows from similar wounds. But the first one gasps and the other one gives. ~ Georges Bataille, #NFDB
100:The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
101:This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
102:Accurate reading on a wide range of subjects makes the scholar; careful selection of the better makes the saint. ~ John of Salisbury Policraticus Bk. 7, ch. 10; John Dickinson (trans.) The Statesman's Book of John of Salisbury ([1927] 1963). [1], #NFDB
103:It is St. Catherine’s Day: in honor of the saint who was threatened with martyrdom on a wheel, we all walk in circles to our destination. At least, that’s the theory. He has never seen anyone over the age of twelve actually doing it. ~ Hilary Mantel, #NFDB
104:Yet the saint obediently accepted the destruction of his plans and blessed God. Because of this kind of detachment from his own will and attachment to God’s, Louis became an instrument used by God to accomplish even mightier works. ~ Michael Gaitley, #NFDB
105:There is a sweet anguish springing up in our bosoms when a child's face brightens under the shadow of the waiting angel. There is an autumnal fitness when age gives up the ghost; and when the saint dies there is a tearful victory. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin, #NFDB
106:Why," said the saint, "did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved mankind far too well? Now I love God! Mankind I do not love; mankind is a thing too imperfect for me. Love of mankind would be fatal to me. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
107:I am hopelessly divided between the dark and the good, the rebel and the saint, the sex maniac and the monk, the poet and the priest, the demagogue and the populist. Pen to paper, I put it all down - I'm out on a limb here, so watch my back. ~ Billy Idol, #NFDB
108:Him with his whole heart. The saint Fudhail said to a certain man, "If anyone asks you whether you love God, keep silent; for if you say, 'I do not love Him,' you are an infidel; and if you say, 'I do,' your deeds contradict you." The ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
109:By saying 'God sees into the heart' it denies the deepest and the highest desires of life and takes God for the enemy of life. The saint in whom God takes pleasure is the ideal castrate. Life is at an end where the kingdom of God begins. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
110:And it seems to me that there is nothing more likely to cure a woman of lust than marriage. Now I understand what the saint meant when he said that it was better to marry than to burn. In my experience, if you marry, you certainly won't burn. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
111:To be a saint means to be separated. But it means more than that. The saint also is to be involved in a vital process of sanctification. We are to be purified daily in the growing pursuit of holiness. If we are justified, we must also be sanctified. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
112:If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. ~ William James, #NFDB
113:This is the fundamental idea of culture, insofar as it sets but one task for each of us: to further the production of the philosopher, of the artist, and of the saint within us and outside us, and thereby to work at the consummation of nature. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
114:“The human spirit is prey to the most astounding impulses. Man goes constantly in fear of himself. His erotic urges terrify him. The saint turns from the voluptuary in alarm; she does not know that his uncontrollable passions & her own are really one.” ~ Bataille, #NFDB
115:The saint’s censorious attitude vanished; his eyes became compassionately soft. He patted my shoulder. “Young yogi, I see you are running away from your master. He has everything you need; you must return to him. Mountains cannot be your guru. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
116:Grant us safe lodging, and holy rest,” Mrs. Grogan was saying, “and peace at last.” Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the Saint of St. Cloud’s, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that he’d come a long way and still had a long way to go. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
117:All right, we're good to go!" he said. Ben-Ari raced by him—back onto the Saint Brendan. "Captain!" Marco cried after her. "We need to go—now!" He glanced back behind them. The ravagers were even closer. Shards in the darkness, specks of fire. Twenty-two ~ Daniel Arenson, #NFDB
118:Pride is really very simple. It is the attitude of the spoiled brat: “I want what I want when I want it, and if you say No to me, I hate you.” “Thy will be done” is the essential prayer of the saint; “my will be done” is the essential demand of the sinner. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
119:Yes, and I suppose she wore a red gown for her meeting with the Saint. I suppose she was as clean as a licked kitten and smelled of rosemary.” When Kit grimaced, Melaugo said, “You have not seen death, my lord. You have only seen the mask we put on it. ~ Samantha Shannon, #NFDB
120:waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
121:Art and relligion are not professions: they are not occupations for which men can be paid. The artist and the saint do what they have to do, not to make a living, but in obedience to some mysterious necessity. They do not product to live - they live to produce. ~ Clive Bell, #NFDB
122:Sanity for anyone is pretty much out of the question, as both the saint and the sinner appear only equally insane: the saint appears it for actually believing in a place of eternal torment; the sinner, for deciding to risk going to that place of eternal torment. ~ Criss Jami, #NFDB
123:Four roads to perfection: the way of the novice, the way of the warrior, the way of the conqueror, the way of the saint. Four conditions that we may enter into the way: the society of the just, an ear given to instruction, vigilance, a life of righteousness. ~ Anguttara Nikaya, #NFDB
124:The sinner does not need more grace than the saint, nor does the immature and undisciplined believer need more than the godly, zealous missionary. We all need the same amount of grace because the "currency" of our good works is debased and worthless before God. ~ Jerry Bridges, #NFDB
125:Every age but ours has had its model, its ideal. All of these have been given up by our culture; the saint, the hero, the gentleman, the knight, the mystic. About all we have left is the well-adjusted man without problems, a very pale and doubtful substitute. ~ Abraham H Maslow, #NFDB
126:I want to start two institutions, one in Madras and one in Calcutta, to carry out my plan; and that plan briefly is to bring the Vedantic ideals into the everyday practical life of the saint or the sinner, of the sage or the ignoramus, of the Brahmin or the Pariah. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
127:So who needs grace? All of us, the saint as well as the sinner. The most conscientious, dutiful, hardworking Christian needs
God's grace as much as the most dissolute, hard-living sinner. All of us need the same grace. The sinner does not need more grace than the saint, ~ Jerry Bridges,#NFDB
128:When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. If you are appalled, he said, then it was a devil who had visited you. If you feel lightened, it was an angel. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
129:excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge did ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
130:At times Maharajji’s behavior reminds me of a story Ramakrishna tells of a saint who asked a snake not to bite but to love everyone. The snake agreed. But then many people threw things at the snake. The saint found the snake all battered. “I didn’t say not to hiss,” said the saint. ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
131:The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
132:What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears. ~ Brennan Manning, #NFDB
133:What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation,
God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears. ~ Brennan Manning,#NFDB
134:The king ordered that the saint be placed in the olive press until his flesh was torn to pieces and he died. They then threw him out of the city, but the Lord Jesus gathered the pieces together and brought him back to life, and he went back into the city. —The Story of St. George, the Great Martyr ~ Ahmed Saadawi, #NFDB
135:I am a man and alive. For this reason I am a novelist. And, being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, te scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog....Only in the novel are all things given full play. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
136:the priest and the mage, the man of piety, the just man, the man of wisdom, the saint, the prophet, the Rishi, the Yogi, the seer, the spiritual sage and the mystic ... the saint, the devotee, the spiritual sage, the seer, the prophet, the servant of God, the soldier of the spirit
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#NFDB
137:It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
138:Once again the Saint had proved, to his own sufficient satisfaction, as he had proved many times in his life before, that desperate dilemmas are usually best solved by desperate measures and that intelligent foolhardiness will often get by where too much discretion betrays valour into the mulligatawny. ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
139:It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
140:Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. ~ Leo F Buscaglia, #NFDB
141:[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
142:The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
143:And not in the crazy fuck’s normal bizarre-drobe of zebra stripes and feather boas. The angel had a flannel shirt tied around his waist. Blue jeans that were one trip through the wash away from losing their structural integrity. And a Nirvana shirt from the Saint Andrew’s Hall performance in Detroit on October 11, 1991. That ~ J R Ward, #NFDB
144:The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
145:The eyes of the saint make all beauty holy and the hands of the saint consecrate everything they touch to the glory of God, and the saint is never offended by anything and judges no man’s sin because he does not know sin. He knows the mercy of God. He knows that his own mission on earth is to bring that mercy to all men. W ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
146:Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father’s palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
147:Jesus Christ out-socialists the socialists. He says that in His Kingdom he that is greatest shall be the servant of all. The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples' feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men but count everything in the estimate of God. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
148:reached north to the Saint Lawrence and west to Ottawa. Hence: whalebones. Those early years, Rath had been obsessed with the violence of nature and how it shaped the physical world. As he’d grown older, his fixation had shifted from the violence of nature to the nature of violence, and how to stop it. Rath turned north onto ~ Eric Rickstad, #NFDB
149:Now I love God: men, I do not love. Man is a thing too imperfect for me. Love to man would be fatal to me." Zarathustra answered: "What spake I of love! I am bringing gifts unto men." "Give them nothing," said the saint. "Take rather part of their load, and carry it along with them—that will be most agreeable unto them: ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
150:Pardon me. In the excitement of the moment, and all that sort of thing, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm afraid I've had you at a disadvantage. My name is Templar-Simon Templar"-he caught the flash of stark hypnotic fear that blanched the big man's lips, and grinned even more gently. "You may have heard of me. I am the Saint. ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
151:The experience of humanism is that 'nothing human is alien to me'; that I carry within myself all of humanity; that nothing which exists in any human being does not exist in myself. I am the criminal and the saint. I am the child and the adult. I am the man who lived 100000 years ago and the man who will live 100000 years from now. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
152:Válmíki,(2)bird of charming song,(3) Who mounts on Poesy’s sublimest spray, And sweetly sings with accent clear and strong Ráma, aye Ráma, in his deathless lay. Where breathes the man can listen to the strain That flows in music from Válmíki’s tongue, Nor feel his feet the path of bliss attain When Ráma’s glory by the saint is sung! ~ Valmiki, #NFDB
153:The people will have no need to change their place of concourse; where of old they were wont to sacrifice cattle to demons, thither let them continue to resort on the day of the Saint to whom the Church is dedicated, and slay their beasts, no longer as a sacrifice to demons, but for a social meal in honour of Him whom they now worship. ~ Pope Gregory I, #NFDB
154:The saint Shibli one day went to see the Sufi Thaury; he found him sitting so still in contemplation that not a hair of his body moved. He; asked him, "From whom didst thou learn to practice such fixity of contemplation?" Thaury answered, "From a cat which I saw waiting at a mouse-hole in an attitude of even greater fixity than this. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
155:A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master. "People say you are a genius . Are you?" he asked. "You might say so." said the Master, none too modestly. "And what makes one a genius?" "The ability to recognize." "Recognize what?" "The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being. ~ Anthony de Mello, #NFDB
156:Why do they do this? Because it gives them a license to act like tyrants and to feel like saints. “Do what I tell you!” roars the tyrant. “It’s for your own good, and one day you’ll be grateful,” says the saint. Few people, feeling themselves powerless in a world turned upside down, can or even wish to resist the temptation to play this benevolent despot. ~ John Holt, #NFDB
157:Make yourself a simpleton and follow the saint: You will find salvation only by being a simpleton. Hence, oh father, that king of men, the Prophet said, 'Most of the people of Paradise are simpletons.' Since cleverness is your pride, become a simpleton so that your heart may remain healthy. Not a simpleton warped by buffoonery, but one distraught and bewildered in God ~ Rumi, #NFDB
158:The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God has used you. . . . If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure that ever lived. The lodestar of the saint is God Himself, not estimated usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him.[27] ~ Warren W Wiersbe, #NFDB
159:The thoughtful student, in scanning the religious history of the race, has one fact continually forced upon his notice, viz., that there is an invariable tendency to deify whomsoever shows himself superior to the weakness of our common humanity. Look where we will, we find the saint-like man exalted into a divine personage and worshipped for a god. Though ~ Henry Steel Olcott, #NFDB
160:I do believe that we all are, fundamentally, divided creatures. Emotions split from intellect, spirit from flesh and far too often sexuality is disconnected from what we feel, and are, as total human beings. But how, for example, can anyone have an understanding of the virgin if they don't also have an understanding of the prostitute, the saint and sinner in one body? ~ Tori Amos, #NFDB
161:In 1862, whalebones had been unearthed by a farmer’s plow blade in the surrounding fields; eleven thousand years before the world’s most famed carpenter supposedly rose again, the glaciers had retreated, and the Atlantic had rushed in, creating a paratropical ocean that for three thousand years reached north to the Saint Lawrence and west to Ottawa. Hence: whalebones. ~ Eric Rickstad, #NFDB
162:It is just as little necessary for the saint to be a philosopher as for the philosopher to be a saint; just as it is not necessary for a perfectly beautiful person to be a great sculptor, or for a sculptor to be himself a beautiful person. In general it is a strange demand on a moralist that he should commend no other virtue than that which he himself possesses. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
163:Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
164:I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
165:Stories...told with...heroes at the centre of them...are told to laud the virtues of the heroes---for if the hero failed, all would be lost. By contrast, a saint can fail in a way the hero can't, because the failure of the saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that's always fundamentally about God. ~ Samuel Wells, #NFDB
166:The thundering resonance of the Word has liberated me while living; Such is the service, O Lord, rendered by Thy minister, the Saint. How can I ever repay Thee, O my Benefactor? Thou art my mother, Thou art my father, Thou art my munificent Lord. Thou hast blessed me with Thy overflowing love within. Through Thee have I experienced the glory of freedom.
~ Namdev, The thundering resonance of the Word
,#NFDB
167:When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed. ~ Margaret Mead, #NFDB
168:It never ends well for saints, no matter how good they are. Castration, defenestration, hot pincers, prison—the saint is a scapegoat, a martyr, a patsy. Barnabas was stoned to death,8 but his story lived beyond him. Every Catholic knew his name. It was the paradox of the saints, one thing Charlie held on to from his childhood: remembered well, remembered forever, but only after being hated to death. ~ Charles Graeber, #NFDB
169:The barber ran to the broken window, and saw Gavroche, who was running with all his might towards the Saint Jean market. On passing the barber's shop, Gavroche, who had the two children on his mind, could not resist the desire to bid him "good day", and had sent a stone through his sash.
"See!" screamed the barber, who from white had become blue, "he makes mischief. What has anybody done to this Gamin? ~ Victor Hugo,#NFDB
170:We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
171:The Saint Bernards work best in teams of at least three dogs. They are sent out on patrols following storms, and they wander the paths looking for stranded travelers. If they come upon a victim, two dogs lie down beside the person to keep him warm; one of the two licks his face to stimulate him back to consciousness. Meanwhile, another dog will have already started back to the hospice to sound the alarm. ~ Stanley Coren, #NFDB
172:All of the Sorias were gifted with the ability to perform miracles, but into every generation, there were born a few who were more suited to the task than others: They were stranger or holier than other people, depending upon whom you asked. Daniel and Beatriz were the most saintly at the moment, and as Beatriz wanted desperately to not be the Saint, and Daniel wanted little else, balance was achieved. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
173:St. Ephrem being solicited to sin by a woman of evil life, professed his readiness, provided the scene of their transgression should be the public square. But when the woman objected to this condition on account of the shame it would involve, “Then,” replied the Saint, “you fear shame before the eyes of men, and do you not fear it before the angels of God?” By this consideration, he brought about her conversion. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
174:The birthday celebrations in Sergiyev Posad emphasized St. Sergius’s role in shaping a unified Russia, a narrative that dovetails with the nationalism and conservative morals that Mr. Putin espouses. Some historians and church figures are crying foul, however, over what they say are the Kremlin’s efforts to reshape the saint’s legacy to enhance political goals, fostering what one critic called “an official cult. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
175:There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father's palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
176:You are reversing the case!” The saint’s face held a mild rebuke. “I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciants! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys! ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
177:Leonardo had also been wrestling with the question of why the sky appears blue, and around that time he had correctly concluded that it had to do with the water vapor in the air. In the Saint Anne painting, he portrays the sky’s luminous and misty gradations of blue as no other painter had done. The recent cleaning of the painting fully reveals the magical realism, veiled in vapors, of his distant mountains and skyline. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
178:The end is the same, however it comes. They lay me down and cover me in the cold dark earth. Lay me down in the mud with hate in my heart. I ought to have made that session, ought to have walked through the door of the Saint James Hotel. Instead I'm twenty-seven years old and rotting in the levee with hate in my heart. Starless desolation in my heart. I was never paid for the whip and the gun, never paid for the work I done. ~ Hari Kunzru, #NFDB
179:Yes, the saint was underrated quite a bit, then, mostly by people who didn’t like things that were ineffable…
…a lot of people don’t like things that are unearthly, the things of this earth are good enough for them, and they don’t mind telling you so. “If he’d just go out and get a job, like everybody else, then he could be saintly all day long…”
—from “The Temptations of St. Anthony,” by Donald Barthelme ~ Donald Barthelme,#NFDB
180:Masters of the arts cannot be called adepts as long as they have not left behind attachments to their various skills. A mendicant asked an ancient saint, “What is the Way?” The saint said, “The normal mind is the Way.” The principle of this story applies to all arts. This is the stage where sicknesses of the mind are all gone, when you have become normal in mind and have no sicknesses even while in the midst of sicknesses. ~ Shambhala Publications, #NFDB
181:how bold these infants are before the throne of God? No one is bolder in the Kingdom of Heaven: Lord, you granted us life, they say to God, and just as we beheld it, you took it back from us. And they beg and plead so boldly that the Lord immediately puts them in the ranks of the angels. And therefore,’ said the saint, ‘you, too, woman, rejoice and do not weep. Your infant, too, now abides with the Lord in the host of his angels. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, #NFDB
182:While the Saint, when it was necessary to play the part, could assume an aspect of proud or unprincipled poverty that would evoke a responsive twang from any normal heartstring, his usual appearance, fortunately or unfortunately, suggested a person who was so far on the other side of having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth that he must have been seriously shocked when he first learned that gold spoons were not standard issue. ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
183:Forget about enlightenment. Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins. Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones. Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be. Not the saint you're striving to become. But the being right here before you, inside you, around you. All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know. Breathe out, look in, let go. ~ John Welwood, #NFDB
184:and St. Bernard, the monastery’s patron, bearing both a crosier and a sword, his role as an apologist for the failed second crusade unforgotten even among his fans. (I confess I had rather hoped to see a portrayal of the Lactation of St. Bernard, the oft-depicted scene from a legend in which the saint kneeled before a nursing Madonna and was hit with a squirt of milk from her breasts, curing him of an eye infection. The image always makes me smile.) It ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
185:Accepted
Charles Shortridge once to St. Peter came.
'Down!' cried the saint with his face aflame;
''Tis writ that every hardy liar
Shall dwell forever and ever in fire!'
'That's what I said the night that I died,'
The sinner, turning away, replied.
'What! _you_ said that?' cried the saint-'what! what!
_You_ said 'twas so writ? Then, faith, 'tis _not!_
I'm a devil at quoting, but I begin
To fail in my memory. Pray walk in.'
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
186:Forget about enlightenment.
Sit down wherever you are
And listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, and the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be.
Not the saint you’re striving to become.
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You’re already more and less
Than whatever you can know.
Breathe out, touch in, let go. ~ John Welwood,#NFDB
187:Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says--'I cannot stand anymore.' God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God's hands. Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. ~ Oswald Chambers, #NFDB
188:I’m the Saint praying on a balcony - like peaceful beasts grazing along the Sea of Palestine.
I’m the scholar in a plain reading chair. Branches and rain beat the library windows.
I’m the pedestrian on the high road through the stunted woods; the sound of floodgates drowns out my footsteps. I stare at the melancholy wash of another golden sunset...
The path is harsh. The hillocks are weed. The air is still. How far we are from birds and streams. The end of the world must be just ahead. ~ Arthur Rimbaud,#NFDB
189:Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
190:What then, is time?" asks the saint. "If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not." Neither the past nor the future, argues Augustine, truly exists - and the present is merely an instant. "The present of things past is memory," he writes; "the present of things present is perception; and the present of things future is expectation." Augustine's conclusion - never fully stated, but unmistakably implied - is that time is subjective. It exists in the mind alone, and nowhere else. ~ John Wray, #NFDB
191:Inwardly we are whirlpools of misery and mischief and therefore to be regarded outwardly as a great figure is very gratifying. This craving for position, for prestige, for power, to be recognized by society as being outstanding in some way, is a wish to dominate others, and this wish to dominate is a form of aggression. The saint who seeks a position in regard to his saintliness is as aggressive as the chicken pecking in the farmyard. And what is the cause of this aggressiveness? It is fear, isn't it? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
192:Today it is not alive. What, then, is this experience of humanism? With the above survey I have tried to show you that the experience of humanism is that — as Terence expressed it — “Nothing human is alien to me”; that nothing which exists in any human being does not exist in myself. I am the criminal and I am the saint. I am the child and I am the adult. I am the man who lived a hundred thousand years ago and I am the man who, provided we don't destroy the human race, will live hundred thousand years from now. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
193:The Saint whose water can light lamps, the clairvoyant whose lapse in recall is the breath of God, the true paranoid for whom all is organized in spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the dreamer whose puns probe ancient fetid shafts and tunnels of truth all act in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is there, buffering, to protect us from. The act of metaphor than was a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside, safe or outside, lost. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
194:The sort of decision arrived at by saints and madmen is not revealed to others. It is forged little by little, in the folds of the spirit, tangential to reason, shielded from indiscreet eyes, not seeking the approval of others—who would never grant it—until it is at last put into practice. I imagine that in the process—the conceiving of a project and its ripening into action—the saint, the visionary, or the madman isolates himself more and more, walling himself up in solitude, safe from the intrusion of others. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa, #NFDB
195:The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. Spiritual ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
196:The ordinary man thinks that yielding to doubts and worries is a sign of sensibility, of spirituality. Acting thus, he remains distant from the true meaning of life, for his reduced reasoning turns him into the saint or monster he imagines he is, and before he realizes it, he is caught in the trap he has set himself. This type of person loves being told what he should do, but even more than that, he loves not following sound advice - simply in order to anger the generous soul who, at a certain moment, was concerned about him. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
197:Therefore bread was created for the glory of Christ. Hunger and thirst were created for the glory of Christ. And fasting was created for the glory of Christ. Which means that bread magnifies Christ in two ways: by being eaten with gratitude for his goodness, and by being forfeited out of hunger for God himself. When we eat, we taste the emblem of our heavenly food—the Bread of Life. And when we fast we say, “I love the Reality above the emblem.” In the heart of the saint both eating and fasting are worship. Both magnify Christ. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
198:Rather than seeking total control, relinquish it. You can't run the world, but you can entrust it to God. This is the message behind Paul's admonition to "rejoice in the Lord." Peace is within reach, not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord. Rather than rehearse the chaos of the world, rejoice in the Lord's sovereignty, as Paul did. Sovereignty gives the saint the inside track to peace. Others see the problems of the world and wring their hands. We see the problems of the world and bend our knees. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
199:Therefore bread was created for the glory of Christ. Hunger and thirst were created for the glory of Christ. And fasting was created for the glory of Christ.
Which means that bread magnifies Christ in two ways: by being eaten with gratitude for his goodness, and by being forfeited out of hunger for God himself. When we eat, we taste the emblem of our heavenly food—the Bread of Life. And when we fast we say, “I love the Reality above the emblem.” In the heart of the saint both eating and fasting are worship. Both magnify Christ. ~ John Piper,#NFDB
200:A man in trouble laments that he did not listen to his teachers, and thus he finds himself in a sad state, utter ruin. A candid admission of a blunder is refreshing and not often heard in human affairs. It is the saint alone who is large-minded enough to think and speak in this way. This is part of his authenticity.The person who is swift to hear and slow to respond is a stranger to an all-knowing illuminism. He believes that others, too, have some truth, and he is willing to be instructed by them. He is ready for the mind of God. ~ Thomas Dubay, #NFDB
201:Another contender was Nokia’s 9000 Communicator, a book-sized tool that looked like a cellphone strapped onto a mini keyboard. A precursor to the smartphone, the 9000 combined computing, cellular, and Internet applications such as browsing and e-mail. The Finnish phone was so glamorous it was used by Val Kilmer’s Simon Templar character in the 1997 remake of The Saint. Few consumers, however, could afford the $800 price tag, and wireless cellular network carriers more accustomed to handling voice traffic charged a fortune to relay ~ Jacquie McNish, #NFDB
202:For there is not a single human being, not even the primitive Negro, not even the idiot, who is so conveniently simple that his being can be explained as the sum of two or three principal elements; and to explain so complex a man as Harry by the artless division into wolf and man is a hopelessly childish attempt. Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two. His life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, such as the body and the spirit, the saint and the sinner, but between thousand and thousands. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
203:A sluggard once approached a fasting saint
And, baffled by despair, made this complaint:
‘The devil is a highwayman, a thief,
Who’s ruined me and robbed me of belief.’
The saint replied: ‘Young man, the devil too
Has made his way here to complain -- of you.
‘My province is the world,’ I heard him say;
‘Tell this new pilgrim of God’s holy Way
To keep his hands off what is mine -- if I
Attack him it’s because his fingers pry
In my affairs; if he will leave me be,
He’s no concern of mine and can go free. ~ Attar of Nishapur,#NFDB
204:Saint anthony once wrote about having gone into the desert on silent retreat and being assaulted by all manner of visions-devils and angels, both. He said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. If you are appalled, he said, then it was a devil who had visited you. If you feel lightened, it was an angel. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
205:And naturally I was reading in the library a few days later from a book about the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna, and I stumbled upon a story about a seeker who once came to see the great master and admitted to him that she feared she was not a good enough devotee, feared that she did not love God enough. And the saint said, "Is there nothing you love?" The woman admitted that she adored her young nephew more than anything else on earth. The saint said, "There, then. He is your Krishna, your beloved. In your service to your nephew, you are serving God. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
206:Saint-worship is not the same as hero-worship; it is a much less dangerous thing than hero-worship. For hero-worship generally means the absorption or transmutation of some part, at any rate, of one's own original ideas of goodness under the heat and hypnotism of some strong personality. But saint-worship, especially when it is a worship of saints whom we know little or nothing about, is simply the worship of that tradition of goodness in which the saint's name has been embalmed; and into that empty mould our own natural idealism can much more easily be poured. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
207:For years it seemed to me that this period had become a recurrent nightmare that I had almost every night, because I would wake in the morning feeling the same terror I had felt in the room with the saint. During my adolescence, when I was a student at an icy boarding school in the Andes, I would wake up crying in the middle of the night. I needed old age without remorse to understand that the misfortune of my grandparents in the house in Catasa was that they were always mired in their nostalgic memories, and the more they insisted on conjuring them, the deper they sank. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez, #NFDB
208:Chicago honors a saint: Patrick. But unlike the San Giovanni Festival honoring John the Baptist, St. Patrick’s Day is less about the saint, and more about dyeing everything green--hair, beer, the Chicago River--watching the parade take over the city, and getting wasted. You even get physically assaulted if you don’t wear something green the entire day. You’re supposed to just get pinched, but some of the guys at school take it a little too far. And if you forget to wear green, you can’t get by with the excuse that your underwear is green, because they’re not shy about asking for proof. ~ Kristin Rae, #NFDB
209:Not only were the Jews expecting the birth of a Great King, a Wise Man and a Saviour, but Plato and Socrates also spoke of the Logos and of the Universal Wise Man 'yet to come'. Confucius spoke of 'the Saint'; the Sibyls, of a 'Universal King'; the Greek dramatist, of a saviour and redeemer to unloose man from the 'primal eldest curse'. All these were on the Gentile side of the expectation. What separates Christ from all men is that first He was expected; even the Gentiles had a longing for a deliverer, or redeemer. This fact alone distinguishes Him from all other religious leaders. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
210:The here, the now, and the individual, have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet, and - from time immemorial - the woman. In the small circle of the home she has never quite forgotten the particular uniqueness of each member of the family; the spontaneity of now; the vividness of here. This is the basic substance of life. These are the individual elements that form the bigger entities like mass, future, world. We may neglect these elements, but we cannot dispense with them. They are the drops that make up the stream. They are the essence of life itself. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
211:Lord Your Maya
Oh! Lord your Maya does not give me up even
When I have given it up. In spite of my
resistance it clings to me and follows me.
Your Maya becomes Yogini to the Yogin. It
becomes a nun to the monk, it becomes a
herald to the saint. It adapts itself to
each according to his nature.
When I climbed up the hill, your Maya too
came up; when I entered the forest, your
Maya too entered behind me.
So the world does not take its hand off
my back even now!
O, Lord of infinite mercy, your Maya frightens
me. O Lord Mallikarjuna, bestow your grace on me.
~ Akka Mahadevi,#NFDB
212:In that face, deformed by hatred of philosophy, I saw for the first time the portrait of the Antichrist, who does not come from the tribe of Judas, as his heralds have it, or from a far country. The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth, as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge did a diabolical thing because he loved his truth so lewdly that he dared anything in order to destroy falsehood. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
213:Divinely wise souls often infuriate the worldly-wise because they always see things from the Divine point of view. The worldly are willing to let anyone believe in God if he pleases, but only on condition that a belief in God will mean no more than belief in anything else. They will allow God, provided that God does not matter. But taking God seriously is precisely what makes the saint. As St. Teresa put it, “What is not God to me is nothing.” This passion is called snobbish, intolerant, stupid, and unwarranted intrusion; yet those who resent it deeply wish in their own hearts that they had the saint’s inner peace and happiness. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
214:The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
215:The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
216:Hunchback. Stand up and lift your hand and bless
A man that finds great bitterness
In thinking of his lost renown.
A Roman Caesar is held down
Under this hump.
Saint. God tries each man
According to a different plan.
I shall not cease to bless because
I lay about me with the taws
That night and morning I may thrash
Greek Alexander from my flesh,
Augustus Caesar, and after these
That great rogue Alcibiades.
Hunchback. To all that in your flesh have stood
And blessed, I give my gratitude,
Honoured by all in their degrees,
But most to Alcibiades.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Saint And The Hunchback
,#NFDB
217:The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, History, #NFDB
218:We women, when we’re searching for a meaning to our lives or for the path of knowledge, always identify with one of four classic archetypes.
The Virgin (and I’m not speaking here of a sexual virgin) is the one whose search springs from her complete independence, and everything she learns is the fruit of her ability to face challenges alone.
The Martyr finds her way to self-knowledge through pain, surrender and suffering.
The Saint finds her true reason for living in unconditional love and in her ability to give without asking anything in return.
Finally, the Witch justifies her existence by going in search of complete and limitless pleasure. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
219:In point of fact, he does appeal to a different faculty. Reënacted in human nature is the fable of the wind, the sun, and the traveler. The sexes embody the discrepancy. The woman loves the man the more admiringly the stormier he shows himself, and the world deifies its rulers the more for being willful and unaccountable. But the woman in turn subjugates the man by the mystery of gentleness in beauty, and the saint has always charmed the world by something similar. Mankind is susceptible and suggestible in opposite directions, and the rivalry of influences is unsleeping. The saintly and the worldly ideal pursue their feud in literature as much as in real life. ~ William James, #NFDB
220:In The House of the Dead, Dostoevsky gives accounts of the criminals he met in Siberia; and there is about all these men, mostly murderers, that slight element of the more-than-human that instantly grips the reader’s interest (in contrast with the all-too-human characters of most modern novelists, who produce acute intellectual constipation after fifty pages). At the same time, the criminal, in choosing crime (if he chooses it, and doesn’t just drift into it from laziness), has made the voluntary descent into the dark world which places him a step nearer the resolution of good and evil that the saint achieves. Salvation through sin recurs constantly in Dostoevsky’s work. ~ Colin Wilson, #NFDB
221:Oisin had been carried away to the Land of Youth, under the western ocean. Both of them return to their mortal existence, and to Ireland, when Patrick is in the land, winning it from Crom Cruach to Christ. Patrick meets and converts each of them. They attach themselves to his company, and travel Ireland with him. When the Saint is wearied from much travelling and work, or, as often happens, from the perversity of the people he has to deal with, Oisin or Caoilte refresh and beguile him with many a sweet tale of the Fian — all of which, says the tradition, the pleased Patrick had his scribe Breogan write down and preserve for posterity. These tales make the Agallam na Seanorach. The ~ Seumas MacManus, #NFDB
222:Forgetting himself for a moment, Francis brought his hand out from under his frock in order to bless the multitude. When the people saw his wound they bellowed madly. The women dashed forward with mantles outstretched to catch the drops; the men thrust in their hands and anointed their faces with blood. The villagers' expressions grew savage, and so did their souls. They longed to be able to tear the Saint limb from limb in order for each of them to claim a mouthful of his flesh, for they wanted to make him their own, to have him enter them so that they could become one with a saint—could be sanctified. Blind rage had overpowered them; their eyes were leaden, their lips ringed with froth. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
223:At the opposite pole to this nature of shadows, madness fascinates because it is knowledge. It is knowledge, first, because all these absurd figures are in reality elements of a difficult, hermetic, esoteric learning. These strange forms are situated, from the first, in the space of the Great Secret, and the Saint Anthony who is tempted by them is not a victim of the violence of desire but of the much more insidious lure of curiosity; he is tempted by that distant and intimate knowledge which is offered, and at the same time evaded, by the smile of the gryllos; his backward movement is nothing but that step by which he keeps from crossing the forbidden limits of knowledge; he knows already—and ~ Michel Foucault, #NFDB
224:The Bad Monk
On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.
In the times when Christ was seeded around,
More than one illustrious monk, today unknown
Took for a studio the funeral grounds
And glorified Death as the one way shown.
My soul is a tomb, an empty confine
Since eternity I scour and I reside;
Nothing hangs on the walls of this hideous sty.
O lazy monk! When will I see
The living spectacle of my misery,
The work of my hands and the love of my eyes?
Translated by William A. Sigler
Submitted by Ryan McGuire
~ Charles Baudelaire,#NFDB
225:I am the saint at prayer on the terrace like the peaceful beasts that graze down to the sea of Palestine.
I am the scholar of the dark armchair. Branches and rain hurl themselves at the windows of my library.
I am the pedestrian of the highroad by way of the dwarf woods; the roar of the sluices drowns my steps. I can see for a long time the melancholy wash of the setting sun.
I might well be the child abandoned on the jetty on its way to the high seas, the little farm boy following the lane, its forehead touching the sky.
The paths are rough. The hillocks are covered with broom. The air is motionless. How far away are the birds and the springs! It can only be the end of the world ahead. ~ Arthur Rimbaud,#NFDB
226:Christians are told to deny themselves material things, but it's very easy to miss the point. The goal of all Christian self-denial is the restoration, not the destruction of nature; the removal, not of matter, but of perversion. The saint fasts in order that someday his body, with all its parts and desires, may become whole and operative again. He is emphatically not trying to cease caring about matter. He is not in the business of stripping off a useless cocoon in order that the beautiful butterfly of his real self can fly free. The Christian religion is not about the soul; it is about man, body and all, and about the world of things with which he was created, and in which he is redeemed. Don't knock materiality. God invented it. ~ Robert Farrar Capon, #NFDB
227:He felt like hearing Mrs. Grogan’s prayer again, and so he went to the girls’ division a little early for his usual delivery of Jane Eyre. He eavesdropped in the hall on Mrs. Grogan’s prayer; I must ask her if she’d mind saying it to the boys, he thought, then wondered if it would confuse the boys coming so quickly on the heels of, or just before, the Princes of Maine, Kings of New England benediction. I get confused myself sometimes, Dr. Larch knew.
‘Grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest,’ Mrs. Grogan was saying, ‘and peace at the last.’
Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the saint of St. Cloud’s, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that he’d come a long way and still had a long way to go. ~ John Irving,#NFDB
228:The Mahatma ate chapatis, boiled beets, some raw vegetables, and oranges. On the side of his plate was a large lump of very bitter neem leaves, a notable blood cleanser. With a spoon he separated a portion and placed it on my dish. I bolted it down with water, remembering childhood days when Mother had forced me to swallow the unpleasant dose. Gandhi, however, was eating the neem paste bit by bit without distaste. In this trifling incident I noted the Mahatma’s ability to detach his mind from the senses at will. I recalled a much-publicised appendectomy performed on him some years ago. Refusing anesthetics, the saint had chatted cheerfully with his devotees throughout the operation, his calm smile revealing his unawareness of pain. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
229:Oneness in Everything
Facing our darkness we struggle towards the light. Finally, worn away by the conflict the ego surrenders and we are taken beyond these opposites. Just as we first awoke to the pain of separation and the darkness of the lover's imperfection, so do we awaken to the higher consciousness of the Self that experiences the oneness in everything. People often have dreams of the teacher acting in an improper way, swearing in a church, smoking in a meditation room, in order to shock them into an awareness of this higher reality. The perfect man embraces both his own imperfection and also that of mankind. This is illustrated in the story of Jami who was mistaken for a thief. On being asked if he was a thief the saint replied, 'What am I not? ~ Llewellyn Vaughan Lee,#NFDB
230:Is it possible for a man to be a good man when he is also a bad man? Is it possible for evil to coexist with goodness and if so do those terms mean anything anymore when they are pushed into such an uncomfortable and perhaps irreconcilable alliance? It may be, I thought, that when good and evil were separated they both became equally destructive; that the saint was as appalling and dangerous a figure as the out-and-out rogue. However, when rightness and wrongness were combined in the right proportions, just so, like whiskey and sweet vermouth, that was what constructed the classic Manhattan cocktail of the human animal (yes, with a splash of bitters and a rub of orange peel, and you can allegorize those elements as you please, and the rocks in the glass as well). ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
231:ominous murmur ran through the legion of onlookers, who had heretofore maintained an uncharacteristic silence. Their resentment was palpable. Five days later Coligny was assassinated, and the streets of Paris ran with blood as the entire Huguenot wedding party was hunted down and slaughtered in one of the most infamous episodes in French history, known today as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. But this horrific mass murder, which claimed more than five thousand martyrs over the course of a week, was no spontaneous bloodletting. Rather, it was the denouement of a carefully constructed plot that utilized the unsuspecting Margot as both victim and bait to lure Coligny and his faction to their doom, an intrigue planned, instigated, and executed by the one individual in France powerful enough ~ Nancy Goldstone, #NFDB
232:He smiled and looked at me steadfastly. I stood rooted to the ground, peace rushing like a mighty flood through the gates of my eyes. I was instantaneously healed of a pain in my back, which had troubled me intermittently for years. Renewed, bathed in a sea of luminous joy, I wept no more. After touching the saint’s feet, I sauntered into the jungle, making my way through its tropical tangle until I reached Tarakeswar. There I made a second pilgrimage to the famous shrine and prostrated myself fully before the altar. The round stone enlarged before my inner vision until it became the cosmical spheres, ring within ring, zone after zone, all dowered with divinity. I entrained happily an hour later for Calcutta. My travels ended, not in the lofty mountains, but in the Himalayan presence of my Master. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
233:11. The Ultimate Boon:The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
234:Even some of his commissions that were completed, or almost so—Ginevra de’ Benci and the Mona Lisa, for example—were never delivered to clients. Leonardo clung to his favorite works, carried them with him when he moved, and returned to them when he had new ideas. He certainly did that with the Saint Jerome, and he may have planned to do the same with the Adoration of the Magi, which he entrusted to Ginevra’s brother for safekeeping but never sold or gave away. He did not like to let go. That is why he would die with some of his masterpieces still near his bedside. As frustrating as it is to us today, there was a poignant and inspiring aspect to Leonardo’s unwillingness to declare a painting done and relinquish it: he knew that there was always more he might learn, new techniques he might master, and further inspirations that might strike him. And he was right. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
235:We cannot become saints merely by trying to run away from material things. To have a spiritual life is to have a life that is spiritual in all its wholeness--a life in which the actions of the body are holy because of the soul, and the soul is holy because of God dwelling and acting in it. When we live such a life, the actions of our body are directed to God by God Himself and give Him glory, and at the same time they help to sanctify the soul.
The saint, therefore, is sanctified not only by fasting when he should fast but also by eating when he should eat. He is not only sanctified by his prayers in the darkness of the night, but by the sleep that he takes in obedience to God, who made us what we are. Not only His solitude contributes to his union with God, but also his supernatural love for his friends and his relatives and those with whom he lives and works. ~ Thomas Merton,#NFDB
236:--Your headache--
I am trying to imagine it
Your head is in your hands
The nurse is pouring pills onto a plate
November again
Too late
Your headache
It is a bird
Wounded, in leaves
Its sweet bird’s nest is full of pain in a distant place
November
There are daisies
In the ruined garden, still blooming strangely
And in a manic yellow hat, the old lady
And the old man, dead in his bed
And their daughter, the saint:
Her dark, religious hair gets tangled in the branches
She is screaming, grabbing
While the nurses play Mozart in another room
While the bats fly over the roof
Snatch the black notes from the blackness
Laughing
You cry
I am going to die
I can see them through this window
Their little black capes
The touching ugliness of their little faces ~ Laura Kasischke,#NFDB
237:Why Maine extends northward almost to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence, and it's upper border is perhaps a 100 miles north of Quebec. And another thing I have conveniently forgotten was how incredibly huge America is. As I drive north through the little towns and the increasing forest rolling away to the horizon, the season changed quickly and out of all proportion. Perhaps it was my getting away from the steadying hand of the sea and also perhaps I was getting very far north. The houses had a snow-beaten look and many were crushed and deserted, driven to earth by the winters. Except in the towns there was evidence of a population which had once lived here and farmed and had its being and had then been driven out. The forests were marching back and where farm wagons once had been only the big logging trucks rumbled along. And the game had come back too; deer strayed on the roads and there were marks of bear. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
238:THE UNICORN: The saintly hermit, midway through his prayers
stopped suddenly, and raised his eyes to witness
the unbelievable: for there before him stood
the legendary creature, startling white, that
had approached, soundlessly, pleading with his eyes.
The legs, so delicately shaped, balanced a
body wrought of finest ivory. And as
he moved, his coat shone like reflected moonlight.
High on his forehead rose the magic horn, the sign
of his uniqueness: a tower held upright
by his alert, yet gentle, timid gait.
The mouth of softest tints of rose and grey, when
opened slightly, revealed his gleaming teeth,
whiter than snow. The nostrils quivered faintly:
he sought to quench his thirst, to rest and find repose.
His eyes looked far beyond the saint's enclosure,
reflecting vistas and events long vanished,
and closed the circle of this ancient mystic legend. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
239:The saintly hermit, midway through his prayers
stopped suddenly, and raised his eyes to witness
the unbelievable: for there before him stood
the legendary creature, startling white, that
had approached, soundlessly, pleading with his eyes.
The legs, so delicately shaped, balanced a
body wrought of finest ivory. And as
he moved, his coat shone like reflected moonlight.
High on his forehead rose the magic horn, the sign
of his uniqueness: a tower held upright
by his alert, yet gentle, timid gait.
The mouth of softest tints of rose and grey, when
opened slightly, revealed his gleaming teeth,
whiter than snow. The nostrils quivered faintly:
he sought to quench his thirst, to rest and find repose.
His eyes looked far beyond the saint's enclosure,
reflecting vistas and events long vanished,
and closed the circle of this ancient mystic legend.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, The Unicorn
,#NFDB
240:The Indians around here tell a cautionary fable about a great saint who was always surrounded in his Ashram by loyal devotees. For hours a day, the saint and his followers would meditate on God. The only problem was that the saint had a young cat, an annoying creature, who used to walk through the temple meowing and purring and bothering everyone during meditation. So the saint, in all his practical wisdom, commanded that the cat be tied to a pole outside for a few hours a day, only during meditation, so as to not disturb anyone. This became a habit – tying the cat to the pole and then meditating on God – but as years passed, the habit hardened into religious ritual. Nobody could meditate unless the cat was tied to the pole first. Then one day the cat died. The saint's followers were panic-stricken. It was a major religious crisis – how could they meditate now, without a cat to tie to a pole? How would they reach God? In their minds, the cat had become the means. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
241:I Love You
I love your lips when they're wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.
I love your arms when the warm white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace;
I love your hair when the strands enmesh
Your kisses against my face.
Not for me the cold calm kiss
Of a virgin's bloodless love;
Not for me the saint's white bliss,
Nor the heart of a spotless dove.
But give me the love that so freely gives
And laughs at the whole world's blame,
With your body so young and warm in my arms,
It sets my poor heart aflame.
So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,
Still fragrant with ruby wine,
And say with a fervor born of the South
That your body and soul are mine.
Clasp me close in your warm young arms,
While the pale stars shine above,
And we'll live our whole young lives away
In the joys of a living love.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
242:go where my mind will sit when my heart's still drink when I'm thirsty and sing when I'm drunk when hard times come I find a pile of grass and sleep the days and months are long the world is vast and idleness is happiness toss off the vintage wine use up the raw laugh beside the earthen pot ha, ha, ha, hum harmonies together with this rude old mountain bonz he has a pair of chickens I've brought along a duck and idleness is happiness I've reined mind's horses locked up my monkey heart leapt up from red dust and evil-mannered wind who woke me from my shady dreams of Empire? I've left the field of honor and wormed into a nest of joys where idleness is happiness he's ploughed the southern field and slept among the eastern hills I've been the way the world goes, often vainly measured bygones in my mind he's the saint and I'm the fool who'd argue that? [2276.jpg] -- from Wine of Endless Life: Taoist Drinking Songs from the Yuan Dynasty, Edited by Jerome P. Seaton
~ Kuan Han-Ching, Idle Wandering
,#NFDB
243:The agnostic has a very curious notion of religion. He is convinced that a man who says 'I believe in God' should at once become perfect; if this does not happen, then the believer must be a fraud and a hypocrite. He thinks that adherence to a religion is the end of the road, whereas it is in fact only the beginning of a very long and sometimes very rough road. He looks for consistency in religious people, however aware he may be of inconsistencies in himself. The fact that we do expect consistency of others - and are astonished by their lack of it - is sufficient proof of our awareness that the human personality ought to be unified under one command. Perhaps the most difficult of all the requirements of religion is simplicity, for the simple man is all of one piece; he does not leave bits of himself scattered all over the landscape of his life. He is, so to speak, the same all through, whichever way you slice him, and it has been said that only the saint has a right to say 'I'; the rest of us would do better to confess 'My name is legion'. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton, #NFDB
244:I Love You
I love your lips when they’re wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.
I love your arms when the warm white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace;
I love your hair when the strands enmesh
Your kisses against my face.
Not for me the cold, calm kiss
Of a virgin’s bloodless love;
Not for me the saint’s white bliss,
Nor the heart of a spotless dove.
But give me the love that so freely gives
And laughs at the whole world’s blame,
With your body so young and warm in my arms,
It sets my poor heart aflame.
So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,
Still fragrant with ruby wine,
And say with a fervor born of the South
That your body and soul are mine.
Clasp me close in your warm young arms,
While the pale stars shine above,
And we’ll live our whole young lives away
In the joys of a living love. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
245:Some men might have tried to sneak past the dogs, or to trick or intimidate them. Daniel did none of these things. Instead, he prayed. He prayed to his mother that the dogs might know how he was feeling. The dogs at once began to weep. They tipped their heads back and instead of howling, they let big tears roll out of their eyes and into their fur. They wept as they understood that Daniel was afraid that he might be going into the desert to die alone. They wept as they understood that Daniel could not bear the thought that he might not see Bicho Raro or his family again. They wept as they understood that he was in love with Marisita Lopez and still, even after all of this, longed for there to be a way to spend his life with her. As the dogs cried and whimpered, Daniel walked past them. He did not try to comfort them, because he knew there was no comfort. He could hear the strange sound of his darkness moving in the shadows on the other side of the house, but he did not flinch. He was the Saint of Bicho Raro, and he was determined to walk out of Bicho Raro without harming his home. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
246:Ballade Of Roulette
This life--one was thinking to-day,
In the midst of a medley of fancies Is a game, and the board where we play
Green earth with her poppies and pansies.
Let manque be faded romances,
Be passe remorse and regret;
Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.
The lover will stake as he may
His heart on his Peggies and Nancies;
The girl has her beauty to lay;
The saint has his prayers and his trances;
The poet bets endless expanses
In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt:
How they gaze at the wheel as it glances The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette!
The Kaiser will stake his array
Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances;
An Englishman punts with his pay,
And glory the jeton of France is;
Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances,
Have voices or colours to bet;
Will you moan that its motion askance is The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette?
ENVOY.
The
The
The
The
prize that the pleasure enhances?
prize is--at last to forget
changes, the chops, and the chances wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.
~ Andrew Lang,#NFDB
247:The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships. She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as 'the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still.'
This beautiful image is to my mind the one that women could hold before their eyes. This is an end toward which we could strive--to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities. Solitude alone is not the answer to this; it is only a step toward it, a mechanical aid, like the 'room of one's own' demanded for women, before they could make their place in the world. The problem is not entirely in finding a room of one's own, the time alone, difficult and necessary as that is. The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of its activities. In fact, the problem is how to feed the soul. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh,#NFDB
248:Nijinsky, Lawrence, Van Gogh, each had his own form of discipline towards this end. Each one had, as it were, discovered in some moment of insight a source from which these supplies of ‘more abundant life’ flowed, and each concentrated on a discipline that would make the source accessible. Lawrence was a thinker who had found imaginative relief in his study of the past. Van Gogh’s religious temperament needed to accumulate sense impressions; his striving towards a sense of ‘otherness’ took the form of a sort of pictorial memory of other times and other places: a memory that was, after all, incomplete, since he could not capture the scent of the almond tree or the hot July wind, or the tension in the air of a rising storm on his canvas. But Nijinsky’s kingdom was the body. People who saw him dance have testified to his amazing ability to become the part he was acting, whether the Negro in Scheherezade, the puppet in Petrouchka, or the Prince in Giselle. His discipline gave him the power to dismiss his identity at will, or to expand some parts and contract others to give an illusion of a completely new personality. It was this power that, at times, became a mystical intensity of abnegation in his dancing, that occasionally gave him glimpses into the ecstasy of the saint. ~ Colin Wilson, #NFDB
249:EDITION FOR at least twenty years, a new translation of the works of St. John of the Cross has been an urgent necessity. The translations of the individual prose works now in general use go back in their original form to the eighteen-sixties, and, though the later editions of some of them have been submitted to a certain degree of revision, nothing but a complete retranslation of the works from their original Spanish could be satisfactory. For this there are two reasons. First, the existing translations were never very exact renderings of the original Spanish text even in the form which held the field when they were first published. Their great merit was extreme readableness: many a disciple of the Spanish mystics, who is unacquainted with the language in which they wrote, owes to these translations the comparative ease with which he has mastered the main lines of St. John of the Cross's teaching. Thus for the general reader they were of great utility; for the student, on the other hand, they have never been entirely adequate. They paraphrase difficult expressions, omit or add to parts of individual sentences in order (as it seems) to facilitate comprehension of the general drift of the passages in which these occur, and frequently retranslate from the Vulgate the Saint's Spanish ~ Juan de la Cruz, #NFDB
250:Many are God's forms by which he grows in man;
They stamp his thoughts and deeds with divinity,
Uplift the stature of the human clay
Or slowly transmute it into heavens gold.
He is the Good for which men fight and die,
He is the war of Right with Titan wrong;
He is Freedom rising deathless from her pyre;
He is Valour guarding still the desperate pass
Or lone and erect on the shattered barricade
Or a sentinel in the dangerous echoing Night.
He is the crown of the martyr burned in flame
And the glad resignation of the saint
And courage indifferent to the wounds of Time
And the heros might wrestling with death and fate.
He is Wisdom incarnate on a glorious throne
And the calm autocracy of the sages rule.
He is the high and solitary Thought
Aloof above the ignorant multitude:
He is the prophets voice, the sight of the seer.
He is Beauty, nectar of the passionate soul,
He is the Truth by which the spirit lives.
He is the riches of the spiritual Vast
Poured out in healing streams on indigent Life;
He is Eternity lured from hour to hour,
He is infinity in a little space:
He is immortality in the arms of death.
These powers I am and at my call they come.
Thus slowly I lift mans soul nearer the Light.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Triple Soul-Forces,#NFDB
251:We believe that for this diabolical discovery to take its place in the armament of the nations of Europe, at a time when jealousies and fears and the rumours of wars are again lifting their heads, would be a refinement of ‘civilisation’ which the world could well be spared. You may say that the exclusive possession of this invention would confirm Great Britain in an unassailable supremacy, and perhaps thereby secure the peace of Europe. We answer that no secret can be kept for ever. The sword is two-edged. And, as Vargan answered me by saying, ‘Science is international’ – so I answer you by saying that humanity is also international. We are content to be judged by the verdict of history, when all the facts are made known. But in accomplishing what we have accomplished, we have put you in the way of learning our identities; and that, as you will see, must be an almost fatal blow to such an organisation as mine. Nevertheless, I believe that in time I shall find a way for us to continue the work that we have set ourselves to do. We regret nothing that we have already done. Our only regret is that we should be scattered before we have had time to do more. Yet we believe that we have done much good, and that this last crime of ours is the best of all. Au revoir! Simon Templar (‘The Saint’). ~ Leslie Charteris, #NFDB
252:I’ll write the recipe down for you.”
“I’ll just screw it up, anyway.”
Gram laughed. “All you do is mix the ingredients together, pour it in a bag with the salmon and half an hour later give it to Sean to throw on the grill. He cooked the salmon to perfection tonight.”
Of course he did. As he’d told her earlier, she had nothing to worry about because the Y chromosome came with an innate ability to master the barbecue grill.
“The salad was good, too,” Sean said.
“Thanks,” Emma muttered. “Even I can’t screw up shredding lettuce.”
The man looked incredibly relaxed for somebody who'd probably been raked over the coals by his aunt and was now relaxing with two women he barely knew. She, on the other hand, felt as if she was detoxing. Jumpy. Twitching. A trickle of sweat at the small of her back.
Sean stood and started gathering dishes, but held out a hand when Emma started to get up. “You ladies sit and visit. I’ll take care of the cleanup.”
Once he was inside, Gram smiled and raised her eyebrows. “He does dishes, too? No wonder you snapped him up.”
It was tempting to point out a few of his less attractive traits, like the fact that he was a sexist baboon who wouldn’t let her drive. But he was doing a good job of convincing Gram he was Emma’s Prince Charming, which was the whole point, so she bit back her annoyance with the Saint Sean routine. “He’s a keeper. ~ Shannon Stacey,#NFDB
253:On The Countess Dowager Of Manchester
Courage, dear Moll, and drive away despair.
Mopsa, who in her youth was scarce thought fair,
In spite of age, experience, and decays,
Sets up for charming in her fading days;
Snuffs her dim eyes to give one parting blow,
Have at the heart of every ogling beau!
This goodly goose, all feather'd like a jay,
So gravely vain and so demurely gay,
Last night, to grace the Court, did overload
Her bald buff forehead with a high commode;
Her steps were manag'd with such tender art,
As if each board had been a lover's heart.
In all her air, in every glance, was seen
A mixture strange, 'twixt fifty and fifteen.
Crowds of admiring fops about her press;
Hampden himself delivers their address,
Which she, accepting with a nice disdain,
Owns them her subjects and begins to reign.
Fair Queen of Fopland is her royal stile -Fopland! the greatest part of this great isle!
Nature did ne'er more equally divide
A female heart, 'twixt piety and pride.
Her watchful maids prevent the peep of day,
And all in order on her toilet lay:
Prayer books and patch box, sermon notes and paint,
At once t'improve the sinner and the saint.
Farewell, friend Moll: expect no more from me;
But if you would a full description see,
You'll find her somewhere in the litany,
With pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy.
~ Charles Sackville,#NFDB
254:English version by K. N. Upadhyaya As many as are the waves of the sea, so many are the desires of the mind. Stilling them all, one sits with contentment holding the thought of the One in his self. As in the presence of a magnet the iron is drawn, So do thou attach thy senses, mind and dispositions to the One alone. When one discovers the true seat of the mind, then all regions come to his sight. When he brings back all five senses to that one point, then the secrets of the holy scriptures are revealed to him. The fickle mind wanders in the four directions. Bind it with the instructions of the Master, And bring it into the company of the Saint, then will it be united with the Supreme Lord, O Dadu. Making millions of efforts, many were consumed by death, but the mind continued to run in all ten directions. Only with God's Name as the barrier will it stop; no other way is there. Let the mind be the horse, the vigilant aspirant the rider, and one-pointed attention the bridle; Using the Word as a whip, some wise, holy aspirant will reach the goal. Vanquish the mind by means of the Name; discipline it through the teachings of the Saints. Remove whatever duality is there, then will there be bliss within, O Dadu. Once the mind is attached to God, how can it go anywhere else? Like salt dissolves in water, it enters into the Lord, O Dadu. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Dadu: The Compassionate Mystic, Translated by K. N. Upadhyaya
~ Dadu Dayal, As many as are the waves of the sea
,#NFDB
255:Charles And Peter
Ere Gabriel's note to silence died
All graves of men were gaping wide.
Then Charles A. Dana, of 'The Sun,'
Rose slowly from the deepest one.
'The dead in Christ rise first, 't is writ,'
Quoth he-'ick, bick, ban, doe,-I'm It!'
(His headstone, footstone, counted slow,
Were 'ick' and 'bick,' he 'ban' and 'doe':
Of beating Nick the subtle art
Was part of his immortal part.)
Then straight to Heaven he took his flight,
Arriving at the Gates of Light.
There Warden Peter, in the throes
Of sleep, lay roaring in the nose.
'Get up, you sluggard!' Dana cried
'I've an engagement there inside.'
The Saint arose and scratched his head.
'I recollect your face,' he said.
'(And, pardon me, 't is rather hard),
But--' Dana handed him a card.
'Ah, yes, I now remember-bless
My soul, how dull I am I-yes, yes,
'We've nothing better here than bliss.
Walk in. But I must tell you this:
'We've rest and comfort, though, and peace.'
'H'm-puddles,' Dana said, 'for geese.
217
'Have you in Heaven no Hell?' 'Why, no,'
Said Peter, 'nor, in truth, below.
''T is not included in our scheme'T is but a preacher's idle dream.'
The great man slowly moved away.
'I'll call,' he said, 'another day.
'On earth I played it, o'er and o'er,
And Heaven without it were a bore.'
'O, stuff!-come in. You'll make,' said Pete,
'A hell where'er you set your feet.'
1885.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
256:Silent Letters
Treacherous as trap door spiders,
they ambush children's innocence.
"Why is there g h in light? It isn't fair!"
Buddha declared the world illusory
as the p sound in psyche. Sartre
said the same of God from France,
Olympus of silent letters, n'est -ce pas?
Polite conceals an e in the same way
"How are you?" hides "I don't care."
Physics asserts the desk I lean on,
the brush that fluffs my hair,
are only dots that punctuate a nullity
complete as the g sound in gnome,
the c e in Worcestershire.
Passions lurk under the saint's bed,
mute as the end of love.
They glide toward us, yellow eyes
gleaming, hushed as the finality
of hate, malice, snake.
As easily predict the h in lichen,
choral, Lichtenstein,
as laws against throttling rats,
making U-turns on empty streets.
Such nonsense must be memorized.
"Imagine dropkicking a spud,"
Dad said. "If e breaks off
your toe, it spoils your potato."
Like compass needles
pointing north, silent letters
show the power of hidden things.
Voiced by our ancestors,
but heard no more, they nudge
our thoughts toward death,
infinity, our senses' inability
to see the earth as round,
circling the sun in a universe
implacable as "Might Makes Right,"
ineffable as tomorrow's second r,
incomprehensible as imbroglio's g,
the e that finishes inscrutable,
imponderable, immense,
the terrifying k in "I don't know."
~ Charles Harper Webb,#NFDB
257:A Hasty Inference
The Devil one day, coming up from the Pit,
All grimy with perspiration,
Applied to St. Peter and begged he'd admit
Him a moment for consultation.
The Saint showed him in where the Master reclined
On the throne where petitioners sought him;
Both bowed, and the Evil One opened his mind
Concerning the business that brought him:
'For ten million years I've been kept in a stew
Because you have thought me immoral;
And though I have had my opinion of you,
You've had the best end of the quarrel.
'But now-well, I venture to hope that the past
With its misunderstandings we'll smother;
And you, sir, and I, sir, be throned here at last
As equals, the one to the other.'
'Indeed!' said the Master (I cannot convey
A sense of his tone by mere letters)
'What makes you presume you'll be bidden to stay
Up here on such terms with your betters?'
'Why, sure you can't mean it!' said Satan. 'I've seen
How Stanford and Crocker you've nourished,
And Huntington-bless me! the three like a green
Umbrageous great bay-tree have flourished.
They are fat, they are rolling in gold, they command
All sources and well-springs of power;
You've given them houses, you've given them land
Before them the righteous all cower.'
'What of that?' 'What of that?' cried the Father of Sin;
'Why, I thought when I saw you were winking
At crimes such as theirs that perhaps you had been
Converted to my way of thinking.'
52
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
258:A Litany Of Lethe
O Lethe, hidden waters never dry,
We, all we weary and heavy-laden, cry,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
--All we have sinnèd, and yet the scars remain.
--And we, all we had sorrow.--And we had pain.
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost flow from Death to Death through Sleep,
Whose waters are the tears of those that weep,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost bring sweet peace to hospitals,
And to the captive openest prison-walls,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost loose the soul from murdered Truth,
And youth from yesterday, and age from youth,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou from lost love remembered sett'st us free
From hopeless love, a lorn eternity;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou from repentance tak'st the sting, from vice
The memory of a forfeit Paradise;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou in our grief dost hide from us no less
The anguish of remembered happiness;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Thou that dost lay alike on all thy spell,
And free the saint from heaven, the wretch from hell,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
Bring, bring soft sleep, and close all eyes for us,
Sleep without dreams, and peace oblivious;
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
We, all we weary and heavy-laden, cry,
Too tired to live, and yet too weak to die,
O Lethe, let us find thee and forget!
~ Arthur Symons,#NFDB
259:Unarmed
Saint Peter sat at the jasper gate,
When Stephen M. White arrived in state.
'Admit me.' 'With pleasure,' Peter said,
Pleased to observe that the man was dead;
'That's what I'm here for. Kindly show
Your ticket, my lord, and in you go.'
White stared in blank surprise. Said he
'I _run_ this place-just turn that key.'
'Yes?' said the Saint; and Stephen heard
With pain the inflection of that word.
But, mastering his emotion, he
Remarked: 'My friend, you're too d-- free;
'I'm Stephen M., by thunder, White!'
And, 'Yes?' the guardian said, with quite
The self-same irritating stress
Distinguishing his former yes.
And still demurely as a mouse
He twirled the key to that Upper House.
Then Stephen, seeing his bluster vain
Admittance to those halls to gain,
Said, neighborly: 'Pray tell me. Pete,
Does any one contest my seat?'
The Saint replied: 'Nay, nay, not so;
But you voted always wrong below:
'Whate'er the question, clear and high
You're voice rang: '_I_,' '_I_,' ever '_I_.''
645
Now indignation fired the heart
Of that insulted immortal part.
'Die, wretch!' he cried, with blanching lip,
And made a motion to his hip,
With purpose murderous and hearty,
To draw the Democratic party!
He felt his fingers vainly slide
Upon his unappareled hide
(The dead arise from their 'silent tents'
But not their late habiliments)
Then wailed-the briefest of his speeches:
'I've left it in my other breeches!'
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
260:No, really. You and Charles are — were — two different people, and I should never have compared you to him." "Whyever not?" He tried to laugh it off, but his anger showed in his voice, and the words were out before he could stop them. "Everyone else always did." Immediately, her eyes darkened with sympathy, with understanding, with pity. She took a step forward. Gareth raised his hand, stopping her. "I told you when we first met that if there's anything I'm good at, it's making a mess of things. And I've made a fine mess of this, haven't I?" Her heart in her eyes, she took another step forward, slowly reaching out to lay her hand on his sleeve. "You didn't make this mess, Gareth." "No. Charles did, didn't he? My brother the saint, who never put a foot wrong, never gave anyone cause to blush for him, never made a mistake, never earned himself a caning, a whipping, a bad reputation. By God! Who would've thought." She merely stood there, her hand burning a hole through his sleeve. He glanced sullenly at her, expecting — maybe even wanting — her to react, to snap back at him, so they could have it out right then and there and start their marriage with the air cleared between them. But she did not. "Aren't you even going to defend him?" he asked hotly. "Start proclaiming his virtue, his perfection, his god-awful sinless glory?" She flinched, sadness filling her eyes. "No." Then, softly, she added, "Besides, he wasn't perfect." "Wasn't he?" "Of course not. As my grandmother always said, there was only one perfect person to ever walk this earth, and God took him back." Gareth ~ Danelle Harmon, #NFDB
261:The Saint And The Monk
Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed
The tools and terrors of his awful trade;
The key, the frown as pitiless as night,
That slays intending trespassers at sight,
And, at his side in easy reach, the curled
Interrogation points all ready to be hurled.
Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced
No others were about) a soul advanced
A fat, orbicular and jolly soul
With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowlA monk so prepossessing that the saint
Admired him, breathless, until weak and faint,
Forgot his frown and all his questions too,
Forgoing even the customary 'Who?'
Threw wide the gate and, with a friendly grin,
Said, ''Tis a very humble home, but pray walk in.'
The soul smiled pleasantly. 'Excuse me, please
Who's in there?' By insensible degrees
The impudence dispelled the saint's esteem,
As growing snores annihilate a dream.
The frown began to blacken on his brow,
His hand to reach for 'Whence?' and 'Why?' and 'How?'
'O, no offense, I hope,' the soul explained;
'I'm rather-well, particular. I've strained
A point in coming here at all; 'tis said
That Susan Anthony (I hear she's dead
At last) and all her followers are here.
As company, they'd be-confess it-rather queer.'
The saint replied, his rising anger past:
'What can I do?-the law is hard-and-fast,
Albeit unwritten and on earth unknownAn oral order issued from the Throne.
By but one sin has Woman e'er incurred
God's wrath. To accuse Them Loud of that would be absurd.'
That friar sighed, but, calling up a smile,
554
Said, slowly turning on his heel the while:
'Farewell, my friend. Put up the chain and bar
I'm going, so please you, where the pretty women are.'
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
262:It was as if she had just discovered the irreversible process. It astonished her to think that so much could be lost, even the quantity of hallucination belonging just to the sailor that the world would bear no further trace of. She knew, because she had held him, that he suffered DT’s. Behind the initials was a metaphor, a delirium tremens, a trembling unfurrowing of the mind’s plowshare. The saint whose water can light lamps, the clairvoyant whose lapse in recall is the breath of God, the true paranoid for whom all is organized in spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the dreamer whose puns probe ancient fetid shafts and tunnels of truth all act in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is there, buffering, to protect us from. The act of metaphor then was a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside, safe, or outside, lost. Oedipa did not know where she was. Trembling, unfurrowed, she slipped sidewise, screeching back across grooves of years, to hear again the earnest, high voice of her second or third collegiate love Ray Glozing bitching among “uhs” and the syncopated tonguing of a cavity, about his freshman calculus; “dt,” God help this old tattooed man, meant also a time differential, a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick. She knew that the sailor had seen worlds no other man had seen if only because there was that high magic to low puns, because DT’s must give access to dt’s of spectra beyond the known sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright. But nothing she knew of would preserve them, or him. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
263:Perhaps that had been one of the ineradicable faults of mankind - for even a convinced atheist had to admit there were faults - that it was never content with a thing as a thing; it had to turn things into symbols of other things. A rainbow was never only a rainbow; a storm was a sign of celestial anger; and even from the puddingy earth came forth dark chthonian gods. What did it all mean? What an agnostic believed and what the willowy parson believed were not only irreconcilable systems of thought: they were equally valid systems of thought because, somewhere along the evolutionary line, man, developing this habit of thinking of symbols, had provided himself with more alternatives than he could manage. Animals moved in no such channel of imagination - they copulated and they ate; but the the saint, bread was a symbol of life, as the phallus was to the pagan. The animals themselves were pressed into symbolic service - and not only in the medieval bestiaries, by any means.
Such a usage was a distortion, although man seemed unable to ratiocinate without it. That had been the trouble right from the beginning. Perhaps it had even been the beginning, back among the first men that man could never get clearly defined (for the early men, being also symbols, had to be either lumbering brutes, or timid noble savages, or to undergo some other interpretation). Perhaps the first fire, the first tool, the first wheel, the first carving in a limestone cave, had each possessed a symbolic rather than a practical value, had each been pressed to serve distortion rather than reality. It was a sort of madness that had driven man from his humble sites on the edges of woods into towns and cities, into arts and wars, into religious crusades, into martyrdom and prostitution, into dyspepsia and fasting, into love and hatred, into this present cul-de-sac; it had all come about in pursuit of symbols. In the beginning was the symbol, and darness was over the face of the Earth. ~ Brian W Aldiss,#NFDB
264:One Of The Redeemed
Saint Peter, standing at the Gate, beheld
A soul whose body Death had lately felled.
A pleasant soul as ever was, he seemed:
His step was joyous and his visage beamed.
'Good morning, Peter.' There was just a touch
Of foreign accent, but not overmuch.
The Saint bent gravely, like a stately tree,
And said: 'You have the advantage, sir, of me.'
'Renan of Paris,' said the immortal part
'A master of the literary art.
'I'm somewhat famous, too, I grieve to tell,
As controversialist and infidel.'
'That's of no consequence,' the Saint replied,
'Why, I myself my Master once denied.
'No one up here cares anything for that.
But is there nothing you were always at?
'It seems to me you were accused one day
Of _something_-what it was I can't just say.'
'Quite likely,' said the other; 'but I swear
My life was irreproachable and fair.'
Just then a soul appeared upon the wall,
Singing a hymn as loud as he could bawl.
About his head a golden halo gleamed,
As well befitted one of the redeemed.
A harp he bore and vigorously thumbed,
Strumming he sang, and, singing, ever strummed.
374
His countenance, suffused with holy pride,
Glowed like a pumpkin with a light inside.
'Ah! that's the chap,' said Peter, 'who declares:
'Renan's a rake and drunkard-smokes and swears.'
'Yes, that's the fellow-he's a preacher-came
From San Francisco. Mansfield was his name.'
'Do you believe him?' said Renan. 'Great Scott!
Believe? Believe the blackguard? Of course _not!
'Just walk right in and make yourself at home.
And if he pecks at you I'll cut his comb.
'He's only here because the Devil swore
He wouldn't have him, for the smile he wore.'
Resting his eyes one moment on that proof
Of saving grace, the Frenchman turned aloof,
And stepping down from cloud to cloud, said he:
'Thank you, monsieur,-I'll see if he'll have _me_.'
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
265:Verses On Mrs Rowe
SUCH were the notes our chaster SAPPHO sung,
And every muse dropt honey on her tongue.
Blest shade ! how pure a breath of praise was thine,
Whose spotless life was faultless as thy line:
In whom each worth and every grace conspire,
The Christian's meekness and the Poet's fire.
Learn'd without pride, a woman without art;
The sweetest manners and the gentlest heart.
Smooth like her verse her passions learnt to move,
And her whole soul was harmony and love:
Virtue that breast without a conflict gain'd,
And easy like a native monarch reign'd.
On earth still favour'd as by heaven approv'd,
The world applauded, and ALEXIS lov'd.
With love, with health, with fame, and friendship blest,
And of a chearful heart the constant feast,
What more of bliss sincere could earth bestow?
What purer heaven could angels taste below?
But bliss from earth's vain scenes too quickly flies;
The golden chord is broke, ALEXIS dies.
Now in the leafy shade, and widow'd grove,
Sad PHILOMELA mourns her absent love.
Now deep retir'd in FROME's enchanting vale,
She pours her tuneful sorrows on the gale;
Without one fond reserve the world disclaims,
And gives up all her soul to heavenly flames.
Yet in no useless gloom she wore her days;
She lov'd the work, and only shun'd the praise.
Her pious hand the poor, the mourner blest;
Her image liv'd in every kindred breast.
THYNN, CARTERET, BLACKMORE, ORRERY approv'd,
And PRIOR prais'd, and noble HERTFORD lov'd;
Seraphic KENN, and tuneful WATTS were thine,
And virtue's noblest champions fill'd the line.
Blest in thy friendships! in thy death too blest !
Receiv'd without a pang to endless rest.
Heaven call'd the Saint matur'd by length of days,
189
And her pure spirit was exhal'd in praise.
Bright pattern of thy sex, be thou my muse;
Thy gentle sweetness thro' my soul diffuse:
Let me thy palm, tho' not thy laurel share,
And copy thee in charity and prayer.
Tho' for the bard my lines are yet too faint,
Yet in my life let me transcribe the saint.
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,#NFDB
266:Masters are under no cosmic compulsion to limit their residence.” My companion glanced at me quizzically. “The Himalayas in India and Tibet have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears nearby.” I silently agreed, recalling my prayer in the Benares hermitage, followed by the meeting with Sri Yukteswar in a crowded lane. “Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and be alone?” “Yes.” I reflected that this saint descended from the general to the particular with disconcerting speed. “That is your cave.” The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of illumination which I have never forgotten. “That is your sacred mountain. That is where you will find the kingdom of God.” His simple words instantaneously banished my life-long obsession for the Himalayas. In a burning paddy field I awoke from the monticolous dreams of eternal snows. “Young sir, your divine thirst is laudable. I feel great love for you.” Ram Gopal took my hand and led me to a quaint hamlet. The adobe houses were covered with coconut leaves and adorned with rustic entrances. The saint seated me on the umbrageous bamboo platform of his small cottage. After giving me sweetened lime juice and a piece of rock candy, he entered his patio and assumed the lotus posture. In about four hours, I opened my meditative eyes and saw that the moonlit figure of the yogi was still motionless. As I was sternly reminding my stomach that man does not live by bread alone, Ram Gopal approached me. “I see you are famished; food will be ready soon.” A fire was kindled under a clay oven on the patio; rice and dal were quickly served on large banana leaves. My host courteously refused my aid in all cooking chores. ‘The guest is God,’ a Hindu proverb, has commanded devout observance from time immemorial. In my later world travels, I was charmed to see that a similar respect for visitors is manifested in rural sections of many countries. The city dweller finds the keen edge of hospitality blunted by superabundance of strange faces. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
267:Now what we call "bourgeois," when regarded as an element always to be found in human
life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the
countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these
coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is
open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to
the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The
one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path
leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is
between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never
surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own
destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He
strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
268:Now what we call "bourgeois," when regarded as an element always to be found in human
life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the
countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these
coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is
open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to
the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The
one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path
leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is
between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never
surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own
destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He
strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to
serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and
comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two
extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds
though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man
cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more
highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his
own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed
by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that
deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak
impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted
majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
269:Now what we call "bourgeois," when regarded as an element always to be found in human
life, is nothing else than the search for a balance. It is the striving after a mean between the
countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct. If we take any one of these
coupled opposites, such as piety and profligacy, the analogy is immediately comprehensible. It is
open to a man to give himself up wholly to spiritual views, to seeking after God, to the ideal of
saintliness. On the other hand, he can equally give himself up entirely to the life of instinct, to
the lusts of the flesh, and so direct all his efforts to the attainment of momentary pleasures. The
one path leads to the saint, to the martyrdom of the spirit and surrender to God. The other path
leads to the profligate, to the martyrdom of the flesh, the surrender to corruption. Now it is
between the two, in the middle of the road, that the bourgeois seeks to walk. He will never
surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism. He will never be a martyr or agree to his own
destruction. On the contrary, his ideal is not to give up but to maintain his own identity. He
strives neither for the saintly nor its opposite. The absolute is his abhorrence. He may be ready to
serve God, but not by giving up the fleshpots. He is ready to be virtuous, but likes to be easy and
comfortable in this world as well. In short, his aim is to make a home for himself between two
extremes in a temperate zone without violent storms and tempests; and in this he succeeds
though it be at the cost of that intensity of life and feeling which an extreme life affords. A man
cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more
highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his
own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed
by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that
deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak
impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted
majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
270:The Plains Of Abraham
I stood upon the Plain,
That had trembled when the slain,
Hurled their proud defiant curses at the battle-hearted foe,
When the steed dashed right and left
Through the bloody gaps he cleft,
When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low.
What busy feet had trod
Upon the very sod
Where I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid!
And I saw the combat dire,
Heard the quick, incessant fire,
And the cannons' echoes startling the reverberating glade.
I saw them one and all,
The banners of the Gaul
In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm;
The well-attended Wolfe,
Emerging from the gulf
Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the swelling of a psalm.
I head the chorus dire,
That jarred along the lyre
On which the hymn of battle rung, like surgings of the wave
When the storm, at blackest night,
Wakes the ocean in affright,
As it shouts its mighty pibroch o'er some shipwrecked vessel's grave.
I saw the broad claymore
Flash from its scabbard, o'er
The ranks that quailed and shuddered at the close and fierce attack;
When Victory gave the word,
Then Scotland drew the sword,
And with arm that never faltered drove the brave defenders back.
I saw two great chiefs die,
Their last breaths like the sigh
Of the zepher-sprite that wantons on the rosy lips of morn;
161
No envy-poisoned darts,
No rancour in their hearts,
To unfit them for their triumph over death's impending scorn.
And as I thought and gazed,
My soul, exultant, praised
The Power to whom each mighty act and victory are due,
For the saint-like Peace that smiled
Like a heaven-gifted child,
And for the air of quietude that steeped the distant view.
The sun looked down with pride,
And scattered far and wide
His beams of whitest glory till they flooded all the Plain;
The hills their veils withdrew,
Of white, and purplish blue,
And reposed all green and smiling 'neath the shower of golden rain.
Oh, rare, divinest life
Of Peace, compared with Strife!
Yours is the truest splendour, and the most enduring fame;
All the glory ever reaped
Where the fiends of battle leaped,
Is harsh discord to the music of your undertoned acclaim.
~ Charles Sangster,#NFDB
271:Adam's sin would have brought all mankind to eternal death (i.e. damnation), but that God's grace has freed many from it. Sin came from the soul, not from the flesh. Platonists and Manichæans both err in ascribing sin to the nature of the flesh, though Platonists are not so bad as Manichæans. The punishment of all mankind for Adam's sin was just; for, as a result of this sin, man, that might have been spiritual in body, became carnal in mind.10 This leads to a long and minute discussion of sexual lust, to which we are subject as part of our punishment for Adam's sin. This discussion is very important as revealing the psychology of asceticism; we must therefore go into it, although the Saint confesses that the theme is immodest. The theory advanced is as follows. It must be admitted that sexual intercourse in marriage is not sinful, provided the intention is to beget offspring. Yet even in marriage a virtuous man will wish that he could manage without lust. Even in marriage, as the desire for privacy shows, people are ashamed of sexual intercourse, because 'this lawful act of nature is (from our first parents) accompanied with our penal shame'. The cynics thought that one should be without shame, and Diogenes would have none of it, wishing to be in all things like a dog; yet even he, after one attempt, abandoned, in practice, this extreme of shamelessness. What is shameful about lust is its independence of the will. Adam and Eve, before the fall, could have had sexual intercourse without lust, though in fact they did not. Handicraftsmen, in the pursuit of their trade, move their hands without lust; similarly Adam, if only he had kept away from the apple-tree, could have performed the business of sex without the emotions that it now demands. The sexual members, like the rest of the body, would have obeyed the will. The need of lust in sexual intercourse is a punishment for Adam's sin, but for which sex might have been divorced from pleasure. Omitting some physiological details which the translator has very properly left in the decent obscurity of the original Latin, the above is St Augustine's theory as regards sex. It is evident from the above that what makes the ascetic dislike sex is its independence of the will. Virtue, it is held, demands a complete control of the will over the body, but such control does not suffice to make the sexual act possible. The sexual act, therefore, seems inconsistent with a perfectly virtuous life. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
272:So at last Ilar Sant came to this wood, which people now call St. Hilary's wood because they have forgotten all about Ilar. And he was weary with his wandering, and the day was very hot; so he stayed by this well and began to drink. And there on that great stone he saw the shining fish, and so he rested, and built an altar and a church of willow boughs, and offered the sacrifice not only for the quick and the dead, but for all the wild beasts of the woods and the streams.
"And when this blessed Ilar rang his holy bell and began to offer, there came not only the Prince and his servants, but all the creatures of the wood. There, under the hazel boughs, you might see the hare, which flies so swiftly from men, come gently and fall down, weeping greatly on account of the Passion of the Son of Mary. And, beside the hare, the weasel and the pole-cat would lament grievously in the manner of penitent sinners; and wolves and lambs together adored the saint's hierurgy; and men have beheld tears streaming from the eyes of venomous serpents when Ilar Agios uttered 'Curiluson' with a loud voice—since the serpent is not ignorant that by its wickedness sorrow came to the whole world. And when, in the time of the holy ministry, it is necessary that frequent Alleluyas should be chanted and vociferated, the saint wondered what should be done, for as yet none in that place was skilled in the art of song. Then was a great miracle, since from all the boughs of the wood, from every bush and from every green tree, there resounded Alleluyas in enchanting and prolonged harmony; never did the Bishop of Rome listen to so sweet a singing in his church as was heard in this wood. For the nightingale and thrush and blackbird and blackcap, and all their companions, are gathered together and sing praises to the Lord, chanting distinct notes and yet concluding in a melody of most ravishing sweetness; such was the mass of the Fisherman. Nor was this all, for one day as the saint prayed beside the well he became aware that a bee circled round and round his head, uttering loud buzzing sounds, but not endeavouring to sting him. To be short; the bee went before Ilar, and led him to a hollow tree not far off, and straightway a swarm of bees issued forth, leaving a vast store of wax behind them. This was their oblation to the Most High, for from their wax Ilar Sant made goodly candles to burn at the Offering; and from that time the bee is holy, because his wax makes light to shine upon the Gifts. ~ Arthur Machen,#NFDB
273:Unluckily For A Death
Unluckily for a death
Waiting with phoenix under
The pyre yet to be lighted of my sins and days,
And for the woman in shades
Saint carved and sensual among the scudding
Dead and gone, dedicate forever to my self
Though the brawl of the kiss has not occurred
On the clay cold mouth, on the fire
Branded forehead, that could bind
Her constant, nor the winds of love broken wide
To the wind the choir and cloister
Of the wintry nunnery of the order of lust
Beneath my life, that sighs for the seducer's coming
In the sun strokes of summer,
Loving on this sea banged guilt
My holy lucky body
Under the cloud against love is caught and held and kissed
In the mill of the midst
Of the descending day, the dark our folly,
Cut to the still star in the order of the quick
But blessed by such heroic hosts in your every
Inch and glance that the wound
Is certain god, and the ceremony of souls
Is celebrated there, and communion between suns.
Never shall my self chant
About the saint in shades while the endless breviary
Turns of your prayed flesh, nor shall I shoo the bird below me:
The death biding two lie lonely.
I see the tigron in tears
In the androgynous dark,
His striped and noon maned tribe striding to holocaust,
The she mules bear their minotaurs,
The duck-billed platypus broody in a milk of birds.
I see the wanting nun saint carved in a garb
Of shades, symbol of desire beyond my hours
And guilts, great crotch and giant
Continence. I see the unfired phoenix, herald
160
And heaven crier, arrow now of aspiring
And the renouncing of islands.
All love but for the full assemblage in flower
Of the living flesh is monstrous or immortal,
And the grave its daughters.
Love, my fate got luckily,
Teaches with no telling
That the phoenix' bid for heaven and the desire after
Death in the carved nunnery
Both shall fail if I bow not to your blessing
Nor walk in the cool of your mortal garden
With immortality at my side like Christ the sky.
This I know from the native
Tongue of your translating eyes. The young stars told me,
Hurling into beginning like Christ the child.
Lucklessly she must lie patient
And the vaulting bird be still. O my true love, hold me.
In your every inch and glance is the globe of genesis spun,
And the living earth your sons.
~ Dylan Thomas,#NFDB
274:Most intellectuals and most artists belong to the same type. Only the strongest of them force their way through the atmosphere of the bourgeois earth and attain to the cosmic. The others all resign themselves or make compromises. Despising the bourgeoisie, and yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory; for in the last resort they have to share their beliefs in order to live. The lives of these infinitely numerous persons make no claim to the tragic; but they live under an evil star in a quite considerable affliction; and in this hell their talents ripen and bear fruit. The few who break free seek their reward in the unconditioned and go down in splendor. They wear the thorn crown and their number is small. The others, however, who remain in the fold and from whose talents the bourgeoisie reaps much gain, have a third kingdom left open to them, an imaginary and yet a sovereign world, humor. The lone wolves who know no peace, these victims of unceasing pain to whom the urge for tragedy has been denied and who can never break through the starry space,who feel themselves summoned thither and yet cannot survive in its atmosphere—for them is reserved, provided suffering has made their spirits tough and elastic enough, a way of reconcilement and an escape into humor. Humor has always something bourgeois in it, although the true bourgeois is incapable of understanding it. In its imaginary realm the intricate and manyfaceted ideal of all Steppenwolves finds its realisation. Here it is possible not only to extol the saint and the profligate in one breath and to make the poles meet, but to include the bourgeois, too, in the same affirmation. Now it is possible to be possessed by God and to affirm the sinner, and vice versa, but it is not possible for either saint or sinner (or for any other of the unconditioned) to affirm as well that lukewarm mean, the bourgeois. Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though "one possessed nothing," to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
275:My father was a man of iron will. He had a red beard and eyes like caves. He married my mother sensibly for the triple joy of her widowhood, the three estates, but he was concerned - as an English country gentleman and an epitome of the chivalric virtues - with the making of a son.
Having heard well of the giant's child-inspiring powers, my father takes my mother by the hand and leads her up to him the night before their wedding. It had been a hot day, the hottest day that any man could remember, the skylarks swooning in the sticky air, milk turning sour in the cows' udders. At the end of that hottest day now it is suddenly Midsummer Eve and the giant stands out bold and wonderful and monstrous on his long green Dorset hill, the moon at the full above his knobbled club. My father lays my mother down on the giant's thistle, in the modest shade of Mr Wiclif's burgeoning fig tree.
'Dear hart,' he says, taking off his spurs and his liripipe hat, 'I shall require an heir.'
If ever widow woman blushed then my mother blushed hot when she saw my father unbuttoned above her in the moonlight. 'My womb,' she says, 'is empty.'
My father engages the key in the lock. It is well-oiled. He turns and enters and makes himself at home.
'I have been told,' he says,
'that any true woman,' he says,
'childless,' he adds,
'who lies,' he says,
'on the Cerne giant, - my father
takes a shuddering juddering breath -
'conceives without fail,' he explains.
My father goes on, without need of saying.
It is sixty yards if it is an inch from the top to the toe of the giant of Cerne Abbas. The creature's club alone must be every bit of forty yards.
'O Gog,' says my mother eventually. 'O Gog, O Gog, O Gog.'
'I do believe,' says my father, 'Magog.'
Now, in the moment of my conception, as a star falls into my mother's left eye, as the wind catches its breath, as the little hills skip for joy, and the moon hides her face behind a cloud - a bit of local history. When St Augustine came calling in those parts the people of Cerne tied a tail to his coat and whipped him out of their valley. The saint was furious. He got down on his knees and prayed to God to give tails to all the children that were born in Dorset. 'Right,' said the Omnipotence. This went on, tails, tails, tails, tails, until the folk regretted their pagan manners. When they expressed their regret, St Austin came back and founded the abbey, calling it Cernal because he was soon seeing his visions there - from the Latin, 'cerno', I see, and the Hebrew, 'El, God. That's enough history. I prefer mystery. ~ Robert Nye,#NFDB
276:He was the leader of the Prophet David’s army,’ said the Sheikh. ‘David had him killed so that he could marry Nebi Uri’s beautiful wife. Two angels, Mikhail and Jibrael, appeared and asked David why he needed an extra wife when he already had ninety-nine others. You know this story?’ ‘Yes. I think we Christians know Nebi Uri as Uriah the Hittite.’ It was an unlikely tangle of tales: a medieval Muslim saint buried in a much older Byzantine tomb tower had somehow been confused with the Biblical and Koranic Uriah; perhaps the saint’s name was Uriah, and over the passage of time his identity had been merged with that of his scriptural namesake. More intriguing still was the fact that in this city, long famed for the shrines of its Christian saints, the Muslim Sufi tradition had directly carried on from where Theodoret’s Christian holy men had left off. Just as the Muslim form of prayer, with its bowings and prostrations, appears to derive from the older Syriac Christian tradition that I had seen performed at Mar Gabriel, and just as the architecture of the earliest minarets unmistakably derives from the square late-antique Syrian church towers, so the roots of Islamic mysticism and Sufism lie with the Byzantine holy men and desert fathers who preceded them across the Near East. Today the West often views Islam as a civilisation very different from and indeed innately hostile to Christianity. Only when you travel in Christianity’s Eastern homelands do you realise how closely the two religions are really linked. For the former grew directly out of the latter and still, to this day, embodies many aspects and practices of the early Christian world now lost in Christianity’s modern Western incarnation. When the early Byzantines were first confronted by the Prophet’s armies, they assumed that Islam was merely a heretical form of Christianity, and in many ways they were not so far wrong: Islam accepts much of the Old and New Testaments, and venerates both Jesus and the ancient Jewish prophets. Certainly if John Moschos were to come back today it is likely that he would find much more that was familiar in the practices of a modern Muslim Sufi than he would with those of, say, a contemporary American Evangelical. Yet this simple truth has been lost by our tendency to think of Christianity as a Western religion rather than the Oriental faith it actually is. Moreover the modern demonisation of Islam in the West, and the recent growth of Muslim fundamentalism (itself in many ways a reaction to the West’s repeated humiliation of the Muslim world), have led to an atmosphere where few are aware of, or indeed wish to be aware of, the profound kinship of Christianity and Islam. ~ William Dalrymple, #NFDB
277:Remarks On The Bright And Dark Side
But may a Rural Pen try to set forth
Such a Great Fathers Ancient Grace and worth
I undertake a no less Arduous Theme
Then the Old Sages found the Chaldae Dream
'Tis more then Tythes of a profound respect
That must be paid such a Melchizedeck
Oxford this light with tongues and Arts doth trim
And then his Northern Town doth Challeng him
His Time and Strength he Center'd there in this
To do good works, and be what now he is.
His fulgent Virtues there and learned Strains
Tall comely Presence, Life unsoil'd with Stains
Things most on WORTHIES in their Stories writ
Did him to move in Orbs of Service fitt
Things more peculiar yet, my muse intend
Say stranger things then these, so weep and End
When he forsook first his Oxonian Cell
Some Scores at once from Popish darkness fell
So this Reformer studied! rare first fruits!
Shakeing a Crab-tree thus by hot disputes
The acid juice by miracle turn'd wine
And rais'd the Spirits of our young Divine
Hearers like Doves flock'd with contentios wing
Who should be first, feed most: most homeward bring
Laden with honey like Hyblaean Bees
They knead it into combs upon their knees.
Why he from Europes pleasant Garden fled
In the Next Age will be with horrour said
Braintree was of this Jewel then possest
Untill himself he labour'd into Rest
His Inventory then with Johns was took
His rough Coat, Girdle with the Sacred Book
When Reverend Knowles and he sail'd hand in hand
To Christ, Espousing the Virginian Land
Upon a ledge of Craggy Rocks near stav'd
His Bible in his bosome thrusting sav'd
The Bible, the best cordial of his Heart
Come floods, come flames (cry'd he) we'l never part
A constellation of great converts there
15
Shone round him and his Heav'nly Glory where
With a Rare Skill in hearts, this Doctor cou'd
Steal into them words that should do them good
His Balsom's from the Tree of Life distill'd
Hearts cleans'd and heal'd, and with rich comforts fill'd
But here's the wo! Balsoms which others cur'd
Would in his Own Turn hardly be endur'd
Apollyon Owing him a cursed Spleen
Who an Apollos in the Church had been
Dreading his Traffick here would be undone
By Numerous proselites he daily won
Accus'd him of Imaginary faults
And push'd him down so into dismal Vaults
Vaults where he kept long Ember weeks of grief
'Till Heav'n alarm'd sent him in relief
Then was a Daniel in the lyons Den
A man, oh how belov'd of God and men
By his beds-side an Hebrew sword there lay
With which at last he drove the Devil away.
Quaker's too durst not bear his keen replies
But fearing it half drawn the trembler flyes
Like Lazarus new rais'd from Death appears
The Saint that had been dead for many years
Our Nehemiah said, shall such as I
Desert my flock, and like a Coward fly
Long had the Churches begg'd the Saints release
Releas'd at last, he dies in Glorious peace
The Night is not so long, but phosphors ray
Approaching Glories doth on high display
Faith's Eye in him discern'd the Morning Star
His heart leap'd; Sure the Sun cannot be far
In Extasies of Joy, he Ravish'd Cryes
Love, Love the Lamb, the Lamb, in whome he dies.
~ Benjamin Tompson,#NFDB
278:Le Mauvais Moine (The Bad Monk)
Les cloîtres anciens sur leurs grandes murailles
Etalaient en tableaux la sainte Vérité,
Dont l'effet réchauffant les pieuses entrailles,
Tempérait la froideur de leur austérité.
En ces temps où du Christ florissaient les semailles,
Plus d'un illustre moine, aujourd'hui peu cité,
Prenant pour atelier le champ des funérailles,
Glorifiait la Mort avec simplicité.
— Mon âme est un tombeau que, mauvais cénobite,
Depuis l'éternité je parcours et j'habite;
Rien n'embellit les murs de ce cloître odieux.
Ô moine fainéant! quand saurai-je donc faire
Du spectacle vivant de ma triste misère
Le travail de mes mains et l'amour de mes yeux?
The Bad Monk
Cloisters in former times portrayed on their high walls
The truths of Holy Writ with fitting pictures
Which gladdened pious hearts and lessened the coldness,
The austere appearance, of those monasteries.
In those days the sowing of Christ's Gospel flourished,
And more than one famed monk, seldom quoted today,
Taking his inspiration from the graveyard,
Glorified Death with naive simplicity.
— My soul is a tomb where, bad cenobite,
I wander and dwell eternally;
Nothing adorns the walls of that loathsome cloister.
O lazy monk! When shall I learn to make
Of the living spectacle of my bleak misery
The labor of my hands and the love of my eyes?
308
— Translated by William Aggeler
The Evil Monk
The walls of cloisters on their frescoed lath
Displayed, in pictures, sacred truths of old,
Whose sight would warm the entrails of one's faith
To temper their austerity and cold.
In times when every sowing flowered for Christ
Lived famous monks, now out of memory's reach;
The graveyard for their library sufficed,
And Death was glorified in simple speech.
My soul's a grave, where, evil cenobite,
To all eternity I have been banned.
Nothing adorns this cloister fall of spite.
O idle monk! Say, to what end were planned
The living spectacle of my sad plight,
Love of my eye, or labour of my hand?
— Translated by Roy Campbell
Le Mauvais Moine
the wide cold walls of cloisters, long ago
set forth God's Holy Truth for all to see,
and gazing friars there, with hearts aglow,
rejoiced despite their chill austerity.
then, when the seed of Christ would always grow,
illustrious monks, now lost to memory,
would choose the burial-plot for studio
to chant Death's glory, unaffectedly.
my soul's a tomb, which — wretched friar! — I
have paced since Time began, and occupy;
bare-walled and hateful still my cloister stands.
309
o slothful monk! when shall I learn to find
in the stark drama of this living mind
joy for mine eyes and work to fit my hands?
— Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks
The Bad Monk
On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.
In the times when Christ was seeded around,
More than one illustrious monk, today unknown
Took for a studio the funeral grounds
And glorified Death as the one way shown.
—My soul is a tomb, an empty confine
Since eternity I scour and I reside;
Nothing hangs on the walls of this hideous sty.
O lazy monk! When will I see
The living spectacle of my misery,
The work of my hands and the love of my eyes?
Translated by William A. Sigler
~ Charles Baudelaire,#NFDB
279:In The Forum
The last warm gleams of sunset fade
From cypress spire and stonepine dome,
And, in the twilight's deepening shade,
Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome.
Husht the Madonna's Evening Bell;
The steers lie loosed from wain and plough;
The vagrant monk is in his cell,
The meek nun-novice cloistered now.
Pedant's presumptuous voice no more
Vexes the spot where Caesar trod,
And o'er the pavement's soundless floor
Come banished priest and exiled God.
The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among
The regal hillside's tangled scrubs,
With doting gaze and fondling tongue
Suckles the Vestal's twin-born cubs.
Yet once again Evander leads
Æneas to his wattled home,
And, throned on Tiber's fresh-cut reeds,
Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome.
From out the tawny dusk one hears
The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids,
The rush to arms, then swift the tears
That separate the clashing blades.
The Lictors with their fasces throng
To quell the Commons' rising roar,
As Tullia's chariot flames along,
Splashed with her murdered father's gore.
Her tresses free from band or comb,
Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall,
And fresh as Fiumicino's foam,
Mounts her pentelic pedestal.
281
With languid lids, and lips apart,
And curving limbs like wave half-furled,
Unarmed she dominates the heart,
And without sceptre sways the world.
Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars
Stalks through the Forum's fallen fanes,
Or, changed of mien and healed of scars,
Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains.
With waves of song from wakening lyre
Apollo routs the wavering night,
While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir
Wind chanting up the Sacred Height,
Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed,
And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam,
Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed,
And frowns against the foes of Rome.
You cannot kill the Gods. They still
Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned,
Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill,
And renovate their rites profaned.
Diana's hounds still lead the chase,
Still Neptune's Trident crests the sea,
And still man's spirit soars through space
On feathered heels of Mercury.
No flood can quench the Vestals' Fire;
The Flamen's robes are still as white
As ere the Salii's armoured choir
Were drowned by droning anchorite.
The saint may seize the siren's seat,
The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun;
Ne'er will, though all beside should fleet,
The Olympian Presence be withdrawn.
Here, even in the noontide glare,
282
The Gods, recumbent, take their ease;
Go look, and you will find them there,
Slumbering behind some fallen frieze.
But most, when sunset glow hath paled,
And come, as now, the twilight hour,
In vesper vagueness dimly veiled
I feel their presence and their power.
What though their temples strew the ground,
And to the ruin owls repair,
Their home, their haunt, is all around;
They drive the cloud, they ride the air.
And, when the planets wend their way
Along the never-ageing skies,
``Revere the Gods'' I hear them say;
``The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.''
Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers
Through marble fissures, granite rents;
Only Imagination rears
Imperishable monuments.
Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine,
Level the altar, fire the fane:
There is no razing the Divine;
The Gods return, the Gods remain.
~ Alfred Austin,#NFDB
280:All right, then. While it might be beyond her power to stop desiring him entirely, she didn’t have to let him control the attraction. In her years of dreaming of him--the admittedly chaste dreams of a virgin--she had been in control, making him burn and yearn, making him regret that he’d ever put her aside.
Perhaps it was time to fulfill those dreams.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her with a heavy-lidded gaze that promised all manner of sensual pleasures if she would just give herself over to him. She would make him keep that promise…but without giving up herself.
Edwin would undoubtedly disapprove of this dalliance, but just now she didn’t care. Dom was about to learn that she wouldn’t be ruled by him or any other man.
Looping her arms about his neck, she rose up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. This time she was the one to instigate the duel of tongues and lips that sent her senses reeling. This time she was the one in control.
Until Dom pulled down her bodice and corset and shift to bare her breasts. Oh, sweet Lord in heaven. He was more wicked--and more wonderful at this--than even she could have imagined.
But she could be wicked, too. Remembering what Nancy had told her about men, she reached down between them to cup the hard length of him through his trousers.
He jerked back. “What are you doing?”
How wonderful to be the one to shock him! Though she noticed he didn’t step away or pull her hand off him. And his flesh seemed to grow beneath her very fingers. “Don’t you like it?” she said in what she hoped was a sultry-sounding voice.
“Good God, yes.” He practically groaned the words. “But where the blazes did you learn to do it?”
“Nancy said men like to be touched…down there.”
“Wonderful. Now the sinner is instructing the saint,” he muttered before he took her mouth again, giving her no chance to protest that she wasn’t as saintly as he assumed.
But clearly he’d guessed because he leaned into her hand, letting her fully explore the male appendage that Nancy had only described in furtive whispers.
To Jane’s delight, the more she rubbed him through his trousers, the more his kiss changed, grew bolder, hotter, fiercer. How delicious! They had certainly never done anything like this in their youth. Perhaps if they had, he wouldn’t have been so content to toss her aside.
It was definitely making her ignite. Or perhaps it was his hands roaming her body doing that. Whichever the case, an unfamiliar ache began between her legs that made her want to squirm. So she focused on caressing him with renewed vigor, hoping to regain control over this…insanity.
He grabbed her hand to still it.
She tore her mouth from his. “What? Am I doing it wrong?”
“If you do it any more right, I will embarrass myself.” He fixed her with a dark stare. “Or perhaps that’s what you want. Another way to torture me.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Am I doing it right or am I torturing you? Which is it?”
He searched her face, then, apparently satisfied with what he saw there, smiled faintly. “Both.” Taking her by surprise, he dripped onto the pianoforte bench and tugged her across his lap. “Here, I’ll show you.”
As he drew her skirts up to her knees, she froze. “I don’t know if this is…such a good idea, Dom.”
“Oh, trust me, it’s a fine idea.” He smoothed his hands up her stockings and past her garters until he came to her drawers. “Before you go running off to seal your ‘arrangement’ with Blakeborough, you should at least have a taste of passion. Just so you’ll know how important it really is.” Pressing his mouth to her ear, he added, “Men aren’t the only ones who like to be touched there, sweeting. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
281:Looping her arms about his neck, she rose up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. This time she was the one to instigate the duel of tongues and lips that sent her senses reeling. This time she was the one in control.
Until Dom pulled down her bodice and corset and shift to bare her breasts. Oh, sweet Lord in heaven. He was more wicked--and more wonderful at this--than even she could have imagined.
But she could be wicked, too. Remembering what Nancy had told her about men, she reached down between them to cup the hard length of him through his trousers.
He jerked back. “What are you doing?”
How wonderful to be the one to shock him! Though she noticed he didn’t step away or pull her hand off him. And his flesh seemed to grow beneath her very fingers. “Don’t you like it?” she said in what she hoped was a sultry-sounding voice.
“Good God, yes.” He practically groaned the words. “But where the blazes did you learn to do it?”
“Nancy said men like to be touched…down there.”
“Wonderful. Now the sinner is instructing the saint,” he muttered before he took her mouth again, giving her no chance to protest that she wasn’t as saintly as he assumed.
But clearly he’d guessed because he leaned into her hand, letting her fully explore the male appendage that Nancy had only described in furtive whispers.
To Jane’s delight, the more she rubbed him through his trousers, the more his kiss changed, grew bolder, hotter, fiercer. How delicious! They had certainly never done anything like this in their youth. Perhaps if they had, he wouldn’t have been so content to toss her aside.
It was definitely making her ignite. Or perhaps it was his hands roaming her body doing that. Whichever the case, an unfamiliar ache began between her legs that made her want to squirm. So she focused on caressing him with renewed vigor, hoping to regain control over this…insanity.
He grabbed her hand to still it.
She tore her mouth from his. “What? Am I doing it wrong?”
“If you do it any more right, I will embarrass myself.” He fixed her with a dark stare. “Or perhaps that’s what you want. Another way to torture me.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Am I doing it right or am I torturing you? Which is it?”
He searched her face, then, apparently satisfied with what he saw there, smiled faintly. “Both.” Taking her by surprise, he dripped onto the pianoforte bench and tugged her across his lap. “Here, I’ll show you.”
As he drew her skirts up to her knees, she froze. “I don’t know if this is…such a good idea, Dom.”
“Oh, trust me, it’s a fine idea.” He smoothed his hands up her stockings and past her garters until he came to her drawers. “Before you go running off to seal your ‘arrangement’ with Blakeborough, you should at least have a taste of passion. Just so you’ll know how important it really is.” Pressing his mouth to her ear, he added, “Men aren’t the only ones who like to be touched there, sweeting.”
That remark really made her want to squirm, but before she could ask about it, he kissed her mouth again and she gave herself up to the kiss. And then he was stroking her between her legs, right where she ached.
Her legs fell open, she wasn’t even sure how. Then his clever fingers were inside her drawers and finding the delicate flesh beneath her curls and doing outrageous things to it that made her shimmy and wriggle on his lap.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he rasped against her lips.
“Yes. Is it…too very wicked?”
He gave a strained laugh. “Not too very wicked.” He delved inside her with one finger.
“Dom!” she squeaked, but he continued the caress, and her heart felt as if it might leap from her chest, it raced so hard. “Dom…That’s…oh…”
“God, sweeting,” he said as he slid his finger in and out, driving her insane, “don’t ever tell me again that passion means nothing to you. You’re so warm and wet. Perfect. So beautifully perfect. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
282:Childhood
I.
That idol, black eyes and yellow mop, without parents or court,
nobler than Mexican and Flemish fables;
his domain, insolent azure and verdure,
runs over beaches called by the shipless waves,
names ferociously Greek, Slav, Celt.
At the border of the forest-- dream flowers tinkle, flash, and flare,-the girl with orange lips, knees
crossed in the clear flood that gushes from the fields,
nakedness shaded, traversed, dressed by rainbow, flora, sea.
Ladies who stroll on terraces adjacent to the sea;
baby girls and giantesses,
superb blacks in the verdigris moss,
jewels upright on the rich ground
of groves and little thawed gardens,-young mothers and big sisters with eyes full of pilgrimages,
sultanas, princesses tyrannical of costume and carriage,
little foreign misses and young ladies gently unhappy.
What boredom, the hour of the 'dear body' and 'dear heart.'
II.
It is she, the little girl, dead behind the rosebushes. -The young mamma, deceased, comes down the stoop.-The cousin's carriage creaks on the sand.-The little brother (he is in India!) there,
before the western sky in the meadow of pinks.
The old men who have been buried upright
in the rampart overgrown with gillyflowers.
Swarms of golden leaves surround the general's house.
They are in the south.-You follow the red road to reach the empty inn.
The chateau is for sale; the shutters are coming off.
The priest must have taken away the key of the church.
Around the park the keepers' cottages are uninhabited.
24
The enclosures are so high that nothing
can be seen but the rustling tree tops.
Besides, there is nothing to be seen within.
The meadows go up to the hamlets without anvils or cocks.
The sluice gate is open.
O the Calvaries and the windmills of the desert,
the islands and the haystacks!
Magic flowers droned.
The slopes cradled him.
Beasts of a fabulous elegance moved about.
The clouds gathered over the high sea,
formed of an eternity of hot tears.
III.
In the woods there is a bird;
his song stops you and makes you blush.
There is a clock that never strikes.
There is a hollow with a nest of white beasts.
There is a cathedral that goes down and a lake that goes up.
There is a little carriage abandoned in the copse
or that goes running down the road beribboned.
There is a troupe of little actors in costume, glimpsed on the road
through the border of the woods.
And then, when you are hungry and thirsty,
there is someone who drives you away.
IV.
I am the saint at prayer on the terrace
like the peaceful beasts
that graze down to the sea of Palestine.
I am the scholar of the dark armchair.
Branches and rain hurl themselves at the windows of my library.
I am the pedestrian of the highroad by way of the dwarf woods;
the roar of the sluices drowns my steps.
I can see for a long time the melancholy wash of the setting sun.
I might well be the child abandoned on the jetty
on its way to the high seas, the little farm boy following the lane,
its forehead touching the sky. The paths are rough.
The hillocks are covered with broom.
25
The air is motionless. How far away are the birds and the springs!
It can only be the end of the world ahead.
V.
Let them rent me this whitewashed tomb, at last,
with cement lines in relief,-- far down under ground.
I lean my elbows on the table,
the lamp shines brightly on these newspapers
I am fool enough to read again, these stupid books.
An enormous distance above my subterranean parlor,
houses take root, fogs gather.
The mud is red or black.
Monstrous city, night without end!
Less high are the sewers. At the sides,
nothing but the thickness of the globe.
Chasms of azure, wells of fire perhaps.
Perhaps it is on these levels that moons and comets meet,
fables and seas. In hours of bitterness,
I imagine balls of sapphire, of metal.
I am master of silence.
Why should the semblance of an opening
pale under one corner of the vault?
~ Arthur Rimbaud,#NFDB
283:Confiteor
The shore-boat lies in the morning light,
By the good ship ready for sailing ;
The skies are clear, and the dawn is bright,
Tho' the bar of the bay is fleck'd with white,
And the wind is fitfully wailing ;
Near the tiller stands the prit, and the knight
Leans over the quarter-railing.
'There is time while the vessel tarries still,
There is time while her shrouds are slack,
There is time ere her sails to the west-wind fill,
Ere her tall masts vanish from town and from hill,
Ere cleaves to her keel the track ;
There is time for confession to those who will,
To those who may never come back.'
'Sir priest, you can shrive these men of mine,
And, I pray you, shrive them fast,
And shrive those hardy sons of the brine,
Captain and mates of the Eglantine,
And sailors before the mast ;
Then pledge me a cup of the Cyprus wine,
For I fain would bury the past.'
'And hast thou naught to repent, my son ?
Dost thou scorn confession and shrift ?
Ere thy sands from the glass of time shall run
Is there naught undone that thou should'st have done,
Naught done that thou should'st have left ?
The guiltiest soul may from guilt be won,
And the stoniest heart may be cleft.'
'Have my ears been closed to the prayer of the poor,
Or deaf to the cry of distress ?
Have I given little, and taken more ?
Have I brought a curse to the widow's door ?
Have I wrong'd the fatherless ?
Have I steep'd my fingers in guiltless gore,
That I must perforce confess ?'
128
'Have thy steps been guided by purity
Through the paths with wickedness rife ?
Hast thou never smitten thine enemy ?
Hast thou yielded naught to the lust of the eye,
And naught to the pride of life ?
Hast thou pass'd all snares of pleasure by ?
Hast thou shunn'd all wrath and strife ?'
'Nay, certes ! a sinful life I've led,
Yet I've suffer'd, and lived in hope ;
I may suffer still, but my hope has fled,—
I've nothing now to hope or to dread,
And with fate I can fairly cope ;
Were the waters closing over my head,
I should scarcely catch at a rope.'
'Dost suffer ? thy pain may be fraught with grace,
Since never by works alone
We are saved ;—the penitent thief may trace
The wealth of love in the Saviour's face
To the Pharisee rarely shown ;
And the Magdalene's arms may yet embrace
The foot of the jasper throne.'
'Sir priest, a heavier doom I dree,
For I feel no quickening pain,
But a dull dumb weight, when I bow my knee,
And (not with the words of the Pharisee)
My hard eyes heavenward strain,
Where my dead darling prayeth for me !
Now, I wot, she prayeth in vain !
'Still I hear it over the battle's din,
And over the festive cheer,—
So she pray'd with clasp'd hands, white and thin,—
The prayer of a soul absolved from sin,
For a soul that is dark and drear,
For the light of repentance bursting in,
And the flood of the blinding tear.
'Say, priest ! when the saint must vainly plead,
129
Oh ! how shall the sinner fare ?
I hold your comfort a broken reed ;
Let the wither'd branch for itself take heed,
While the green shoots wait your care ;
I've striven, though feebly, to grasp your creed,
And I've grappled my own despair.'
'By the little within thee, good and brave,
Not wholly shattered, though shaken ;
By the soul that crieth beyond the grave,
The love that He once in His mercy gave,
In His mercy since retaken,
I conjure thee, oh sinner ! pardon crave !
I implore thee, oh sleeper, waken !'
'Go to ! shall I lay my black soul bare
To a vain, self-righteous man ?
In my sin, in my sorrow, you may not share,
And yet, could I meet with one who must bear
The load of an equal ban,
With him I might strive to blend one prayer,
The wail of the Publican.'
'My son, I too am a withered bough,
My place is to others given ;
Thou hast sinn'd, thou sayest ; I ask not how,
For I too have sinn'd, even as thou,
And I too have feebly striven,
And with thee I must bow, crying, 'Shrive us now !
Our Father which art in heaven !' '
~ Adam Lindsay Gordon,#NFDB
284:Cito Pede Preterit Aetas
A mellower light doth Sol afford,
His meridian glare has pass'd
And the trees on the broad and sloping sward
Their length'ning shadows cast.
'Time flies.' The current will be no joke,
If swollen by recent rain,
To cross in the dark, so I'll have a smoke,
And then I'll be off again.
What's up, old horse ? Your ears you prick,
And your eager eyeballs glisten ;
'Tis the wild dog's note in the tea-tree thick,
By the river, to which you listen.
With head erect, and tail flung out,
For a gallop you seem to beg,
But I feel the qualm of a chilling doubt
As I glance at your fav'rite leg.
Let the dingo rest, 'till all for the best,
In this world there's room enough
For him and you and me and the rest,
And the country is awful rough.
We've had our gallop in days of yore,
Now down the hill we must run ;
Yet at times we long for one gallop more,
Although it were only one.
Did our spirits quail at a new four-rail,
Could a 'double' double-bank us,
Ere nerve and sinew began to fail
In the consulship of Plancus ?
When our blood ran rapidly, and when
Our bones were pliant and limber,
Could we stand a merry cross-counter then,
A slogging fall over timber ?
Arcades ambo ! Duffers both
In our best of days, alas !
(I tell the truth, though to tell it loth)
124
'Tis time we were gone to grass ;
The young leaves shoot, the sere leaves fall,
And the old gives way to the new,
While the preacher cries, ' 'Tis vanity all,
And vexation of spirit, too.'
Now over my head the vapours curl
From the bowl of the soothing clay,
In the misty forms that eddy and whirl
My thoughts are flitting away ;
Yes, the preacher's right, 'tis vanity all,
But the sweeping rebuke he showers
On vanities all may heaviest fall
On vanities worse than ours.
We have no wish to exaggerate
The worth of the sports we prize,
Some toil for their Church, and some for their State,
And some for their merchandise ;
Some traffic and trade in the city's mart,
Some travel by land and sea,
Some follow science, some cleave to art,
And some to scandal and tea ;
And some for their country and their queen
Would fight, if the chance they had,
Good sooth, 'twere a sorry world, I ween,
If we all went galloping mad ;
Yet if once we efface the joys of the chase
From the land, and outroot the Stud,
GOOD-BYE TO THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE !
FAREWELL TO THE NORMAN BLOOD !
Where the burn runs down to the uplands brown,
From the heights of the snow-clad range,
What anodyne drawn from the stifling town
Can be reckon'd a fair exchange
For the stalker's stride, on the mountain side
In the bracing northern weather,
To the slopes where couch, in their antler'd pride,
The deer on the perfum'd heather.
125
Oh ! the vigour with which the air is rife !
The spirit of joyous motion ;
The fever, the fulness of animal life,
Can be drain'd from no earthly potion !
The lungs with the living gas grow light,
And the limbs feel the strength of ten,
While the chest expands with its madd'ning might,
GOD'S GLORIOUS OXYGEN.
Thus the measur'd stroke, on elastic sward,
Of the steed three parts extended,
Hard held, the breath of his nostrils broad,
With the golden ether blended ;
Then the leap, the rise from the springy turf,
The rush through the buoyant air,
And the light shock landing—the veriest serf
Is an emperor then and there.
Such scenes ! sensation and sound and sight,
To some undiscover'd shore
On the current of Time's remorseless flight
Have they swept to return no more ?
While, like phantoms bright of the fever'd night,
That have vex'd our slumbers of yore,
You follow us still in your ghostly might,
Dead days that have gone before.
Vain dreams, again and again re-told,
Must you crowd on the weary brain,
Till the fingers are cold that entwin'd of old
Round foil and trigger and rein,
Till stay'd for ay are the roving feet,
Till the restless hands are quiet,
Till the stubborn heart has forgotten to beat,
Till the hot blood has ceas'd to riot ?
In Exeter Hall the saint may chide,
The sinner may scoff outright,
The Bacchanal steep'd in the flagon's tide,
Or the sensual Sybarite ;
But NOLAN'S name will flourish in fame,
When our galloping days are past,
126
When we go to the place from whence we came,
Perchance to find rest at last.
Thy riddles grow dark, oh ! drifting cloud,
And thy misty shapes grow drear,
Thou hang'st in the air like a shadowy shroud,
But I am of lighter cheer ;
Though our future lot is a sable blot,
Though the wise ones of earth will blame us,
Though our saddles will rot, and our rides be forgot,
'Dum Vivimus, Vivamus !'
~ Adam Lindsay Gordon,#NFDB
285:Dedication
To Churchill's Sermons.
The manuscript of this unfinished poem was found among the few papers
Churchill left behind him.
Health to great Glo'ster!--from a man unknown,
Who holds thy health as dearly as his own,
Accept this greeting--nor let modest fear
Call up one maiden blush--I mean not here
To wound with flattery; 'tis a villain's art,
And suits not with the frankness of my heart.
Truth best becomes an orthodox divine,
And, spite of Hell, that character is mine:
To speak e'en bitter truths I cannot fear;
But truth, my lord, is panegyric here.
Health to great Glo'ster!--nor, through love of ease,
Which all priests love, let this address displease.
I ask no favour, not one _note_ I crave,
And when this busy brain rests in the grave,
(For till that time it never can have rest)
I will not trouble you with one bequest.
Some humbler friend, my mortal journey done,
More near in blood, a nephew or a son,
In that dread hour executor I'll leave,
For I, alas! have many to receive;
To give, but little.--To great Glo'ster health!
Nor let thy true and proper love of wealth
Here take a false alarm--in purse though poor,
In spirit I'm right proud, nor can endure
The mention of a bribe--thy pocket's free:
I, though a dedicator, scorn a fee.
Let thy own offspring all thy fortunes share;
I would not Allen rob, nor Allen's heir.
Think not,--a thought unworthy thy great soul,
Which pomps of this world never could control,
Which never offer'd up at Power's vain shrine,-Think not that pomp and power can work on mine.
'Tis not thy name, though that indeed is great,
'Tis not the tinsel trumpery of state,
20
'Tis not thy title, Doctor though thou art,
'Tis not thy mitre, which hath won my heart.
State is a farce; names are but empty things,
Degrees are bought, and, by mistaken kings,
Titles are oft misplaced; mitres, which shine
So bright in other eyes, are dull in mine,
Unless set off by virtue; who deceives
Under the sacred sanction of lawn sleeves
Enhances guilt, commits a double sin;
So fair without, and yet so foul within.
'Tis not thy outward form, thy easy mien,
Thy sweet complacency, thy brow serene,
Thy open front, thy love-commanding eye,
Where fifty Cupids, as in ambush, lie,
Which can from sixty to sixteen impart
The force of Love, and point his blunted dart;
'Tis not thy face, though that by Nature's made
An index to thy soul; though there display'd
We see thy mind at large, and through thy skin
Peeps out that courtesy which dwells within;
'Tis not thy birth, for that is low as mine,
Around our heads no lineal glories shine-But what is birth,--when, to delight mankind,
Heralds can make those arms they cannot find,
When thou art to thyself, thy sire unknown,
A whole Welsh genealogy alone?
No; 'tis thy inward man, thy proper worth,
Thy right just estimation here on earth,
Thy life and doctrine uniformly join'd,
And flowing from that wholesome source, thy mind;
Thy known contempt of Persecution's rod,
Thy charity for man, thy love of God,
Thy faith in Christ, so well approved 'mongst men,
Which now give life and utterance to my pen.
Thy virtue, not thy rank, demands my lays;
'Tis not the Bishop, but the Saint, I praise:
Raised by that theme, I soar on wings more strong,
And burst forth into praise withheld too long.
Much did I wish, e'en whilst I kept those sheep
Which, for my curse, I was ordain'd to keep,-Ordain'd, alas! to keep, through need, not choice,
Those sheep which never heard their shepherd's voice,
21
Which did not know, yet would not learn their way,
Which stray'd themselves, yet grieved that I should stray;
Those sheep which my good father (on his bier
Let filial duty drop the pious tear)
Kept well, yet starved himself, e'en at that time
Whilst I was pure and innocent of rhyme,
Whilst, sacred Dulness ever in my view,
Sleep at my bidding crept from pew to pew,-Much did I wish, though little could I hope,
A friend in him who was the friend of Pope.
His hand, said I, my youthful steps shall guide,
And lead me safe where thousands fall beside;
His temper, his experience, shall control,
And hush to peace the tempest of my soul;
His judgment teach me, from the critic school,
How not to err, and how to err by rule;
Instruct me, mingle profit with delight,
Where Pope was wrong, where Shakspeare was not right;
Where they are justly praised, and where, through whim,
How little's due to them, how much to him.
Raised 'bove the slavery of common rules,
Of common-sense, of modern, ancient schools,
Those feelings banish'd which mislead us all,
Fools as we are, and which we Nature call,
He by his great example might impart
A better something, and baptize it Art;
He, all the feelings of my youth forgot,
Might show me what is taste by what is not;
By him supported, with a proper pride,
I might hold all mankind as fools beside;
He (should a world, perverse and peevish grown,
Explode his maxims and assert their own)
Might teach me, like himself, to be content,
And let their folly be their punishment;
Might, like himself, teach his adopted son,
'Gainst all the world, to quote a Warburton.
Fool that I was! could I so much deceive
My soul with lying hopes? could I believe
That he, the servant of his Maker sworn,
The servant of his Saviour, would be torn
From their embrace, and leave that dear employ,
The cure of souls, his duty and his joy,
22
For toys like mine, and waste his precious time,
On which so much depended, for a rhyme?
Should he forsake the task he undertook,
Desert his flock, and break his pastoral crook?
Should he (forbid it, Heaven!) so high in place,
So rich in knowledge, quit the work of grace,
And, idly wandering o'er the Muses' hill,
Let the salvation of mankind stand still?
Far, far be that from thee--yes, far from thee
Be such revolt from grace, and far from me
The will to think it--guilt is in the thought-Not so, not so, hath Warburton been taught,
Not so learn'd Christ. Recall that day, well known,
When (to maintain God's honour, and his own)
He call'd blasphemers forth; methinks I now
See stern Rebuke enthroned on his brow,
And arm'd with tenfold terrors--from his tongue,
Where fiery zeal and Christian fury hung,
Methinks I hear the deep-toned thunders roll,
And chill with horror every sinner's soul,
In vain they strive to fly--flight cannot save.
And Potter trembles even in his grave-With all the conscious pride of innocence,
Methinks I hear him, in his own defence,
Bear witness to himself, whilst all men knew,
By gospel rules his witness to be true.
O glorious man! thy zeal I must commend,
Though it deprived me of my dearest friend;
The real motives of thy anger known,
Wilkes must the justice of that anger own;
And, could thy bosom have been bared to view,
Pitied himself, in turn had pitied you.
Bred to the law, you wisely took the gown,
Which I, like Demas, foolishly laid down;
Hence double strength our Holy Mother drew,
Me she got rid of, and made prize of you.
I, like an idle truant fond of play,
Doting on toys, and throwing gems away,
Grasping at shadows, let the substance slip;
But you, my lord, renounced attorneyship
With better purpose, and more noble aim,
And wisely played a more substantial game:
23
Nor did Law mourn, bless'd in her younger son,
For Mansfield does what Glo'ster would have done.
Doctor! Dean! Bishop! Glo'ster! and My Lord!
If haply these high titles may accord
With thy meek spirit; if the barren sound
Of pride delights thee, to the topmost round
Of Fortune's ladder got, despise not one
For want of smooth hypocrisy undone,
Who, far below, turns up his wondering eye,
And, without envy, sees thee placed so high:
Let not thy brain (as brains less potent might)
Dizzy, confounded, giddy with the height,
Turn round, and lose distinction, lose her skill
And wonted powers of knowing good from ill,
Of sifting truth from falsehood, friends from foes;
Let Glo'ster well remember how he rose,
Nor turn his back on men who made him great;
Let him not, gorged with power, and drunk with state,
Forget what once he was, though now so high,
How low, how mean, and full as poor as I.
~ Charles Churchill,#NFDB
286:The Poor Man's Lamb
NOW spent the alter'd King, in am'rous Cares,
The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray'rs:
In vain the Alter waits his slow returns,
Where unattended Incense faintly burns:
In vain the whisp'ring Priests their Fears express,
And of the Change a thousand Causes guess.
Heedless of all their Censures He retires,
And in his Palace feeds his secret Fires;
Impatient, till from Rabbah Tydings tell,
That near those Walls the poor Uriah fell,
Led to the Onset by a Chosen Few,
Who at the treacherous Signal, soon withdrew;
Nor to his Rescue e'er return'd again,
Till by fierce Ammon's Sword they saw the Victim slain.
'Tis pass'd, 'tis done! the holy Marriage-Knot,
Too strong to be unty'd, at last is cut.
And now to Bathsheba the King declares,
That with his Heart, the Kingdom too is hers;
That Israel's Throne, and longing Monarch's Arms
Are to be fill'd but with her widow'd Charms.
Nor must the Days of formal Tears exceed,
To cross the Living, and abuse the Dead.
This she denies; and signs of Grief are worn;
But mourns no more than may her Face adorn,
Give to those Eyes, which Love and Empire fir'd,
A melting Softness more to be desir'd;
Till the fixt Time, tho' hard to be endur'd,
Was pass'd, and a sad Consort's Name procur'd:
When, with the Pomp that suits a Prince's Thought,
By Passion sway'd, and glorious Woman taught,
A Queen she's made, than Michal seated higher,
Whilst light unusual Airs prophane the hallow'd Lyre.
Where art thou Nathan? where's that Spirit now,
Giv'n to brave Vice, tho' on a Prince's Brow?
In what low Cave, or on what Desert Coast,
Now Virtue wants it, is thy Presence lost?
170
But lo! he comes, the Rev'rend Bard appears,
Defil'd with Dust his awful silver Hairs,
And his rough Garment, wet with falling Tears.
The King this mark'd, and conscious wou'd have fled,
The healing Balm which for his Wounds was shed:
Till the more wary Priest the Serpents Art,
Join'd to the Dove-like Temper of his Heart,
And thus retards the Prince just ready now to part.
Hear me, the Cause betwixt two Neighbors hear,
Thou, who for Justice dost the Sceptre bear:
Help the Opprest, nor let me weep alone
For him, that calls for Succour from the Throne.
Good Princes for Protection are Ador'd,
And Greater by the Shield, than by the Sword.
This clears the Doubt, and now no more he fears
The Cause his Own, and therefore stays and hears:
When thus the Prophet: –
–In a flow'ry Plain
A King-like Man does in full Plenty reign;
Casts round his Eyes, in vain, to reach the Bound,
Which Jordan's Flood sets to his fertile Ground:
Countless his Flocks, whilst Lebanon contains
A Herd as large, kept by his numerous Swains,
That fill with morning Bellowings the cool Air,
And to the Cedar's shade at scorching Noon repair.
Near to this Wood a lowly Cottage stands,
Built by the humble Owner's painful Hands;
Fenc'd by a Stubble-roof, from Rain and Heat,
Secur'd without, within all Plain and Neat.
A Field of small Extent surrounds the Place,
In which One single Ewe did sport and graze:
This his whole Stock, till in full time there came,
To bless his utmost Hopes, a snowy Lamb;
Which, lest the Season yet too Cold might prove,
And Northern Blasts annoy it from the Grove,
Or tow'ring Fowl on the weak Prey might sieze,
(For with his Store his Fears must too increase)
He brings it Home, and lays it by his Side,
At once his Wealth, his Pleasure and his Pride;
Still bars the Door, by Labour call'd away,
171
And, when returning at the Close of Day,
With One small Mess himself, and that sustains,
And half his Dish it shares, and half his slender Gains.
When to the great Man's table now there comes
A Lord as great, follow'd by hungry Grooms:
For these must be provided sundry Meats,
The best for Some, for Others coarser Cates.
One Servant, diligent above the rest
To help his Master to contrive the Feast,
Extols the Lamb was nourished with such Care,
So fed, so lodg'd, it must be Princely Fare;
And having this, my Lord his own may spare.
In haste he sends, led by no Law, but Will,
Not to entreat, or purchase, but to Kill.
The Messenger's arriv'd: the harmless Spoil,
Unus'd to fly, runs Bleating to the Toil:
Whilst for the Innocent the Owner fear'd,
And, sure wou'd move, cou'd Poverty be heard.
Oh spare (he cries) the Product of my Cares,
My Stock's Encrease, the Blessing on my Pray'rs;
My growing Hope, and Treasure of my Life!
More was he speaking, when the murd'ring Knife
Shew'd him, his Suit, tho' just, must be deny'd,
And the white Fleece in its own Scarlet dy'd;
Whilst the poor helpless Wretch stands weeping by,
And lifts his Hands for Justice to the Sky.
Which he shall find, th' incensed King replies,
When for the proud Offence th' Oppressor dies.
O Nathan! by the Holy Name I swear,
Our Land such Wrongs unpunished shall not bear
If, with the Fault, th' Offender thou declare.
To whom the Prophet, closing with the Time,
Thou art the Man replies, and thine th' ill-natur'd Crime.
Nor think, against thy Place, or State, I err;
A Pow'r above thee does this Charge prefer;
Urg'd by whose Spirit, hither am I brought
T' expostulate his Goodness and thy Fault;
To lead thee back to those forgotten Years,
In Labour spent, and lowly Rustick Cares,
172
When in the Wilderness thy Flocks but few,
Thou didst the Shepherd's simple Art pursue
Thro' crusting Frosts, and penetrating Dew:
Till wondring Jesse saw six Brothers past,
And Thou Elected, Thou the Least and Last;
A Sceptre to thy Rural Hand convey'd,
And in thy Bosom Royal Beauties laid;
A lovely Princess made thy Prize that Day,
When on the shaken Ground the Giant lay
Stupid in Death, beyond the Reach of Cries
That bore thy shouted Fame to list'ning Skies,
And drove the flying Foe as fast away,
As Winds, of old, Locusts to Egypt's Sea.
Thy Heart with Love, thy Temples with Renown,
Th' All-giving Hand of Heav'n did largely crown,
Whilst yet thy Cheek was spread with youthful Down.
What more cou'd craving Man of God implore?
Or what for favour'd Man cou'd God do more?
Yet cou'd not These, nor Israel's Throne, suffice
Intemp'rate Wishes, drawn thro' wand'ring Eyes.
One Beauty (not thy own) and seen by chance,
Melts down the Work of Grace with an alluring Glance;
Chafes the Spirit, fed by sacred Art,
And blots the Title AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART;
Black Murder breeds to level at his Head,
Who boasts so fair a Part'ner of his Bed,
Nor longer must possess those envy'd Charms,
The single Treasure of his House, and Arms:
Giving, by this thy Fall, cause to Blaspheme
To all the Heathen the Almighty Name.
For which the Sword shall still thy Race pursue,
And, in revolted Israel's scornful View,
Thy captiv'd Wives shall be in Triumph led
Unto a bold Usurper's shameful Bed;
Who from thy Bowels sprung shall seize thy Throne,
And scourge thee by a Sin beyond thy own.
Thou hast thy Fault in secret Darkness done;
But this the World shall see before the Noonday's Sun.
Enough! the King, enough! the Saint replies,
173
And pours his swift Repentance from his Eyes;
Falls on the Ground, and tears the Nuptial Vest,
By which his Crime's Completion was exprest:
Then with a Sigh blasting to Carnal Love,
Drawn deep as Hell, and piercing Heaven, above
Let Me (he cries) let Me attend his Rod,
For I have sinn'd, for I have lost my God.
Hold! (says the Prophet ) of that Speech beware,
God ne'er was lost, unless by Man's Despair.
The Wound that is thus willingly reveal'd,
Th' Almighty is as willing should be heal'd.
Thus wash'd in Tears, thy Soul as fair does show
As the first Fleece, which on the Lamb does grow,
Or on the Mountain's top the lately fallen Snow.
Yet to the World that Justice may appear
Acting her Part impartial, and severe,
The Offspring of thy Sin shall soon resign
That Life, for which thou must not once repine;
But with submissive Grief his Fate deplore,
And bless the Hand, that does inflict no more.
Shall I then pay but Part, and owe the Whole?
My Body's Fruit, for my offending Soul?
Shall I no more endure (the King demands)
And 'scape thus lightly his offended Hands?
Oh! let him All resume, my Crown, my Fame;
Reduce me to the Nothing, whence I came;
Call back his Favours, faster than he gave;
And, if but Pardon'd, strip me to my Grave:
Since (tho' he seems to Lose ) He surely Wins,
Who gives but earthly Comforts for his Sins.
~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,#NFDB
287:Jeanette Speaks
1.
A bright and barefoot little girl
with a garland of cherry blossoms
enters the unattended village church.
She makes a shorthand cross
upon the makeshift wooden amulet
attached to her leather necklace.
She then runs her bony fingers
through the long, black locks
parted above her forehead.
She walks past the empty benches
towards the peaceful altar
and her petite, russet-clad figure
stoops to kneel there.
She clasps her delicate hands
in front of a wooden statue
and casts her large, green eyes
upon the Saint’s figurine.
She whispers
in a soft but confident voice:
– Sister Catherine. I didn’t give you
the spring’s gift yesterday.
Mama told me to donate
my pickings to Mother Mary.
It’s Jeannette speaking, sister
in case you’ve forgotten me.
Please don’t be mad.
Here, I hope you like these.
42
She places the crimson wreath
at the pedestal of the religious icon
and stands up to leaves the chapel
glowing with a heart-felt grin.
2.
I think
she liked the flowers.
I know I would
if I was a saint.
I wonder how
a girl gets to become a saint?
My Godmother, old Madame Agnes
says before there were saints
there used to be sacred women called High Priestesses
or Goddesses in this land. But Mama says
Madame Agnes is a witch
and I shouldn’t listen to her.
Now I should go and do my chores.
Afterwards, if there’s time
I’ll go with my friends
to the slopes near the Fairies’ Tree.
The Tree, they say, is a hundred years old.
We’ll pick lilies-of-the-valley and camellia
for wreaths to put on the branches of the Tree at Lent
and I’ll get some jasmine
for Mama’s vase at home.
The jasmine have such an amazing
smell now
in early spring.
The best mushrooms grow on the paddocks
behind the Virgin Spring.
43
I’ve heard the nuns at the Hermitage say
the Spring has healing powers.
I’ve even seen a leper and a blind monk
come all the way from Nancy to drink its water.
I wonder if any of them is cured. I’m lucky
to be “strong and healthy,” Mama says.
She reckons
I was born in winter, on the night of Epiphany
about nine or ten years ago. She says
Epiphany was when Lord Jesus
was first recognised as the Son of God by
people. But
Madame Agnes says my birthday
was on the same day as Le Jour des Rois,
Day of the Kings, an ancient celebration
when the rich baked a cake for the beggars
and the last beggar to get a piece
was named the Bean-King, or something like
that.
Mama says
it’s blessed for girls
to go down the Valley to pick
blossoms and weave garlands
for the images of saints in our Church
and for those in the Hermitage behind the Bois
Chesnu
Oak Forest. I love
Saint Catherine’s statue, and Saint Margaret
too.
She sometimes looks
straight at my praying and
when feeling the kindness of her eyes
I wonder why Papa says
the statue is a lifeless thing.
Mama calls Papa sacrilegious
whenever he makes fun of our praying. Why
does he call the statue
lifeless? Doesn’t wood
come from the living trees?
44
My dress today
is the colour of oak. It’s made of
rough wool cut out of Mama’s old dress.
She’s given it
puffy sleeves and stitched pretty
blue ribbons
on the skirt
making it look like the dress
of a rich city girl. She says
I’m short like her but have Papa’s
legs.
I’m not sure what she means.
My hair’s black like Papa’s
and really messy today
I’ll have to get Mama to brush it
once I’ve been to the well
and drawn water. Now
she’s making lunch for Papa and the
boys
and putting the bundle of bread and fruit
into the saddle of the mule they’ll take with
them
to the farms.
Sometimes they take me with them
to help with sowing the seeds, pruning the
plants
or ploughing. I like
digging furrows between the rows of grape
and corn.
I like using a sharp spade
and getting my hands dirty, but
being a girl, and “little”
Papa usually makes me take the sheep
to the meadows near the Village of Maxey.
I have to sit there and watch them
stuff their mouths with grass and leaves.
I use my spinning distaff
for handling the silly animals when they don’t
45
listen to me.
I have wound a bit of wool
on top of my staff. When I get bored with being
a shepherdess
I spin the wool
around the stick. I use it
like a cane when climbing a steep hillock
and it’s a weapon
if the Maxey kids come to annoy my flock.
I know I’m supposed to act like a girl
and scream and cry if there’s
trouble
but sometimes I can’t help
chasing the bullies, or at least yelling at
them.
Mama gets upset sometimes
telling me I’m too much like a boy
but I’m very good at spinning wool
and sing with the girls
the Maiden Melodies
at the dances and celebrations.
And today
after visiting Saint Catherine,
getting water and milking the
cows,
I’m in the kitchen with Mama
with canvas aprons over our
skirts.
She’s teaching me to make
the dish she calls
“Our great region’s most famous cuisine.”
I don’t really like Quiche Lorraine.
I prefer fresh bread and creamy cheese.
46
But Mama is very keen
and doesn’t give up until I’ve beaten my eggs
and made them as foamy as hers. She tells me
with pride in her voice:
“Ah, Jeannette, have I told you about my pilgrimage to
Rome?”
(She has. About a hundred times)
“There I presented a slice of our cherished pastry
to our Holy Father, the Pope himself.
That’s why they call me
Isabelle Romee, because I’ve been to the
Holy City.”
After pouring the mixture
into the vessels covered with pastry
we take the clay pots
to the communal village oven.
Mama’s worried I could burn myself
and lets me go before
kindling the fire herself. I return home
take off the apron, put an apple
in my pocket and fasten the clog sandals
to my ankles. I take my distaff
and go out into our back garden…
the silly rabbits
have made it through the fence again.
I step over the leftovers of our baby carrots
and yell at the neighbour’s cottage:
– Margarette! Margarette! You
wanna go
graze the sheep?
My oldest friend quickly runs out.
Her golden hair is so beautiful
and her teeth are much nicer than mine.
She throws herself at me
and giggles: “Let’s run! I’m so sick of my baby sister!
47
She’s crying all the time!”
And we lock arms
and skip in our heavy clogs
to where the animals are caged
in a fenced field behind our cottages.
3.
We open the strong gates
and my cattle dog Claude
a big wolfy breed called Alsatian
barks the sleepy sheep into action.
The lazy beasts bleat unhappily.
I yell: “OHOY OHOY” and poke my distaff
into the stubborn ones refusing to move
accidentally hitting the grumpy ram
Papa’s told me to stay away from.
I stand still and see the horned beast
huff and shiver with anger.
My heart beats fast and I go
to call for Margarette but how
could she help?
The ram attacks me.
I jump out of his way
over the lazy sheep.
But he hasn’t forgiven me
and shoves the others out of his
way
spotting me with his furious eyes
and bolting towards me again.
And all of a sudden
a gilded image
I’ve seen painted on the walls of the
48
Hermitage
flashes across my mind:
Saint Michael the Archangel
Hero of the Battle of Heaven
and Hell
a winged, armoured knight
pushing his lance into the
throat
of a vicious serpent.
All of a sudden my distaff
becomes the Angel’s holy lance
and I firmly aim it
at the oncoming monster
pushing it into his thick fleece
making him stop. The ram
angrily stamps his short legs
pushing against the tip
of my hard distaff.
I clench my teeth and groan
against his force
holding the distaff with both hands
when Claude, my strong wolf-dog
jumps over the other sheep
into the scene of my battle
and furiously barks at the ram
who’s been outnumbered
and begins to set back.
I pat Claude’s hairy neck
when the ram has been pushed
into the flow of sheep
exiting the fenced area for the pastures.
I plant my distaff into the ground
to catch my breath while putting my messy hair
into a horsetail. I notice
Margarette staring at me from the other side of the
fence.
49
I say:
– Stupid ram! What was his problem?!
Margarette doesn’t laugh
at my smart remark
like she usually would. Her blue eyes
are bulging with fear. She speaks
hesitantly:
“Jeannette…
how did you do that?”
– How did I do what, Margarette?
“Fight! How did you
fight like a…
like a…
boy! You looked
so mean…so angry! Why didn’t
you
cry for help?”
– I… dunno…
Margarette hitches her skirt
and steps carefully over the fence
coming over and giving me a hug
her beautiful eyes breaking into tears:
“I was so worried... Oh sister... I was so
scared...”
I giggle and boast: – It was only a sheep! By God!
It wasn’t a wild boar or anything!
She sniffs her nose and says:
“No it wasn’t… it was… it was…
terrible… you… you
scared me… don’t do that again. Promise me!”
Feeling confused and uncomfortable
I push her away and run towards a wandering lamb
who’s left the others
50
yelling:
on…
– C’mon Margarette! I wanna pick mushrooms later
we’re gonna run out of time. C’mon!
That night after the Campanile
when Papa and the boys return from the farms
Mama serves the quiche
she’s made. My quiche
“didn’t have the proper consistency” she reckons
and was given to the parish priest instead.
Papa teases me:
“You won’t find a husband if you can’t cook properly!
We’ll have to send you to a bloody convent! How about
that?!”
I stick my tongue out at him.
He laughs and ruffles my head.
4.
A few months later, on Saint Jean the Baptist’s Eve
everyone in the village brings a log
or a bundle of sticks. Jeannette has a twig
for the bonfire lit every year near the Fairies’ Tree.
Madame Agnes has told her that this ritual is actually
a pagan salute to summer called Midsummer,
symbolising the passage of spring
with a bonfire that consumes the flowers. But
Jeannette’s mother, Isabelle, believes
that the fire is a reminder of Hell for the sinful
and the vain; she’s told her daughter to burn
something precious to her, so Jeannette’s tied a fresh lily
to her twig.
The evening begins with the chiming of church bells
51
and the villagers, in their best dresses and tunics
walk cheerfully up the hill towards the primeval Tree.
Jeannette and the children sing:
“This is Saint Jean’s night
The great occasion
When lovers delight
And burn with passion
The moon has risen.”
Madame Agnes, despite her frail legs,
has climbed the hillock ahead of the others
instructing the young men and girls
to arrange the wood in a pyramid
that would last long and look prominent.
She whispers to Jeannette’s oldest brother, Joe
quietly so that the parish priest can’t hear:
“You’ll see, dear boy, once the flames have risen
the fairy folk will come to dance beneath the Tree.”
5.
Jeannette is full of verve
running ahead of the other children
her singing is the loudest
noise after the ringing of the bells.
The thin girl hops like a stag
and her green eyes radiate
with anticipation. The elders choose her
as “Saint Jean’s Queen”
to light the bonfire. She’s hoisted
on the shoulders of her uncle, Durand,
and Isabelle holds the torch that sets fire
to her daughter’s twig. Jeannette brushes
the unruly black hair off her pink face
52
and throws the ignited flower
at the hay stacked beneath the tower of wood.
The villagers crack open the barrels of wine
and the priest begins playing his lyre.
Margarette is holding the hands of a boy
called Collot and Joe has his eyes on a girl
he hasn’t met before. Jeannette, having drunk
a cup of wine diluted with water,
is almost shouting at Madame Agnes:
– The Goddess of Moon?!!!
I wanna see her! And the fairies!
Where are they! You promised!
Jacques and Isabelle watch their children
from a distance. She tells him: “Jacques
could we go to Toul, please. I wanna give alms
at the cathedral there. We must thank our Lord
for our children, the harvest, oh…for everything!
We’re so blessed…Can we Jacques?”
Jacques kisses her and empties another goblet
into his mouth before saying: “Sure, sweetheart.
We should thank God, and our lucky stars.”
6.
Now everyone’s smeared with the orange glow
of the flames. Some are dancing in a circle around the pyre.
Some of them believe that this dance will prevent
illness and bad luck for the next year. As is
and has been customary for centuries,
the night ends with the younger couples jumping the subsiding blaze
holding hands to strengthen their romance. Jeannette
who has no interest in boys yet
has decided to take part in this closing ritual alone
53
because Madame Agnes has told her that her father’s crops
will grow as tall as her leap tonight. She’s rolled up her skirt
above her calves and kneecaps, watching impatiently
as the others hesitate to brave the fire. She yells:
– My turn! My turn!
and runs towards the flames. Her legs heave
and fly over the bonfire. She swims through
the smoky air. The flames brush the soles of her feet
but can’t hurt her. She makes it and joyously screams
upon landing, but her excitement
quickly dissipates. She’s exhausted; her large eyes close
and her body collapses into the grass. By the time
Jacques has come to her side, she’s fast asleep.
She’s so bloody adorable, he thinks
and lifts his snoring daughter carefully. He places her
on the bed at their house and himself returns
to have a few more drinks with the other farmers.
7.
Jeannette’s tiny lips shiver in sleep
and her cheeks tremble as she breathes
heavily; she dreams
of the villagers drinking and being merry
a year of joy descends upon the Valley
her white sheep flying through the blue sky
the crops weaving into crowns for her head
ghosts twist into the tubers of the Fairies’ Tree
Archangel Michael and Saint Catherine get
married
a bouquet of daisies burns in the sacred fire
the sun mixes with the soil and plants are
54
born
and far behind the Oak Forest
a flood
of identical men
wielding axes
cut down the trees and crush the farms
they’re thousands and their stampede rattles the
Valley
they’re soldiers of the greatest army in the world
their faces are eyeless and their feet are hooves
they have black crosses tattooed on the
forehead…
Jeannette wakes up
next to her parents and brothers under the blanket.
They’re deep asleep
and the girl’s shivering figure doesn’t wake them.
Outside, a few farmers
strew the ashes of the fire over the vegetation
to banish bad omens.
~ Ali Alizadeh,#NFDB
288:Dante At Verona
Behold, even I, even I am Beatrice.
(Div. Com. Purg. xxx.)
OF Florence and of Beatrice
Servant and singer from of old,
O'er Dante's heart in youth had toll'd
The knell that gave his Lady peace;
And now in manhood flew the dart
Wherewith his City pierced his heart.
Yet if his Lady's home above
Was Heaven, on earth she filled his soul;
And if his City held control
To cast the body forth to rove,
The soul could soar from earth's vain throng,
And Heaven and Hell fulfil the song.
Follow his feet's appointed way;—
But little light we find that clears
The darkness of the exiled years.
Follow his spirit's journey:—nay,
What fires are blent, what winds are blown
On paths his feet may tread alone?
Yet of the twofold life he led
In chainless thought and fettered will
Some glimpses reach us,—somewhat still
Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,—
Of the soul's quest whose stern avow
For years had made him haggard now.
Alas! the Sacred Song whereto
Both heaven and earth had set their hand
Not only at Fame's gate did stand
Knocking to claim the passage through,
But toiled to ope that heavier door
Which Florence shut for evermore.
Shall not his birth's baptismal Town
One last high presage yet fulfil,
And at that font in Florence still
His forehead take the laurel-crown?
O God! or shall dead souls deny
The undying soul its prophecy?
Aye, 'tis their hour. Not yet forgot
69
The bitter words he spoke that day
When for some great charge far away
Her rulers his acceptance sought.
“And if I go, who stays?”—so rose
His scorn:—“and if I stay, who goes?”
“Lo! thou art gone now, and we stay”
(The curled lips mutter): “and no star
Is from thy mortal path so far
As streets where childhood knew the way.
To Heaven and Hell thy feet may win,
But thine own house they come not in.”
Therefore, the loftier rose the song
To touch the secret things of God,
The deeper pierced the hate that trod
On base men's track who wrought the wrong;
Till the soul's effluence came to be
Its own exceeding agony.
Arriving only to depart,
From court to court, from land to land,
Like flame within the naked hand
His body bore his burning heart
That still on Florence strove to bring
God's fire for a burnt offering.
Even such was Dante's mood, when now,
Mocked for long years with Fortune's sport,
He dwelt at yet another court,
There where Verona's knee did bow
And her voice hailed with all acclaim
Can Grande della Scala's name.
As that lord's kingly guest awhile
His life we follow; through the days
Which walked in exile's barren ways,—
The nights which still beneath one smile
Heard through all spheres one song increase,—
“Even I, even I am Beatrice.”
At Can La Scala's court, no doubt,
Due reverence did his steps attend;
The ushers on his path would bend
At ingoing as at going out;
The penmen waited on his call
At council-board, the grooms in hall.
And pages hushed their laughter down,
70
And gay squires stilled the merry stir,
When he passed up the dais-chamber
With set brows lordlier than a frown;
And tire-maids hidden among these
Drew close their loosened bodices.
Perhaps the priests, (exact to span
All God's circumference,) if at whiles
They found him wandering in their aisles,
Grudged ghostly greeting to the man
By whom, though not of ghostly guild,
With Heaven and Hell men's hearts were fill'd.
And the court-poets (he, forsooth,
A whole world's poet strayed to court!)
Had for his scorn their hate's retort.
He'd meet them flushed with easy youth,
Hot on their errands. Like noon-flies
They vexed him in the ears and eyes.
But at this court, peace still must wrench
Her chaplet from the teeth of war:
By day they held high watch afar,
At night they cried across the trench;
And still, in Dante's path, the fierce
Gaunt soldiers wrangled o'er their spears.
But vain seemed all the strength to him,
As golden convoys sunk at sea
Whose wealth might root out penury:
Because it was not, limb with limb,
Knit like his heart-strings round the wall
Of Florence, that ill pride might fall.
Yet in the tiltyard, when the dust
Cleared from the sundered press of knights
Ere yet again it swoops and smites,
He almost deemed his longing must
Find force to yield that multitude
And hurl that strength the way he would.
How should he move them,—fame and gain
On all hands calling them at strife?
He still might find but his one life
To give, by Florence counted vain;
One heart the false hearts made her doubt,
One voice she heard once and cast out.
Oh! if his Florence could but come,
71
A lily-sceptred damsel fair,
As her own Giotto painted her
On many shields and gates at home,—
A lady crowned, at a soft pace
Riding the lists round to the dais:
Till where Can Grande rules the lists,
As young as Truth, as calm as Force,
She draws her rein now, while her horse
Bows at the turn of the white wrists;
And when each knight within his stall
Gives ear, she speaks and tells them all:
All the foul tale,—truth sworn untrue
And falsehood's triumph. All the tale?
Great God! and must she not prevail
To fire them ere they heard it through,—
And hand achieve ere heart could rest
That high adventure of her quest?
How would his Florence lead them forth,
Her bridle ringing as she went;
And at the last within her tent,
'Neath golden lilies worship-worth,
How queenly would she bend the while
And thank the victors with her smile!
Also her lips should turn his way
And murmur: “O thou tried and true,
With whom I wept the long years through!
What shall it profit if I say,
Thee I remember? Nay, through thee
All ages shall remember me.”
Peace, Dante, peace! The task is long,
The time wears short to compass it.
Within thine heart such hopes may flit
And find a voice in deathless song:
But lo! as children of man's earth,
Those hopes are dead before their birth.
Fame tells us that Verona's court
Was a fair place. The feet might still
Wander for ever at their will
In many ways of sweet resort;
And still in many a heart around
The Poet's name due honour found.
Watch we his steps. He comes upon
72
The women at their palm-playing.
The conduits round the gardens sing
And meet in scoops of milk-white stone,
Where wearied damsels rest and hold
Their hands in the wet spurt of gold.
One of whom, knowing well that he,
By some found stern, was mild with them,
Would run and pluck his garment's hem,
Saying, “Messer Dante, pardon me,”—
Praying that they might hear the song
Which first of all he made, when young.
“Donne che avete” . . . Thereunto
Thus would he murmur, having first
Drawn near the fountain, while she nurs'd
His hand against her side: a few
Sweet words, and scarcely those, half said:
Then turned, and changed, and bowed his head.
For then the voice said in his heart,
“Even I, even I am Beatrice”;
And his whole life would yearn to cease:
Till having reached his room, apart
Beyond vast lengths of palace-floor,
He drew the arras round his door.
At such times, Dante, thou hast set
Thy forehead to the painted pane
Full oft, I know; and if the rain
Smote it outside, her fingers met
Thy brow; and if the sun fell there,
Her breath was on thy face and hair.
Then, weeping, I think certainly
Thou hast beheld, past sight of eyne,—
Within another room of thine
Where now thy body may not be
But where in thought thou still remain'st,—
A window often wept against:
The window thou, a youth, hast sought,
Flushed in the limpid eventime,
Ending with daylight the day's rhyme
Of her; where oftenwhiles her thought
Held thee—the lamp untrimmed to write—
In joy through the blue lapse of night.
At Can La Scala's court, no doubt,
73
Guests seldom wept. It was brave sport,
No doubt, at Can La Scala's court,
Within the palace and without;
Where music, set to madrigals,
Loitered all day through groves and halls.
Because Can Grande of his life
Had not had six-and-twenty years
As yet. And when the chroniclers
Tell you of that Vicenza strife
And of strifes elsewhere,—you must not
Conceive for church-sooth he had got
Just nothing in his wits but war:
Though doubtless 'twas the young man's joy
(Grown with his growth from a mere boy,)
To mark his “Viva Cane!” scare
The foe's shut front, till it would reel
All blind with shaken points of steel.
But there were places—held too sweet
For eyes that had not the due veil
Of lashes and clear lids—as well
In favour as his saddle-seat:
Breath of low speech he scorned not there
Nor light cool fingers in his hair.
Yet if the child whom the sire's plan
Made free of a deep treasure-chest
Scoffed it with ill-conditioned jest,—
We may be sure too that the man
Was not mere thews, nor all content
With lewdness swathed in sentiment.
So you may read and marvel not
That such a man as Dante—one
Who, while Can Grande's deeds were done,
Had drawn his robe round him and thought—
Now at the same guest-table far'd
Where keen Uguccio wiped his beard.
Through leaves and trellis-work the sun
Left the wine cool within the glass,—
They feasting where no sun could pass:
And when the women, all as one,
Rose up with brightened cheeks to go,
It was a comely thing, we know.
But Dante recked not of the wine;
74
Whether the women stayed or went,
His visage held one stern intent:
And when the music had its sign
To breathe upon them for more ease,
Sometimes he turned and bade it cease.
And as he spared not to rebuke
The mirth, so oft in council he
To bitter truth bore testimony:
And when the crafty balance shook
Well poised to make the wrong prevail,
Then Dante's hand would turn the scale.
And if some envoy from afar
Sailed to Verona's sovereign port
For aid or peace, and all the court
Fawned on its lord, “the Mars of war,
Sole arbiter of life and death,”—
Be sure that Dante saved his breath.
And Can La Scala marked askance
These things, accepting them for shame
And scorn, till Dante's guestship came
To be a peevish sufferance:
His host sought ways to make his days
Hateful; and such have many ways.
There was a Jester, a foul lout
Whom the court loved for graceless arts;
Sworn scholiast of the bestial parts
Of speech; a ribald mouth to shout
In Folly's horny tympanum
Such things as make the wise man dumb.
Much loved, him Dante loathed. And so,
One day when Dante felt perplexed
If any day that could come next
Were worth the waiting for or no,
And mute he sat amid their din,—
Can Grande called the Jester in.
Rank words, with such, are wit's best wealth.
Lords mouthed approval; ladies kept
Twittering with clustered heads, except
Some few that took their trains by stealth
And went. Can Grande shook his hair
And smote his thighs and laughed i' the air.
Then, facing on his guest, he cried,—
75
“Say, Messer Dante, how it is
I get out of a clown like this
More than your wisdom can provide.”
And Dante: “'Tis man's ancient whim
That still his like seems good to him.”
Also a tale is told, how once,
At clearing tables after meat,
Piled for a jest at Dante's feet
Were found the dinner's well-picked bones;
So laid, to please the banquet's lord,
By one who crouched beneath the board.
Then smiled Can Grande to the rest:—
“Our Dante's tuneful mouth indeed
Lacks not the gift on flesh to feed!”
“Fair host of mine,” replied the guest,
“So many bones you'd not descry
If so it chanced the dog were I.”
But wherefore should we turn the grout
In a drained cup, or be at strife
From the worn garment of a life
To rip the twisted ravel out?
Good needs expounding; but of ill
Each hath enough to guess his fill.
They named him Justicer-at-Law:
Each month to bear the tale in mind
Of hues a wench might wear unfin'd
And of the load an ox might draw;
To cavil in the weight of bread
And to see purse-thieves gibbeted.
And when his spirit wove the spell
(From under even to over-noon
In converse with itself alone,)
As high as Heaven, as low as Hell,—
He would be summoned and must go:
For had not Gian stabbed Giacomo?
Therefore the bread he had to eat
Seemed brackish, less like corn than tares;
And the rush-strown accustomed stairs
Each day were steeper to his feet;
And when the night-vigil was done,
His brows would ache to feel the sun.
Nevertheless, when from his kin
76
There came the tidings how at last
In Florence a decree was pass'd
Whereby all banished folk might win
Free pardon, so a fine were paid
And act of public penance made,—
This Dante writ in answer thus,
Words such as these: “That clearly they
In Florence must not have to say,—
The man abode aloof from us
Nigh fifteen years, yet lastly skulk'd
Hither to candleshrift and mulct.
“That he was one the Heavens forbid
To traffic in God's justice sold
By market-weight of earthly gold,
Or to bow down over the lid
Of steaming censers, and so be
Made clean of manhood's obloquy.
“That since no gate led, by God's will,
To Florence, but the one whereat
The priests and money-changers sat,
He still would wander; for that still,
Even through the body's prison-bars,
His soul possessed the sun and stars.”
Such were his words. It is indeed
For ever well our singers should
Utter good words and know them good
Not through song only; with close heed
Lest, having spent for the work's sake
Six days, the man be left to make.
Months o'er Verona, till the feast
Was come for Florence the Free Town:
And at the shrine of Baptist John
The exiles, girt with many a priest
And carrying candles as they went,
Were held to mercy of the saint.
On the high seats in sober state,—
Gold neck-chains range o'er range below
Gold screen-work where the lilies grow,—
The Heads of the Republic sate,
Marking the humbled face go by
Each one of his house-enemy.
And as each proscript rose and stood
77
From kneeling in the ashen dust
On the shrine-steps, some magnate thrust
A beard into the velvet hood
Of his front colleague's gown, to see
The cinders stuck in the bare knee.
Tosinghi passed, Manelli passed,
Rinucci passed, each in his place;
But not an Alighieri's face
Went by that day from first to last
In the Republic's triumph; nor
A foot came home to Dante's door.
(RESPUBLICA—a public thing:
A shameful shameless prostitute,
Whose lust with one lord may not suit,
So takes by turn its revelling
A night with each, till each at morn
Is stripped and beaten forth forlorn,
And leaves her, cursing her. If she,
Indeed, have not some spice-draught, hid
In scent under a silver lid,
To drench his open throat with—he
Once hard asleep; and thrust him not
At dawn beneath the stairs to rot.
Such this Republic!—not the Maid
He yearned for; she who yet should stand
With Heaven's accepted hand in hand,
Invulnerable and unbetray'd:
To whom, even as to God, should be
Obeisance one with Liberty.)
Years filled out their twelve moons, and ceased
One in another; and alway
There were the whole twelve hours each day
And each night as the years increased;
And rising moon and setting sun
Beheld that Dante's work was done.
What of his work for Florence? Well
It was, he knew, and well must be.
Yet evermore her hate's decree
Dwelt in his thought intolerable:—
His body to be burned,*—his soul
To beat its wings at hope's vain goal.
What of his work for Beatrice?
78
Now well-nigh was the third song writ,—
The stars a third time sealing it
With sudden music of pure peace:
For echoing thrice the threefold song,
The unnumbered stars the tone prolong.†
Each hour, as then the Vision pass'd,
He heard the utter harmony
Of the nine trembling spheres, till she
Bowed her eyes towards him in the last,
So that all ended with her eyes,
Hell, Purgatory, Paradise.
“It is my trust, as the years fall,
To write more worthily of her
Who now, being made God's minister,
Looks on His visage and knows all.”
Such was the hope that love dar'd blend
With grief's slow fires, to make an end
Of the “New Life,” his youth's dear book:
Adding thereunto: “In such trust
I labour, and believe I must
Accomplish this which my soul took
In charge, if God, my Lord and hers,
Leave my life with me a few years.”
The trust which he had borne in youth
Was all at length accomplished. He
At length had written worthily—
Yea even of her; no rhymes uncouth
'Twixt tongue and tongue; but by God's aid
The first words Italy had said.
Ah! haply now the heavenly guide
Was not the last form seen by him:
But there that Beatrice stood slim
And bowed in passing at his side,
For whom in youth his heart made moan
Then when the city sat alone Quomodo sedet sola civitas!
—The words quoted by Dante in the Vita Nuova when
he speaks of the death of Beatrice.
Clearly herself: the same whom he
Met, not past girlhood, in the street,
Low-bosomed and with hidden feet;
And then as woman perfectly,
In years that followed, many an once,—
79
And now at last among the suns
In that high vision. But indeed
It may be memory might recall
Last to him then the first of all,—
The child his boyhood bore in heed
Nine years. At length the voice brought peace,—
“Even I, even I am Beatrice.”
All this, being there, we had not seen.
Seen only was the shadow wrought
On the strong features bound in thought;
The vagueness gaining gait and mien;
The white streaks gathering clear to view
In the burnt beard the women knew.
For a tale tells that on his track,
As through Verona's streets he went,
This saying certain women sent:—
“Lo, he that strolls to Hell and back
At will! Behold him, how Hell's reek
Has crisped his beard and singed his cheek.”
“Whereat” (Boccaccio's words) “he smiled
For pride in fame.” It might be so:
Nevertheless we cannot know
If haply he were not beguiled
To bitterer mirth, who scarce could tell
If he indeed were back from Hell.
So the day came, after a space,
When Dante felt assured that there
The sunshine must lie sicklier
Even than in any other place,
Save only Florence. When that day
Had come, he rose and went his way.
He went and turned not. From his shoes
It may be that he shook the dust,
As every righteous dealer must
Once and again ere life can close:
And unaccomplished destiny
Struck cold his forehead, it may be.
No book keeps record how the Prince
Sunned himself out of Dante's reach,
Nor how the Jester stank in speech:
While courtiers, used to cringe and wince,
Poets and harlots, all the throng,
80
Let loose their scandal and their song.
No book keeps record if the seat
Which Dante held at his host's board
Were sat in next by clerk or lord,—
If leman lolled with dainty feet
At ease, or hostage brooded there,
Or priest lacked silence for his prayer.
Eat and wash hands, Can Grande;—scarce
We know their deeds now: hands which fed
Our Dante with that bitter bread;
And thou the watch-dog of those stairs
Which, of all paths his feet knew well,
Were steeper found than Heaven or Hell.
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,#NFDB
289:Hero And Leander: The First Sestiad
On Hellespont, guilty of true-love's blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune's might;
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
And offered as a dower his burning throne,
Where she should sit for men to gaze upon.
The outside of her garments were of lawn,
The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;
Her wide sleeves green, and bordered with a grove,
Where Venus in her naked glory strove
To please the careless and disdainful eyes
Of proud Adonis, that before her lies.
Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.
Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,
From whence her veil reached to the ground beneath.
Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives.
Many would praise the sweet smell as she passed,
When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast;
And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
And, beat from thence, have lighted there again.
About her neck hung chains of pebblestone,
Which, lightened by her neck, like diamonds shone.
She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind
Would burn or parch her hands, but to her mind,
Or warm or cool them, for they took delight
To play upon those hands, they were so white.
Buskins of shells, all silvered used she,
And branched with blushing coral to the knee;
Where sparrows perched of hollow pearl and gold,
Such as the world would wonder to behold.
Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,
Which, as she went, would chirrup through the bills.
Some say for her the fairest Cupid pined
And looking in her face was strooken blind.
But this is true: so like was one the other,
17
As he imagined Hero was his mother.
And oftentimes into her bosom flew,
About her naked neck his bare arms threw,
And laid his childish head upon her breast,
And, with still panting rocked, there took his rest.
So lovely fair was Hero, Venus' nun,
As Nature wept, thinking she was undone,
Because she took more from her than she left,
And of such wondrous beauty her bereft.
Therefore, in sign her treasure suffered wrack,
Since Hero's time hath half the world been black.
Amorous Leander, beautiful and young,
(whose tragedy divine Musaeus sung,)
Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none
For whom succeeding times make greater moan.
His dangling tresses, that were never shorn,
Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,
Would have allured the vent'rous youth of Greece
To hazard more than for the golden fleece.
Fair Cynthia wished his arms might be her sphere;
Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there.
His body was as straight as Circe's wand;
Jove might have sipped out nectar from his hand.
Even as delicious meat is to the taste,
So was his neck in touching, and surpassed
The white of Pelop's shoulder. I could tell ye
How smooth his breast was and how white his belly;
And whose immortal fingers did imprint
That heavenly path with many a curious dint
That runs along his back, but my rude pen
Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men,
Much less of powerful gods. Let it suffice
That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes,
Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his
That leaped into the water for a kiss
Of his own shadow and, despising many,
Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.
Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen
Enamoured of his beauty had he been.
His presence made the rudest peasant melt
That in the vast uplandish country dwelt.
The barbarous Thracian soldier, moved with nought,
18
Was moved with him and for his favour sought.
Some swore he was a maid in man's attire,
For in his looks were all that men desire,
A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye,
A brow for love to banquet royally;
And such as knew he was a man, would say,
'Leander, thou art made for amorous play.
Why art thou not in love, and loved of all?
Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall.'
The men of wealthy Sestos every year,
(For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,
Rose-cheeked Adonis) kept a solemn feast.
Thither resorted many a wandering guest
To meet their loves.
Such as had none at all,
Came lovers home from this great festival.
For every street like to a firmament
Glistered with breathing stars who, where they went,
Frighted the melancholy earth which deemed
Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seemed,
As if another Phaeton had got
The guidance of the sun's rich chariot.
But far above the loveliest Hero shined
And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind,
For like sea nymphs' enveigling Harmony,
So was her beauty to the standers by.
Nor that night-wandering, pale, and wat'ry star
(When yawning dragons draw her thirling car
From Latmus' mount up to the gloomy sky
Where, crowned with blazing light and majesty,
She proudly sits) more overrules the flood
Than she the hearts of those that near her stood.
Even as, when gaudy nymphs pursue the chase,
Wretched Ixion's shaggy footed race,
Incensed with savage heat, gallop amain
From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain.
So ran the people forth to gaze upon her,
And all that viewed her were enamoured on her.
And as in fury of a dreadful fight,
Their fellows being slain or put to flight,
Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead strooken,
So at her presence all surprised and tooken,
19
Await the sentence of her scornful eyes.
He whom she favours lives, the other dies.
There might you see one sigh, another rage;
And some, (their violent passions to assuage)
Compile sharp satires, but alas too late,
For faithful love will never turn to hate.
And many seeing great princes were denied
Pin'd as they went, and thinking on her died.
On this feast day, O cursed day and hour,
Went Hero thorough Sestos from her tower
To Venus' temple, where unhappily
As after chanced, they did each other spy.
So fair a church as this had Venus none.
The walls were of discoloured jasper stone
Wherein was Proteus carved, and o'erhead
A lively vine of green sea agate spread,
Where by one hand lightheaded Bacchus hung,
And, with the other, wine from grapes out wrung.
Of crystal shining fair the pavement was.
The town of Sestos called it Venus' glass.
There might you see the gods in sundry shapes
Committing heady riots, incest, rapes.
For know, that underneath this radiant floor
Was Danae's statue in a brazen tower,
Jove slyly stealing from his sister's bed,
To dally with Idalian Ganymede,
And for his love Europa bellowing loud,
And tumbling with the Rainbow in a cloud;
Blood quaffing Mars heaving the iron net
Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set;
Love kindling fire to burn such towns as Troy;
Sylvanus weeping for the lovely boy
That now is turned into a cypress tree,
Under whose shade the wood gods love to be.
And in the midst a silver altar stood.
There Hero, sacrificing turtle's blood,
Vailed to the ground, vailing her eyelids close,
And modestly they opened as she rose.
Thence flew Love's arrow with the golden head,
And thus Leander was enamoured.
Stone still he stood, and evermore he gazed
Till with the fire that from his countenance blazed
20
Relenting Hero's gentle heart was strook.
Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.
It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin
We wish that one should lose, the other win.
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots like in each respect.
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
He kneeled, but unto her devoutly prayed.
Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said,
'Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him; '
And, as she spake those words, came somewhat near him.
He started up, she blushed as one ashamed,
Wherewith Leander much more was inflamed.
He touched her hand; in touching it she trembled.
Love deeply grounded, hardly is dissembled.
These lovers parleyed by the touch of hands;
True love is mute, and oft amazed stands.
Thus while dumb signs their yielding hearts entangled,
The air with sparks of living fire was spangled,
And night, deep drenched in misty Acheron,
Heaved up her head, and half the world upon
Breathed darkness forth (dark night is Cupid's day) .
And now begins Leander to display
Love's holy fire, with words, with sighs, and tears,
Which like sweet music entered Hero's ears,
And yet at every word she turned aside,
And always cut him off as he replied.
At last, like to a bold sharp sophister,
With cheerful hope thus he accosted her.
'Fair creature, let me speak without offence.
I would my rude words had the influence
To lead thy thoughts as thy fair looks do mine,
Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine.
Be not unkind and fair; misshapen stuff
Are of behaviour boisterous and rough.
O shun me not, but hear me ere you go.
God knows I cannot force love as you do.
21
My words shall be as spotless as my youth,
Full of simplicity and naked truth.
This sacrifice, (whose sweet perfume descending
From Venus' altar, to your footsteps bending)
Doth testify that you exceed her far,
To whom you offer, and whose nun you are.
Why should you worship her? Her you surpass
As much as sparkling diamonds flaring glass.
A diamond set in lead his worth retains;
A heavenly nymph, beloved of human swains,
Receives no blemish, but ofttimes more grace;
Which makes me hope, although I am but base:
Base in respect of thee, divine and pure,
Dutiful service may thy love procure.
And I in duty will excel all other,
As thou in beauty dost exceed Love's mother.
Nor heaven, nor thou, were made to gaze upon,
As heaven preserves all things, so save thou one.
A stately builded ship, well rigged and tall,
The ocean maketh more majestical.
Why vowest thou then to live in Sestos here
Who on Love's seas more glorious wouldst appear?
Like untuned golden strings all women are,
Which long time lie untouched, will harshly jar.
Vessels of brass, oft handled, brightly shine.
What difference betwixt the richest mine
And basest mould, but use? For both, not used,
Are of like worth. Then treasure is abused
When misers keep it; being put to loan,
In time it will return us two for one.
Rich robes themselves and others do adorn;
Neither themselves nor others, if not worn.
Who builds a palace and rams up the gate
Shall see it ruinous and desolate.
Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish.
Lone women like to empty houses perish.
Less sins the poor rich man that starves himself
In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf,
Than such as you. His golden earth remains
Which, after his decease, some other gains.
But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone,
When you fleet hence, can be bequeathed to none.
22
Or, if it could, down from th'enameled sky
All heaven would come to claim this legacy,
And with intestine broils the world destroy,
And quite confound nature's sweet harmony.
Well therefore by the gods decreed it is
We human creatures should enjoy that bliss.
One is no number; maids are nothing then
Without the sweet society of men.
Wilt thou live single still? One shalt thou be,
Though never singling Hymen couple thee.
Wild savages, that drink of running springs,
Think water far excels all earthly things,
But they that daily taste neat wine despise it.
Virginity, albeit some highly prize it,
Compared with marriage, had you tried them both,
Differs as much as wine and water doth.
Base bullion for the stamp's sake we allow;
Even so for men's impression do we you,
By which alone, our reverend fathers say,
Women receive perfection every way.
This idol which you term virginity
Is neither essence subject to the eye
No, nor to any one exterior sense,
Nor hath it any place of residence,
Nor is't of earth or mould celestial,
Or capable of any form at all.
Of that which hath no being do not boast;
Things that are not at all are never lost.
Men foolishly do call it virtuous;
What virtue is it that is born with us?
Much less can honour be ascribed thereto;
Honour is purchased by the deeds we do.
Believe me, Hero, honour is not won
Until some honourable deed be done.
Seek you for chastity, immortal fame,
And know that some have wronged Diana's name?
Whose name is it, if she be false or not
So she be fair, but some vile tongues will blot?
But you are fair, (ay me) so wondrous fair,
So young, so gentle, and so debonair,
As Greece will think if thus you live alone
Some one or other keeps you as his own.
23
Then, Hero, hate me not nor from me fly
To follow swiftly blasting infamy.
Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath.
Tell me, to whom mad'st thou that heedless oath? '
'To Venus,' answered she and, as she spake,
Forth from those two tralucent cisterns brake
A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face
Made milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace
To Jove's high court.
He thus replied: 'The rites
In which love's beauteous empress most delights
Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel,
Plays, masks, and all that stern age counteth evil.
Thee as a holy idiot doth she scorn
For thou in vowing chastity hast sworn
To rob her name and honour, and thereby
Committ'st a sin far worse than perjury,
Even sacrilege against her deity,
Through regular and formal purity.
To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands.
Such sacrifice as this Venus demands.'
Thereat she smiled and did deny him so,
As put thereby, yet might he hope for moe.
Which makes him quickly re-enforce his speech,
And her in humble manner thus beseech.
'Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve,
Yet for her sake, whom you have vowed to serve,
Abandon fruitless cold virginity,
The gentle queen of love's sole enemy.
Then shall you most resemble Venus' nun,
When Venus' sweet rites are performed and done.
Flint-breasted Pallas joys in single life,
But Pallas and your mistress are at strife.
Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous,
But heal the heart that thou hast wounded thus,
Nor stain thy youthful years with avarice.
Fair fools delight to be accounted nice.
The richest corn dies, if it be not reaped;
Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept.'
These arguments he used, and many more,
Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.
Hero's looks yielded but her words made war.
24
Women are won when they begin to jar.
Thus, having swallowed Cupid's golden hook,
The more she strived, the deeper was she strook.
Yet, evilly feigning anger, strove she still
And would be thought to grant against her will.
So having paused a while at last she said,
'Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?
Ay me, such words as these should I abhor
And yet I like them for the orator.'
With that Leander stooped to have embraced her
But from his spreading arms away she cast her,
And thus bespake him: 'Gentle youth, forbear
To touch the sacred garments which I wear.
Upon a rock and underneath a hill
Far from the town (where all is whist and still,
Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand,
Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land,
Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus
In silence of the night to visit us)
My turret stands and there, God knows, I play.
With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day.
A dwarfish beldam bears me company,
That hops about the chamber where I lie,
And spends the night (that might be better spent)
In vain discourse and apish merriment.
Come thither.' As she spake this, her tongue tripped,
For unawares 'come thither' from her slipped.
And suddenly her former colour changed,
And here and there her eyes through anger ranged.
And like a planet, moving several ways,
At one self instant she, poor soul, assays,
Loving, not to love at all, and every part
Strove to resist the motions of her heart.
And hands so pure, so innocent, nay, such
As might have made heaven stoop to have a touch,
Did she uphold to Venus, and again
Vowed spotless chastity, but all in vain.
Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings,
Her vows above the empty air he flings,
All deep enraged, his sinewy bow he bent,
And shot a shaft that burning from him went,
Wherewith she strooken, looked so dolefully,
25
As made love sigh to see his tyranny.
And as she wept her tears to pearl he turned,
And wound them on his arm and for her mourned.
Then towards the palace of the destinies
Laden with languishment and grief he flies,
And to those stern nymphs humbly made request
Both might enjoy each other, and be blest.
But with a ghastly dreadful countenance,
Threatening a thousand deaths at every glance,
They answered Love, nor would vouchsafe so much
As one poor word, their hate to him was such.
Hearken a while and I will tell you why.
Heaven's winged herald, Jove-borne Mercury,
The selfsame day that he asleep had laid
Enchanted Argus, spied a country maid
Whose careless hair instead of pearl t'adorn it
Glistered with dew, as one that seemed to scorn it;
Her breath as fragrant as the morning rose,
Her mind pure, and her tongue untaught to gloze.
Yet proud she was (for lofty pride that dwells
In towered courts is oft in shepherds' cells.)
And too too well the fair vermilion knew,
And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew
The love of every swain. On her this god
Enamoured was, and with his snaky rod
Did charm her nimble feet, and made her stay,
The while upon a hillock down he lay
And sweetly on his pipe began to play,
And with smooth speech her fancy to assay,
Till in his twining arms he locked her fast
And then he wooed with kisses; and at last,
As shepherds do, her on the ground he laid
And, tumbling in the grass, he often strayed
Beyond the bounds of shame, in being bold
To eye those parts which no eye should behold.
And, like an insolent commanding lover
Boasting his parentage, would needs discover
The way to new Elysium, but she,
Whose only dower was her chastity,
Having striv'n in vain was now about to cry
And crave the help of shepherds that were nigh.
Herewith he stayed his fury, and began
26
To give her leave to rise. Away she ran;
After went Mercury who used such cunning
As she, to hear his tale, left off her running.
Maids are not won by brutish force and might,
But speeches full of pleasure, and delight.
And, knowing Hermes courted her, was glad
That she such loveliness and beauty had
As could provoke his liking, yet was mute
And neither would deny nor grant his suit.
Still vowed he love. She, wanting no excuse
To feed him with delays, as women use,
Or thirsting after immortality, All women are ambitious naturally Imposed upon her lover such a task
As he ought not perform nor yet she ask.
A draught of flowing nectar she requested,
Wherewith the king of gods and men is feasted.
He, ready to accomplish what she willed,
Stole some from Hebe (Hebe Jove's cup filled)
And gave it to his simple rustic love.
Which being known (as what is hid from Jove?)
He inly stormed and waxed more furious
Than for the fire filched by Prometheus,
And thrusts him down from heaven. He, wandering here,
In mournful terms, with sad and heavy cheer,
Complained to Cupid. Cupid for his sake,
To be revenged on Jove did undertake.
And those on whom heaven, earth, and hell relies,
I mean the adamantine Destinies,
He wounds with love, and forced them equally
To dote upon deceitful Mercury.
They offered him the deadly fatal knife
That shears the slender threads of human life.
At his fair feathered feet the engines laid
Which th' earth from ugly Chaos' den upweighed.
These he regarded not but did entreat
That Jove, usurper of his father's seat,
Might presently be banished into hell,
And aged Saturn in Olympus dwell.
They granted what he craved, and once again
Saturn and Ops began their golden reign.
Murder, rape, war, lust, and treachery,
27
Were with Jove closed in Stygian empery.
But long this blessed time continued not.
As soon as he his wished purpose got
He reckless of his promise did despise
The love of th' everlasting Destinies.
They seeing it both love and him abhorred
And Jupiter unto his place restored.
And but that Learning in despite of Fate
Will mount aloft and enter heaven gate
And to the seat of Jove itself advance,
Hermes had slept in hell with Ignorance.
Yet as a punishment they added this,
That he and Poverty should always kiss.
And to this day is every scholar poor;
Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor.
Likewise the angry Sisters thus deluded,
To venge themselves on Hermes, have concluded
That Midas' brood shall sit in honour's chair,
To which the Muses' sons are only heir;
And fruitful wits, that in aspiring are,
Shall discontent run into regions far;
And few great lords in virtuous deeds shall joy
But be surprised with every garish toy,
And still enrich the lofty servile clown,
Who with encroaching guile keeps learning down.
Then Muse not Cupid's suit no better sped,
Seeing in their loves the Fates were injured.
~ Christopher Marlowe,#NFDB
290:The Botanic Garden (Part Vi)
THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.
CANTO II.
Again the Goddess strikes the golden lyre,
And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire;
With soft suspended step Attention moves,
And Silence hovers o'er the listening groves;
Orb within orb the charmed audience throng,
And the green vault reverberates the song.
'Breathe soft, ye Gales!' the fair CARLINA cries,
Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies.
How sweetly mutable yon orient hues,
As Morn's fair hand her opening roses strews;
How bright, when Iris blending many a ray
Binds in embroider'd wreath the brow of Day;
Soft, when the pendant Moon with lustres pale
O'er heaven's blue arch unfurls her milky veil;
While from the north long threads of silver light
Dart on swift shuttles o'er the tissued night!
'Breathe soft, ye Zephyrs! hear my fervent sighs,
Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies!'-Plume over plume in long divergent lines
On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins;
Inlays with eider down the silken strings,
And weaves in wide expanse Dædalian wings;
Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds,
And walks with angel-step upon the winds.
So on the shoreless air the intrepid Gaul
Launch'd the vast concave of his buoyant ball.Journeying on high, the silken castle glides
Bright as a meteor through the azure tides;
O'er towns and towers and temples wins its way,
Or mounts sublime, and gilds the vault of day.
Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds
Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds;
And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear,
Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere.
-Now less and less!-and now a speck is seen!-
41
And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between!With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brow
To every shrine with mingled cries they vow.'Save Him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside;
'Bear Him, ye Winds! ye Stars benignant! guide.'
-The calm Philosopher in ether fails,
Views broader stars, and breathes in purer gales;
Sees, like a map, in many a waving line
Round Earth's blue plains her lucid waters mine;
Sees at his feet the forky lightnings glow,
And hears innocuous thunders roar below.
--Rife, great MONGOLFIER! urge thy venturous flight
High o'er the Moon's pale ice-reflected light;
High o'er the pearly Star, whose beamy horn.
Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn;
Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing;
Jove's silver guards, and Saturn's dusky ring;
Leave the fair beams, which, issuing from afar;
Play with new lustres round the Georgian star;
Shun with strong oars the Sun's attractive throne,
The sparkling zodiack, and the milky zone;
Where headlong Comets with increasing force
Through other systems bend their blazing course.For thee Cassiope her chair withdraws,
For thee the Bear retracts his shaggy paws;
High o'er the North thy golden orb shall roll,
And blaze eternal round the wondering pole.
So Argo, rising from the southern main,
Lights with new stars the blue etherial plain;
With favoring beams the mariner protects,
And the bold course, which first it steer'd, directs.
Inventress of the Woof, fair LINA flings
The flying shuttle through the dancing strings;
Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes,
Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rise;
Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind,
And dance and nod the massy weights behind.Taught by her labours, from the fertile soil
Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile;
And fair ARACHNE with her rival loom
Found undeserved a melancholy doom.-
42
Five
Sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine
The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line;
Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel,
Or whirl with beaten foot the dizzy wheel.
-Charm'd round the busy Fair
five
shepherds press,
Praise the nice texture of their snowy dress,
Admire the Artists, and the art approve,
And tell with honey'd words the tale of love.
So now, where Derwent rolls his dusky floods
Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods,
The Nymph, GOSSYPIA, treads the velvet sod,
And warms with rosy smiles the watery God;
His ponderous oars to slender spindles turns,
And pours o'er massy wheels his foamy urns;
With playful charms her hoary lover wins,
And wields his trident,-while the Monarch spins.
-First with nice eye emerging Naiads cull
From leathery pods the vegetable wool;
With wiry teeth
revolving cards
release
The tanged knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece;
Next moves the
iron-band
with fingers fine,
Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line;
Slow, with soft lips, the
whirling Can
acquires
The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires;
With quicken'd pace
successive rollers
move,
And these retain, and those extend the
rove
Then fly the spoles, the rapid axles glow;And slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below.
PAPYRA, throned upon the banks of Nile,
43
Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style.
-The storied pyramid, the laurel'd bust,
The trophy'd arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song,
(Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,)
With each unconquer'd chief, or fainted maid,
Sunk undistinguish'd in Oblivion's shade.
Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd,
And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp and died.
Till to astonish'd realms PAPYRA taught
To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought.
With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of Time.
-Three favour'd youths her soft attention share,
The fond disciples of the studious Fair,
Hear her sweet voice, the golden process prove;
Gaze, as they learn; and, as they listen, love.
The first
from Alpha to Omega joins
The letter'd tribes along the level lines;
Weighs with nice ear the vowel, liquid, surd,
And breaks in syllables the volant word.
Then forms
the next
upon the marshal'd plain
In deepening ranks his dexterous cypher-train;
And counts, as wheel the decimating bands,
The dews of Ægypt, or Arabia's sands,
And then
the third
on four concordant lines
Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins;
Marks the gay trill, the solemn pause inscribes,
And parts with bars the undulating tribes.
Pleased round her cane-wove throne, the applauding crowd
Clap'd their rude hands, their swarthy foreheads bow'd;
With loud acclaim 'a present God!' they cry'd,
'A present God!' rebellowing shores reply'dThen peal'd at intervals with mingled swell
The echoing harp, shrill clarion, horn, and shell;
While Bards ecstatic, bending o'er the lyre,
44
Struck deeper chords, and wing'd the song with fire.
Then mark'd Astronomers with keener eyes
The Moon's refulgent journey through the skies;
Watch'd the swift Comets urge their blazing cars,
And weigh'd the Sun with his revolving Stars.
High raised the Chemists their Hermetic wands,
(And changing forms obey'd their waving hands,)
Her treasur'd gold from Earth's deep chambers tore,
Or fused and harden'd her chalybeate ore.
All with bent knee from fair PAPYRA claim
Wove by her hands the wreath of deathless fame.
-Exulting Genius crown'd his darling child,
The young Arts clasp'd her knees, and Virtue smiled.
So now DELANY forms her mimic bowers,
Her paper foliage, and her silken flowers;
Her virgin train the tender scissars ply,
Vein the green leaf, the purple petal dye:
Round wiry stems the flaxen tendril bends,
Moss creeps below, and waxen fruit impends.
Cold Winter views amid his realms of snow
DELANY'S vegetable statues blow;
Smooths his stern brow, delays his hoary wing,
And eyes with wonder all the blooms of spring.
The gentle LAPSANA, NYMPHÆA fair,
And bright CALENDULA with golden hair,
Watch with nice eye the Earth's diurnal way,
Marking her solar and sidereal day,
Her slow nutation, and her varying clime,
And trace with mimic art the march of Time;
Round his light foot a magic chain they fling,
And count the quick vibrations of his wing.First in its brazen cell reluctant roll'd
Bends the dark spring in many a steely fold;
On spiral brass is stretch'd the wiry thong,
Tooth urges tooth, and wheel drives wheel along;
In diamond-eyes the polish'd axles flow,
Smooth slides the hand, the ballance pants below.
Round the white circlet in relievo bold
A Serpent twines his scaly length in gold;
And brightly pencil'd on the enamel'd sphere
Live the fair trophies of the passing year.
-Here
45
Time's
huge fingers grasp his giant-mace,
And dash proud Superstition from her base,
Rend her strong towers and gorgeous fanes, and shed
The crumbling fragments round her guilty head.
There the gay
Hours
, whom wreaths of roses deck,
Lead their young trains amid the cumberous wreck;
And, slowly purpling o'er the mighty waste,
Plant the fair growths of Science and of Taste.
While each light
Moment
, as it dances by
With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,
Feeds from its baby-hand, with many a kiss,
The callow nestlings of domestic Bliss.
As yon gay clouds, which canopy the skies,
Change their thin forms, and lose their lucid dyes;
So the soft bloom of Beauty's vernal charms
Fades in our eyes, and withers in our arms.
-Bright as the silvery plume, or pearly shell,
The snow-white rose, or lily's virgin bell,
The fair HELLEBORAS attractive shone,
Warm'd every Sage, and every Shepherd won.Round the gay sisters press the
enamour'd bands
And seek with soft solicitude their hands.
-Ere while how chang'd!-in dim suffusion lies
The glance divine, that lighten'd in their eyes;
Cold are those lips, where smiles seductive hung,
And the weak accents linger on their tongue;
Each roseat feature fades to livid green,-Disgust with face averted shuts the scene.
So from his gorgeous throne, which awed the world,
The mighty Monarch of the east was hurl'd,
To dwell with brutes beneath the midnight storm,
By Heaven's just vengeance changed in mind and form.
-Prone to the earth He bends his brow superb,
Crops the young floret and the bladed herb;
Lolls his red tongue, and from the reedy side
46
Of slow Euphrates laps the muddy tide.
Long eagle-plumes his arching neck invest,
Steal round his arms, and clasp his sharpen'd breast;
Dark brinded hairs in bristling ranks, behind,
Rise o'er his back, and rustle in the wind,
Clothe his lank sides, his shrivel'd limbs surround,
And human hands with talons print the ground.
Silent in shining troops the Courtier-throng
Pursue their monarch as he crawls along;
E'en Beauty pleads in vain with smiles and tears,
Nor Flattery's self can pierce his pendant ears.
Two
Sister-Nymphs to Ganges' flowery brink
Bend their light steps, the lucid water drink,
Wind through the dewy rice, and nodding canes,
(As
eight
black Eunuchs guard the sacred plains),
With playful malice watch the scaly brood,
And shower the inebriate berries on the flood.Stay in your crystal chambers, silver tribes!
Turn your bright eyes, and shun the dangerous bribes;
The tramel'd net with less destruction sweeps
Your curling shallows, and your azure deeps;
With less deceit, the gilded fly beneath,
Lurks the fell hook unseen,-to taste is death!-Dim your slow eyes, and dull your pearly coat,
Drunk on the waves your languid forms shall float,
On useless fins in giddy circles play,
And Herons and Otters seize you for their prey.So, when the Saint from Padua's graceless land
In silent anguish sought the barren strand,
High on the shatter'd beech sublime He stood,
Still'd with his waving arm the babbling flood;
'To Man's dull ear,' He cry'd, 'I call in vain,
'Hear me, ye scaly tenants of the main!'Misshapen Seals approach in circling flocks,
In dusky mail the Tortoise climbs the rocks,
Torpedoes, Sharks, Rays, Porpus, Dolphins, pour
Their twinkling squadrons round the glittering shore;
47
With tangled fins, behind, huge Phocæ glide,
And Whales and Grampi swell the distant tide.
Then kneel'd the hoary Seer, to heaven address'd
His fiery eyes, and smote his sounding breast;
'Bless ye the Lord!' with thundering voice he cry'd,
'Bless ye the Lord!' the bending shores reply'd;
The winds and waters caught the sacred word,
And mingling echoes shouted 'Bless the Lord!'
The listening shoals the quick contagion feel,
Pant on the floods, inebriate with their zeal,
Ope their wide jaws, and bow their slimy heads,
And dash with frantic fins their foamy beds.
Sopha'd on silk, amid her charm-built towers,
Her meads of asphodel, and amaranth bowers,
Where Sleep and Silence guard the soft abodes,
In sullen apathy PAPAVER nods.
Faint o'er her couch in scintillating streams
Pass the thin forms of Fancy and of Dreams;
Froze by inchantment on the velvet ground
Fair youths and beauteous ladies glitter round;
On crystal pedestals they seem to sigh,
Bend the meek knee, and lift the imploring eye.
-And now the Sorceress bares her shrivel'd hand,
And circles thrice in air her ebon wand;
Flush'd with new life descending statues talk,
The pliant marble softening as they walk;
With deeper sobs reviving lovers breathe,
Fair bosoms rise, and soft hearts pant beneath;
With warmer lips relenting damsels speak,
And kindling blushes tinge the Parian cheek;
To viewless lutes aërial voices sing,
And hovering Loves are heard on rustling wing.
-She waves her wand again!-fresh horrors seize
Their stiffening limbs, their vital currents freeze;
By each cold nymph her marble lover lies,
And iron slumbers seal their glassy eyes.
So with his dread Caduceus HERMES led
From the dark regions of the imprison'd dead,
Or drove in silent shoals the lingering train
To Night's dull shore, and PLUTO'S dreary reign
So with her waving pencil CREWE commands
The realms of Taste, and Fancy's fairy lands;
48
Calls up with magic voice the shapes, that sleep
In earth's dark bosom, or unfathom'd deep;
That shrined in air on viewless wings aspire,
Or blazing bathe in elemental fire.
As with nice touch her plaistic hand she moves,
Rise the fine forms of Beauties, Graces, Loves;
Kneel to the fair Inchantress, smile or sigh,
And fade or flourish, as she turns her eye.
Fair CISTA, rival of the rosy dawn,
Call'd her light choir, and trod the dewy lawn;
Hail'd with rude melody the new-born May,
As cradled yet in April's lap she lay.
I.
'Born in yon blaze of orient sky,
'Sweet MAY! thy radiant form unfold;
'Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye,
'And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.
II.
'For Thee the fragrant zephyrs blow,
'For Thee descends the sunny shower;
'The rills in softer murmurs slow,
'And brighter blossoms gem the bower.
III.
'Light Graces dress'd in flowery wreaths
'And tiptoe Joys their hands combine;
'And Love his sweet contagion breathes,
'And laughing dances round thy shrine.
IV.
'Warm with new life the glittering throngs
'On quivering fin and rustling wing
'Delighted join their votive songs,
'And hail thee, GODDESS OF THE SPRING.'
O'er the green brinks of Severn's oozy bed,
49
In changeful rings, her sprightly troop She led;
PAN tripp'd before, where Eudness shades the mead,
And blew with glowing lip his sevenfold reed;
Emerging Naiads swell'd the jocund strain,
And aped with mimic step the dancing train.'I faint, I fall!'at noon
the Beauty cried,
'Weep o'er my tomb, ye Nymphs!'-and sunk and died.
-Thus, when white Winter o'er the shivering clime
Drives the still snow, or showers the silver rime;
As the lone shepherd o'er the dazzling rocks
Prints his steep step, and guides his vagrant flocks;
Views the green holly veil'd in network nice,
Her vermil clusters twinkling in the ice;
Admires the lucid vales, and slumbering floods,
Fantastic cataracts, and crystal woods,
Transparent towns, with seas of milk between,
And eyes with transport the refulgent scene:If breaks the sunshine o'er the spangled trees,
Or flits on tepid wing the western breeze,
In liquid dews descends the transient glare,
And all the glittering pageant melts in air.
Where Andes hides his cloud-wreath'd crest in snow,
And roots his base on burning sands below;
Cinchona, fairest of Peruvian maids
To Health's bright Goddess in the breezy glades
On Quito's temperate plain an altar rear'd,
Trill'd the loud hymn, the solemn prayer preferr'd:
Each balmy bud she cull'd, and honey'd flower,
And hung with fragrant wreaths the sacred bower;
Each pearly sea she search'd, and sparkling mine,
And piled their treasures on the gorgeous shrine;
Her suppliant voice for sickening Loxa raised,
Sweet breath'd the gale, and bright the censor blazed.
-'Divine HYGEIA! on thy votaries bend
Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!
While streaming o'er the night with baleful glare
The star of Autumn rays his misty hair;
Fierce from his fens the Giant AGUE springs,
And wrapp'd in fogs descends on vampire wings;
'Before, with shuddering limbs cold Tremor reels,
50
And Fever's burning nostril dogs his heels;
Loud claps the grinning Fiend his iron hands,
Stamps with his marble feet, and shouts along the lands;
Withers the damask cheek, unnerves the strong,
And drives with scorpion-lash the shrieking throng.
Oh, Goddess! on thy kneeling votaries bend
Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!'
-HYGEIA, leaning from the blest abodes,
The crystal mansions of the immortal gods,
Saw the sad Nymph uplift her dewy eyes,
Spread her white arms, and breathe her fervid sighs;
Call'd to her fair associates, Youth, and Joy,
And shot all-radiant through the glittering sky;
Loose waved behind her golden train of hair,
Her sapphire mantle swam diffus'd in air.O'er the grey matted moss, and pansied sod,
With step sublime the glowing Goddess trod,
Gilt with her beamy eye the conscious shade,
And with her smile celestial bless'd the maid.
'Come to my arms,' with seraph voice she cries,
'Thy vows are heard, benignant Nymph! arise;
Where yon aspiring trunks fantastic wreath
Their mingled roots, and drink the rill beneath,
Yield to the biting axe thy sacred wood,
And strew the bitter foliage on the flood.'
In silent homage bow'd the blushing maid,Five
youths athletic hasten to her aid,
O'er the scar'd hills re-echoing strokes resound,
And headlong forests thunder on the ground.
Round the dark roots, rent bark, and shatter'd boughs,
From ocherous beds the swelling fountain flows;
With streams austere its winding margin laves,
And pours from vale to vale its dusky waves.
-As the pale squadrons, bending o'er the brink,
View with a sigh their alter'd forms, and drink;
Slow-ebbing life with refluent crimson breaks
O'er their wan lips, and paints their haggard cheeks;
Through each fine nerve rekindling transports dart,
Light the quick eye, and swell the exulting heart.
-Thus ISRAEL's heaven-taught chief o'er trackless lands
51
Led to the sultry rock his murmuring bands.
Bright o'er his brows the forky radiance blazed,
And high in air the rod divine He raised.Wide yawns the cliff!-amid the thirsty throng
Rush the redundant waves, and shine along;
With gourds and shells and helmets press the bands,
Ope their parch'd lips, and spread their eager hands,
Snatch their pale infants to the exuberant shower,
Kneel on the shatter'd rock, and bless the Almighty Power.
Bolster'd with down, amid a thousand wants,
Pale Dropsy rears his bloated form, and pants;
'Quench me, ye cool pellucid rills!' he cries,
Wets his parch'd tongue, and rolls his hollow eyes.
So bends tormented TANTALUS to drink,
While from his lips the refluent waters shrink;
Again the rising stream his bosom laves,
And Thirst consumes him 'mid circumfluent waves.
-Divine HYGEIA, from the bending sky
Descending, listens to his piercing cry;
Assumes bright DIGITALIS' dress and air,
Her ruby cheek, white neck, and raven hair;
Four
youths protect her from the circling throng,
And like the Nymph the Goddess steps along.-O'er Him She waves her serpent-wreathed wand,
Cheers with her voice, and raises with her hand,
Warms with rekindling bloom his visage wan,
And charms the shapeless monster into man.
So when Contagion with mephitic breath
And withered Famine urged the work of death;
Marseilles' good Bishop, London's generous Mayor,
With food and faith, with medicine and with prayer,
Raised the weak head and stayed the parting sigh,
Or with new life relumed the swimming eye.-And now, PHILANTHROPY! thy rays divine
Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line;
O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light,
Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night.From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd,
Where'er Mankind and Misery are found,
O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow,
52
Thy HOWARD journeying seeks the house of woe.
Down many a winding step to dungeons dank,
Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank;
To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone,
And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan;
Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose,
No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows,
HE treads, inemulous of fame or wealth,
Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health;
With soft assuasive eloquence expands
Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands;
Leads stern-ey'd Justice to the dark domains,
If not to fever, to relax the chains;
Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom,
And shews the prison, sister to the tomb!Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife,
To her fond husband liberty and life!-The Spirits of the Good, who bend from high
Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye,
When first, array'd in VIRTUE'S purest robe,
They saw her HOWARD traversing the globe;
Saw round his brows her sun-like Glory blaze
In arrowy circles of unwearied rays;
Mistook a Mortal for an Angel-Guest,
And ask'd what Seraph-foot the earth imprest.
-Onward he moves!-Disease and Death retire,
And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire.'
Here paused the Goddess,-on HYGEIA'S shrine
Obsequious Gnomes repose the lyre divine;
Descending Sylphs relax the trembling strings,
And catch the rain-drops on their shadowy wings.
-And now her vase a modest Naiad fills
With liquid crystal from her pebbly rills;
Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn,
(Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling faggots burn),
Culls the green herb of China's envy'd bowers,
In gaudy cups the steamy treasure pours;
And, sweetly-smiling, on her bended knee
Presents the fragrant quintessence of Tea.
~ Erasmus Darwin,#NFDB
291:Gotham - Book I
Far off (no matter whether east or west,
A real country, or one made in jest,
Nor yet by modern Mandevilles disgraced,
Nor by map-jobbers wretchedly misplaced)
There lies an island, neither great nor small,
Which, for distinction sake, I Gotham call.
The man who finds an unknown country out,
By giving it a name, acquires, no doubt,
A Gospel title, though the people there
The pious Christian thinks not worth his care
Bar this pretence, and into air is hurl'd
The claim of Europe to the Western world.
Cast by a tempest on the savage coast,
Some roving buccaneer set up a post;
A beam, in proper form transversely laid,
Of his Redeemer's cross the figure made-Of that Redeemer, with whose laws his life,
From first to last, had been one scene of strife;
His royal master's name thereon engraved,
Without more process the whole race enslaved,
Cut off that charter they from Nature drew,
And made them slaves to men they never knew.
Search ancient histories, consult records,
Under this title the most Christian lords
Hold (thanks to conscience) more than half the ball;
O'erthrow this title, they have none at all;
For never yet might any monarch dare,
Who lived to Truth, and breathed a Christian air,
Pretend that Christ, (who came, we all agree,
To bless his people, and to set them free)
To make a convert, ever one law gave
By which converters made him first a slave.
Spite of the glosses of a canting priest,
Who talks of charity, but means a feast;
Who recommends it (whilst he seems to feel
The holy glowings of a real zeal)
To all his hearers as a deed of worth,
To give them heaven whom they have robb'd of earth;
Never shall one, one truly honest man,
25
Who, bless'd with Liberty, reveres her plan,
Allow one moment that a savage sire
Could from his wretched race, for childish hire,
By a wild grant, their all, their freedom pass,
And sell his country for a bit of glass.
Or grant this barbarous right, let Spain and France,
In slavery bred, as purchasers advance;
Let them, whilst Conscience is at distance hurl'd,
With some gay bauble buy a golden world:
An Englishman, in charter'd freedom born,
Shall spurn the slavish merchandise, shall scorn
To take from others, through base private views,
What he himself would rather die, than lose.
Happy the savage of those early times,
Ere Europe's sons were known, and Europe's crimes!
Gold, cursed gold! slept in the womb of earth,
Unfelt its mischiefs, as unknown its worth;
In full content he found the truest wealth,
In toil he found diversion, food, and health;
Stranger to ease and luxury of courts,
His sports were labours, and his labours sports;
His youth was hardy, and his old age green;
Life's morn was vigorous, and her eve serene;
No rules he held, but what were made for use,
No arts he learn'd, nor ills which arts produce;
False lights he follow'd, but believed them true;
He knew not much, but lived to what he knew.
Happy, thrice happy now the savage race,
Since Europe took their gold, and gave them grace!
Pastors she sends to help them in their need,
Some who can't write; with others who can't read;
And on sure grounds the gospel pile to rear,
Sends missionary felons every year;
Our vices, with more zeal than holy prayers,
She teaches them, and in return takes theirs.
Her rank oppressions give them cause to rise,
Her want of prudence, means and arms supplies,
Whilst her brave rage, not satisfied with life,
Rising in blood, adopts the scalping-knife.
Knowledge she gives, enough to make them know
How abject is their state, how deep their woe;
The worth of freedom strongly she explains,
26
Whilst she bows down, and loads their necks with chains.
Faith, too, she plants, for her own ends impress'd,
To make them bear the worst, and hope the best;
And whilst she teaches, on vile Interest's plan,
As laws of God, the wild decrees of man,
Like Pharisees, of whom the Scriptures tell,
She makes them ten times more the sons of Hell.
But whither do these grave reflections tend?
Are they design'd for any, or no end?
Briefly but this--to prove, that by no act
Which Nature made, that by no equal pact
'Twixt man and man, which might, if Justice heard,
Stand good; that by no benefits conferr'd,
Or purchase made, Europe in chains can hold
The sons of India, and her mines of gold.
Chance led her there in an accursed hour;
She saw, and made the country hers by power;
Nor, drawn by virtue's love from love of fame,
Shall my rash folly controvert the claim,
Or wish in thought that title overthrown
Which coincides with and involves my own.
Europe discover'd India first; I found
My right to Gotham on the self-same ground;
I first discover'd it, nor shall that plea
To her be granted, and denied to me;
I plead possession, and, till one more bold
Shall drive me out, will that possession hold.
With Europe's rights my kindred rights I twine;
Hers be the Western world, be Gotham mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
As on a day, a high and holy day,
Let every instrument of music play,
Ancient and modern; those which drew their birth
(Punctilios laid aside) from Pagan earth,
As well as those by Christian made and Jew;
Those known to many, and those known to few;
Those which in whim and frolic lightly float,
27
And those which swell the slow and solemn note;
Those which (whilst Reason stands in wonder by)
Make some complexions laugh, and others cry;
Those which, by some strange faculty of sound,
Can build walls up, and raze them to the ground;
Those which can tear up forests by the roots,
And make brutes dance like men, and men like brutes;
Those which, whilst Ridicule leads up the dance,
Make clowns of Monmouth ape the fops of France;
Those which, where Lady Dulness with Lord Mayors
Presides, disdaining light and trifling airs,
Hallow the feast with psalmody; and those
Which, planted in our churches to dispose
And lift the mind to Heaven, are disgraced
With what a foppish organist calls Taste:
All, from the fiddle (on which every fool,
The pert son of dull sire, discharged from school,
Serves an apprenticeship in college ease,
And rises through the gamut to degrees)
To those which (though less common, not less sweet)
From famed Saint Giles's, and more famed Vine Street,
(Where Heaven, the utmost wish of man to grant,
Gave me an old house, and an older aunt)
Thornton, whilst Humour pointed out the road
To her arch cub, hath hitch'd into an ode;-All instruments (attend, ye listening spheres!
Attend, ye sons of men! and hear with ears),
All instruments (nor shall they seek one hand
Impress'd from modern Music's coxcomb band),
All instruments, self-acted, at my name
Shall pour forth harmony, and loud proclaim,
Loud but yet sweet, to the according globe,
My praises; whilst gay Nature, in a robe,
A coxcomb doctor's robe, to the full sound
Keeps time, like Boyce, and the world dances round.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
Infancy, straining backward from the breast,
28
Tetchy and wayward, what he loveth best
Refusing in his fits, whilst all the while
The mother eyes the wrangler with a smile,
And the fond father sits on t' other side,
Laughs at his moods, and views his spleen with pride,
Shall murmur forth my name, whilst at his hand
Nurse stands interpreter, through Gotham's land.
Childhood, who like an April morn appears,
Sunshine and rain, hopes clouded o'er with fears,
Pleased and displeased by starts, in passion warm,
In reason weak; who, wrought into a storm,
Like to the fretful billows of the deep,
Soon spends his rage, and cries himself asleep;
Who, with a feverish appetite oppress'd,
For trifles sighs, but hates them when possess'd;
His trembling lash suspended in the air,
Half-bent, and stroking back his long lank hair,
Shall to his mates look up with eager glee,
And let his top go down to prate of me.
Youth, who, fierce, fickle, insolent, and vain,
Impatient urges on to Manhood's reign,
Impatient urges on, yet with a cast
Of dear regard looks back on Childhood past,
In the mid-chase, when the hot blood runs high,
And the quick spirits mount into his eye;
When pleasure, which he deems his greatest wealth,
Beats in his heart, and paints his cheeks with health;
When the chafed steed tugs proudly at the rein,
And, ere he starts, hath run o'er half the plain;
When, wing'd with fear, the stag flies full in view,
And in full cry the eager hounds pursue,
Shall shout my praise to hills which shout again,
And e'en the huntsman stop to cry, Amen.
Manhood, of form erect, who would not bow
Though worlds should crack around him; on his brow
Wisdom serene, to passion giving law,
Bespeaking love, and yet commanding awe;
Dignity into grace by mildness wrought;
Courage attemper'd and refined by thought;
Virtue supreme enthroned; within his breast
The image of his Maker deep impress'd;
Lord of this earth, which trembles at his nod,
29
With reason bless'd, and only less than God;
Manhood, though weeping Beauty kneels for aid,
Though Honour calls, in Danger's form array'd,
Though clothed with sackloth, Justice in the gates,
By wicked elders chain'd, Redemption waits,
Manhood shall steal an hour, a little hour,
(Is't not a little one?) to hail my power.
Old Age, a second child, by Nature cursed
With more and greater evils than the first;
Weak, sickly, full of pains, in every breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death;
Putting things off, with sage and solemn air,
From day to day, without one day to spare;
Without enjoyment, covetous of pelf,
Tiresome to friends, and tiresome to himself;
His faculties impair'd, his temper sour'd,
His memory of recent things devour'd
E'en with the acting, on his shatter'd brain
Though the false registers of youth remain;
From morn to evening babbling forth vain praise
Of those rare men, who lived in those rare days,
When he, the hero of his tale, was young;
Dull repetitions faltering on his tongue;
Praising gray hairs, sure mark of Wisdom's sway,
E'en whilst he curses Time, which made him gray;
Scoffing at youth, e'en whilst he would afford
All but his gold to have his youth restored,
Shall for a moment, from himself set free,
Lean on his crutch, and pipe forth praise to me.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
Things without life shall in this chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
The snowdrop, who, in habit white and plain,
Comes on, the herald of fair Flora's train;
The coxcomb crocus, flower of simple note,
Who by her side struts in a herald's coat;
The tulip, idly glaring to the view,
30
Who, though no clown, his birth from Holland drew;
Who, once full dress'd, fears from his place to stir,
The fop of flowers, the More of a parterre;
The woodbine, who her elm in marriage meets,
And brings her dowry in surrounding sweets;
The lily, silver mistress of the vale;
The rose of Sharon, which perfumes the gale;
The jessamine, with which the queen of flowers,
To charm her god, adorns his favourite bowers,
Which brides, by the plain hand of Neatness dress'd,
Unenvied rival, wear upon their breast,
Sweet as the incense of the morn, and chaste
As the pure zone which circles Dian's waist;
All flowers, of various names, and various forms,
Which the sun into strength and beauty warms,
From the dwarf daisy, which, like infants, clings,
And fears to leave the earth from whence it springs,
To the proud giant of the garden race,
Who, madly rushing to the sun's embrace,
O'ertops her fellows with aspiring aim,
Demands his wedded love, and bears his name;
All, one and all, shall in this chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
Forming a gloom, through which, to spleen-struck minds,
Religion, horror-stamp'd, a passage finds,
The ivy crawling o'er the hallow'd cell
Where some old hermit's wont his beads to tell
By day, by night; the myrtle ever green,
Beneath whose shade Love holds his rites unseen;
The willow, weeping o'er the fatal wave
Where many a lover finds a watery grave;
The cypress, sacred held, when lovers mourn
Their true love snatch'd away; the laurel worn
By poets in old time, but destined now,
In grief, to wither on a Whitehead's brow;
The fig, which, large as what in India grows,
31
Itself a grove, gave our first parents clothes;
The vine, which, like a blushing new-made bride,
Clustering, empurples all the mountain's side;
The yew, which, in the place of sculptured stone,
Marks out the resting-place of men unknown;
The hedge-row elm; the pine, of mountain race;
The fir, the Scotch fir, never out of place;
The cedar, whose top mates the highest cloud,
Whilst his old father Lebanon grows proud
Of such a child, and his vast body laid
Out many a mile, enjoys the filial shade;
The oak, when living, monarch of the wood;
The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood;
All, one and all, shall in this chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
The showers, which make the young hills, like young lambs,
Bound and rebound; the old hills, like old rams,
Unwieldy, jump for joy; the streams which glide,
Whilst Plenty marches smiling by their side,
And from their bosom rising Commerce springs;
The winds, which rise with healing on their wings,
Before whose cleansing breath Contagion flies;
The sun, who, travelling in eastern skies,
Fresh, full of strength, just risen from his bed,
Though in Jove's pastures they were born and bred,
With voice and whip can scarce make his steeds stir,
Step by step, up the perpendicular;
Who, at the hour of eve, panting for rest,
Rolls on amain, and gallops down the west
As fast as Jehu, oil'd for Ahab's sin,
Drove for a crown, or postboys for an inn;
The moon, who holds o'er night her silver reign,
Regent of tides, and mistress of the brain,
Who to her sons, those sons who own her power,
And do her homage at the midnight hour,
Gives madness as a blessing, but dispenses
32
Wisdom to fools, and damns them with their senses;
The stars, who, by I know not what strange right,
Preside o'er mortals in their own despite,
Who, without reason, govern those who most
(How truly, judge from thence!) of reason boast,
And, by some mighty magic yet unknown,
Our actions guide, yet cannot guide their own;
All, one and all, shall in this chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
The moment, minute, hour, day, week, month, year,
Morning and eve, as they in turn appear;
Moments and minutes, which, without a crime,
Can't be omitted in accounts of time,
Or, if omitted, (proof we might afford)
Worthy by parliaments to be restored;
The hours, which, dress'd by turns in black and white,
Ordain'd as handmaids, wait on Day and Night;
The day, those hours, I mean, when light presides,
And Business in a cart with Prudence rides;
The night, those hours, I mean, with darkness hung,
When Sense speaks free, and Folly holds her tongue;
The morn, when Nature, rousing from her strife
With death-like sleep, awakes to second life;
The eve, when, as unequal to the task,
She mercy from her foe descends to ask;
The week, in which six days are kindly given
To think of earth, and one to think of heaven;
The months, twelve sisters, all of different hue,
Though there appears in all a likeness too;
Not such a likeness as, through Hayman's works,
Dull mannerist! in Christians, Jews, and Turks,
Cloys with a sameness in each female face,
But a strange something, born of Art and Grace,
Which speaks them all, to vary and adorn,
At different times of the same parents born;
All, one and all, shall in this chorus join,
33
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
Frore January, leader of the year,
Minced-pies in van, and calves' heads in the rear;
Dull February, in whose leaden reign
My mother bore a bard without a brain;
March, various, fierce, and wild, with wind-crack'd cheeks,
By wilder Welshmen led, and crown'd with leeks;
April, with fools, and May, with bastards bless'd;
June, with White Roses on her rebel breast;
July, to whom, the Dog-star in her train,
Saint James gives oysters, and Saint Swithin rain;
August, who, banish'd from her Smithfield stand,
To Chelsea flies, with Doggett in her hand;
September, when by custom (right divine)
Geese are ordain'd to bleed at Michael's shrine,
Whilst the priest, not so full of grace as wit,
Falls to, unbless'd, nor gives the saint a bit;
October, who the cause of Freedom join'd,
And gave a second George to bless mankind;
November, who, at once to grace our earth,
Saint Andrew boasts, and our Augusta's birth;
December, last of months, but best, who gave
A Christ to man, a Saviour to the slave,
Whilst, falsely grateful, man, at the full feast,
To do God honour makes himself a beast;
All, one and all, shall in this chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
The seasons as they roll; Spring, by her side
Lechery and Lent, lay-folly and church-pride,
By a rank monk to copulation led,
34
A tub of sainted salt-fish on her head;
Summer, in light transparent gauze array'd,
Like maids of honour at a masquerade,
In bawdry gauze, for which our daughters leave
The fig, more modest, first brought up by Eve,
Panting for breath, inflamed with lustful fires,
Yet wanting strength to perfect her desires,
Leaning on Sloth, who, fainting with the heat,
Stops at each step, and slumbers on his feet;
Autumn, when Nature, who with sorrow feels
Her dread foe Winter treading on her heels,
Makes up in value what she wants in length,
Exerts her powers, and puts forth all her strength,
Bids corn and fruits in full perfection rise,
Corn fairly tax'd, and fruits without excise;
Winter, benumb'd with cold, no longer known
By robes of fur, since furs became our own;
A hag, who, loathing all, by all is loathed,
With weekly, daily, hourly, libels clothed,
Vile Faction at her heels, who, mighty grown,
Would rule the ruler, and foreclose the throne,
Would turn all state affairs into a trade,
Make laws one day, the next to be unmade,
Beggar at home, a people fear'd abroad,
And, force defeated, make them slaves by fraud;
All, one and all, shall in this chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
The year, grand circle! in whose ample round
The seasons regular and fix'd are bound,
(Who, in his course repeated o'er and o'er,
Sees the same things which he had seen before;
The same stars keep their watch, and the same sun
Runs in the track where he from first hath run;
The same moon rules the night; tides ebb and flow;
Man is a puppet, and this world a show;
Their old dull follies, old dull fools pursue,
35
And vice in nothing, but in mode, is new;
He ---- a lord (now fair befall that pride,
He lived a villain, but a lord he died)
Dashwood is pious, Berkeley fix'd as Fate,
Sandwich (thank Heaven!) first minister of state;
And, though by fools despised, by saints unbless'd,
By friends neglected, and by foes oppress'd,
Scorning the servile arts of each court elf,
Founded on honour, Wilkes is still himself)
The year, encircled with the various train
Which waits, and fills the glories of his reign,
Shall, taking up this theme, in chorus join,
And, dumb to others' praise, be loud in mine.
Rejoice, ye happy Gothamites! rejoice;
Lift up your voice on high, a mighty voice,
The voice of gladness; and on every tongue,
In strains of gratitude, be praises hung,
The praises of so great and good a king:
Shall Churchill reign, and shall not Gotham sing?
Thus far in sport--nor let our critics hence,
Who sell out monthly trash, and call it sense,
Too lightly of our present labours deem,
Or judge at random of so high a theme:
High is our theme, and worthy are the men
To feel the sharpest stroke of Satire's pen;
But when kind Time a proper season brings,
In serious mood to treat of serious things,
Then shall they find, disdaining idle play,
That I can be as grave and dull as they.
Thus far in sport--nor let half patriots, those
Who shrink from every blast of Power which blows,
Who, with tame cowardice familiar grown,
Would hear my thoughts, but fear to speak their own;
Who (lest bold truths, to do sage Prudence spite,
Should burst the portals of their lips by night,
Tremble to trust themselves one hour in sleep)
Condemn our course, and hold our caution cheap;
When brave Occasion bids, for some great end,
When Honour calls the poet as a friend,
Then shall they find that, e'en on Danger's brink,
He dares to speak what they scarce dare to think.
36
~ Charles Churchill,#NFDB
292:Resignation Pt 2
But what in either sex, beyond
All parts, our glory crowns?
'In ruffling seasons to be calm,
And smile, when fortune frowns.'
Heaven's choice is safer than our own;
Of ages past inquire,
What the most formidable fate?
'To have our own desire.'
If, in your wrath, the worst of foes
You wish extremely ill;
Expose him to the thunder's stroke,
Or that of his own will.
What numbers, rushing down the steep
Of inclination strong,
Have perish'd in their ardent wish!
Wish ardent, ever wrong!
'Tis resignation's full reverse,
Most wrong, as it implies
Error most fatal in our choice,
Detachment from the skies.
By closing with the skies, we make
Omnipotence our own;
That done, how formidable ill's
Whole army is o'erthrown!
No longer impotent, and frail,
Ourselves above we rise:
We scarce believe ourselves below!
We trespass on the skies!
The Lord, the soul, and source of all,
Whilst man enjoys his ease,
Is executing human will,
In earth, and air, and seas;
70
Beyond us, what can angels boast?
Archangels what require?
Whate'er below, above, is done,
Is done as-we desire.
What glory this for man so mean,
Whose life is but a span!
This is meridian majesty!
This, the sublime of man!
Beyond the boast of pagan song
My sacred subject shines!
And for a foil the lustre takes
Of Rome's exalted lines.
'All, that the sun surveys, subdued,
But Cato's mighty mind.'
How grand! most true; yet far beneath
The soul of the resign'd:
To more than kingdoms, more than worlds,
To passion that gives law;
Its matchless empire could have kept
Great Cato's pride in awe;
That fatal pride, whose cruel point
Transfix'd his noble breast;
Far nobler! if his fate sustain'd
And left to heaven the rest;
Then he the palm had borne away,
At distance Caesar thrown;
Put him off cheaply with the world,
And made the skies his own.
What cannot resignation do?
It wonders can perform;
That powerful charm, 'Thy will be done,'
Can lay the loudest storm.
Come, resignation! then, from fields,
71
Where, mounted on the wing,
A wing of flame, blest martyrs' souls
Ascended to their king.
Who is it calls thee? one whose need
Transcends the common size;
Who stands in front against a foe
To which no equal rise:
In front he stands, the brink he treads
Of an eternal state;
How dreadful his appointed post!
How strongly arm'd by fate:
His threatening foe! what shadows deep
O'erwhelm his gloomy brow!
His dart tremendous! -at fourscore
My sole asylum, thou!
Haste, then, O resignation! haste,
'Tis thine to reconcile
My foe, and me; at thy approach
My foe begins to smile:
O! for that summit of my wish,
Whilst here I draw my breath,
That promise of eternal life,
A glorious smile in death:
What sight, heaven's azure arch beneath,
Has most of heaven to boast?
The man resign'd; at once serene,
And giving up the ghost.
At death's arrival they shall smile,
Who, not in life o'er gay,
Serious and frequent thought send out
To meet him on his way:
My gay coevals! (such there are)
If happiness is dear;
Approaching death's alarming day
72
Discreetly let us fear:
The fear of death is truly wise,
Till wisdom can rise higher;
And, arm'd with pious fortitude,
Death dreaded once, desire:
Grand climacteric vanities
The vainest will despise;
Shock'd, when beneath the snow of age
Man immaturely dies:
But am not I myself the man?
No need abroad to roam
In quest of faults to be chastis'd;
What cause to blush at home?
In life's decline, when men relapse
Into the sports of youth,
The second child out-fools the first,
And tempts the lash of truth;
Shall a mere truant from the grave
With rival boys engage?
His trembling voice attempt to sing,
And ape the poet's rage?
Here, madam! let me visit one,
My fault who, partly, shares,
And tell myself, by telling him,
What more becomes our years;
And if your breast with prudent zeal
For resignation glows,
You will not disapprove a just
Resentment at its foes.
In youth, Voltaire! our foibles plead
For some indulgence due;
When heads are white, their thoughts and aims
Should change their colour too:
73
How are you cheated by your wit!
Old age is bound to pay,
By nature's law, a mind discreet,
For joys it takes away;
A mighty change is wrought by years,
Reversing human lot;
In age 'tis honour to lie hid,
'Tis praise to be forgot;
The wise, as flowers, which spread at noon,
And all their charms expose,
When evening damps and shades descend,
Their evolutions close.
What though your muse has nobly soar'd,
Is that our truth sublime?
Ours, hoary friend! is to prefer
Eternity to time:
Why close a life so justly fam'd
With such bold trash as this? (54)
This for renown? yes, such as makes
Obscurity a bliss:
Your trash, with mine, at open war,
Is obstinately bent,(55)
Like wits below, to sow your tares
Of gloom and discontent:
With so much sunshine at command,
Why light with darkness mix?
Why dash with pain our pleasure?
Your Helicon with Styx?
Your works in our divided minds
Repugnant passions raise,
Confound us with a double stroke,
We shudder whilst we praise;
A curious web, as finely wrought
As genius can inspire,
74
From a black bag of poison spun,
With horror we admire.
Mean as it is, if this is read
With a disdainful air,
I can't forgive so great a foe
To my dear friend Voltaire:
Early I knew him, early prais'd,
And long to praise him late;
His genius greatly I admire,
Nor would deplore his fate;
A fate how much to be deplor'd!
At which our nature starts;
Forbear to fall on your own sword.
To perish by your parts:
'But great your name'-To feed on air,
Were then immortals born?
Nothing is great, of which more great,
More glorious is the scorn.
Can fame your carcass from the worm
Which gnaws us in the grave,
Or soul from that which never dies,
Applauding Europe save?
But fame you lose; good sense alone
Your idol, praise, can claim;
When wild wit murders happiness,
It puts to death our fame!
Nor boast your genius, talents bright;
E'en dunces will despise,
If in your western beams is miss'd
A genius for the skies;
Your taste too fails; what most excels
True taste must relish most!
And what, to rival palms above,
Can proudest laurels boast?
75
Sound heads salvation's helmet seek,(56)
Resplendent are its rays,
Let that suffice; it needs no plume,
Of sublunary praise.
May this enable couch'd Voltaire
To see that-'All is right,'(57)
His eye, by flash of wit struck blind,
Restoring to its sight;
If so, all's well: who much have err'd,
That much have been forgiven;
I speak with joy, with joy he'll hear,
'Voltaires are, now, in heaven.'
Nay, such philanthropy divine,
So boundless in degree,
Its marvellous of love extends
(Stoops most profound!) to me:
Let others cruel stars arraign,
Or dwell on their distress;
But let my page, for mercies pour'd,
A grateful heart express:
Walking, the present God was seen,
Of old, in Eden fair;
The God as present, by plain steps
Of providential care,
I behold passing through my life;
His awful voice I hear;
And, conscious of my nakedness,
Would hide myself for fear:
But where the trees, or where the clouds,
Can cover from his sight?
Naked the centre to that eye,
To which the sun is night.
As yonder glittering lamps on high
76
Through night illumin'd roll;
My thoughts of him, by whom they shine,
Chase darkness from my soul;
My soul, which reads his hand as clear
In my minute affairs,
As in his ample manuscript
Of sun, and moon, and stars;
And knows him not more bent aright
To wield that vast machine,
Than to correct one erring thought
In my small world within;
A world, that shall survive the fall
Of all his wonders here;
Survive, when suns ten thousand drop,
And leave a darken'd sphere.
Yon matter gross, how bright it shines!
For time how great his care!
Sure spirit and eternity
Far richer glories share;
Let those our hearts impress, on those
Our contemplation dwell;
On those my thoughts how justly thrown,
By what I now shall tell:
When backward with attentive mind
Life's labyrinth I trace,
I find him far myself beyond
Propitious to my peace:
Through all the crooked paths I trod,
My folly he pursued;
My heart astray to quick return
Importunately woo'd;
Due resignation home to press
On my capricious will,
How many rescues did I meet,
77
Beneath the mask of ill!
How many foes in ambush laid
Beneath my soul's desire!
The deepest penitents are made
By what we most admire.
Have I not sometimes (real good
So little mortals know!)
Mounting the summit of my wish,
Profoundly plung'd in woe?
I rarely plann'd, but cause I found
My plan's defeat to bless:
Oft I lamented an event;
It turn'd to my success.
By sharpen'd appetite to give
To good intense delight,
Through dark and deep perplexities
He led me to the right.
And is not this the gloomy path,
Which you are treading now?
The path most gloomy leads to light,
When our proud passions bow:
When labouring under fancied ill,
My spirits to sustain,
He kindly cur'd with sovereign draughts
Of unimagin'd pain.
Pain'd sense from fancied tyranny
Alone can set us free;
A thousand miseries we feel,
Till sunk in misery.
Cloy'd with a glut of all we wish,
Our wish we relish less;
Success, a sort of suicide,
Is ruin'd by success:
78
Sometimes he led me near to death,
And, pointing to the grave,
Bid terror whisper kind advice;
And taught the tomb to save:
To raise my thoughts beyond where worlds
As spangles o'er us shine,
One day he gave, and bid the next
My soul's delight resign.
We to ourselves, but through the means
Of mirrors, are unknown;
In this my fate can you descry
No features of your own?
And if you can, let that excuse
These self-recording lines;
A record, modesty forbids,
Or to small bound confines:
In grief why deep ingulf'd? You see
You suffer nothing rare;
Uncommon grief for common fate!
That wisdom cannot bear.
When streams flow backward to their source,
And humbled flames descend,
And mountains wing'd shall fly aloft,
Then human sorrows end;
But human prudence too must cease,
When sorrows domineer,
When fortitude has lost its fire,
And freezes into fear:
The pang most poignant of my life
Now heightens my delight;
I see a fair creation rise
From chaos, and old night:
From what seem'd horror, and despair,
The richest harvest rose;
79
And gave me in the nod divine
An absolute repose.
Of all the plunders of mankind,
More gross, or frequent, none,
Than in their grief and joy misplac'd,
Eternally are shown.
But whither points all this parade?
It says, that near you lies
A book, perhaps yet unperus'd,
Which you should greatly prize:
Of self-perusal, science rare!
Few know the mighty gain;
Learn'd prelates, self-unread, may read
Their Bibles o'er in vain:
Self-knowledge, which from heaven itself
(So sages tell us) came,
What is it, but a daughter fair
Of my maternal theme?
Unletter'd and untravel'd men
An oracle might find,
Would they consult their own contents,
The Delphos of the mind.
Enter your bosom; there you'll meet
A revelation new,
A revelation personal;
Which none can read but you.
There will you clearly read reveal'd
In your enlighten'd thought,
By mercies manifold, through life,
To fresh remembrance brought,
A mighty Being! and in him
A complicated friend,
A father, brother, spouse; no dread
Of death, divorce, or end:
80
Who such a matchless friend embrace,
And lodge him in their heart,
Full well, from agonies exempt,
With other friends may part:
As when o'erloaded branches bear
Large clusters big with wine,
We scarce regret one falling leaf
From the luxuriant vine.
My short advice to you may sound
Obscure or somewhat odd,
Though 'tis the best that man can give,'E'en be content with God.'
Through love he gave you the deceas'd,
Through greater took him hence;
This reason fully could evince,
Though murmur'd at by sense.
This friend, far past the kindest kind,
Is past the greatest great;
His greatness let me touch in points
Not foreign to your state;
His eye, this instant, reads your heart;
A truth less obvious hear;
This instant its most secret thoughts
Are sounding in his ear:
Dispute you this? O! stand in awe,
And cease your sorrow; know,
That tears now trickling down, he saw
Ten thousand years ago;
And twice ten thousand hence, if you
Your temper reconcile
To reason's bound, will he behold
Your prudence with a smile;
A smile, which through eternity
81
Diffuses so bright rays,
The dimmest deifies e'en guilt,
If guilt, at last, obeys:
Your guilt (for guilt it is to mourn
When such a sovereign reigns) ,
Your guilt diminish; peace pursue;
How glorious peace in pains!
Here, then, your sorrows cease; if not,
Think how unhappy they,
Who guilt increase by streaming tears,
Which guilt should wash away;
Of tears that gush profuse restrain;
Whence burst those dismal sighs?
They from the throbbing breast of one
(Strange truth!) most happy rise;
Not angels (hear it, and exult!)
Enjoy a larger share
Than is indulg'd to you, and yours,
Of God's impartial care;
Anxious for each, as if on each
His care for all was thrown;
For all his care as absolute,
As all had been but one.
And is he then so near! so kind! How little then, and great,
That riddle, man! O! let me gaze
At wonders in his fate;
His fate, who yesterday did crawl
A worm from darkness deep,
And shall, with brother worms, beneath
A turf, to-morrow sleep;
How mean! -And yet, if well obey'd
His mighty Master's call,
The whole creation for mean man
82
Is deem'd a boon too small:
Too small the whole creation deem'd
For emmets in the dust!
Account amazing! yet most true;
My song is bold, yet just:
Man born for infinite, in whom
Nor period can destroy
The power, in exquisite extremes,
To suffer, or enjoy;
Give him earth's empire (if no more)
He's beggar'd, and undone!
Imprison'd in unbounded space!
Benighted by the sun!
For what the sun's meridian blaze
To the most feeble ray
Which glimmers from the distant dawn
Of uncreated day?
'Tis not the poet's rapture feign'd
Swells here the vain to please;
The mind most sober kindles most
At truths sublime as these;
They warm e'en me.-I dare not say,
Divine ambition strove
Not to bless only, but confound,
Nay, fright us with its love;
And yet so frightful what, or kind,
As that the rending rock,
The darken'd sun, and rising dead,
So formidable spoke?
And are we darker than that sun?
Than rocks more hard, and blind?
We are; -if not to such a God
In agonies resigned.
83
Yes, e'en in agonies forbear
To doubt almighty love;
Whate'er endears eternity,
Is mercy from above;
What most imbitters time, that most
Eternity endears,
And thus, by plunging in distress,
Exalts us to the spheres;
Joy's fountain head! where bliss o'er bliss,
O'er wonders wonders rise,
And an Omnipotence prepares
Its banquet for the wise:
Ambrosial banquet! rich in wines
Nectareous to the soul!
What transports sparkle from the stream,
As angels fill the bowl!
Fountain profuse of every bliss!
Good-will immense prevails;
Man's line can't fathom its profound
An angel's plummet fails.
Thy love and might, by what they know,
Who judge, nor dream of more;
They ask a drop, how deep the sea!
One sand, how wide the shore!
Of thy exuberant good-will,
Offended Deity!
The thousandth part who comprehends,
A deity is he.
How yonder ample azure field
With radiant worlds is sown!
How tubes astonish us with those
More deep in ether thrown!
And those beyond of brighter worlds
Why not a million more? -
84
In lieu of answer, let us all
Fall prostrate, and adore.
Since thou art infinite in power,
Nor thy indulgence less;
Since man, quite impotent and blind,
Oft drops into distress;
Say, what is resignation? 'T is
Man's weakness understood;
And wisdom grasping, with a hand
Far stronger, every good.
Let rash repiners stand appall'd,
In thee who dare not trust;
Whose abject souls, like demons dark,
Are murmuring in the dust;
For man to murmur, or repine
At what by thee is done,
No less absurd, than to complain
Of darkness in the sun.
Who would not, with a heart at ease,
Bright eye, unclouded brow,
Wisdom and goodness at the helm,
The roughest ocean plough?
What, though I'm swallow'd in the deep?
Though mountains o'er me roar?
Jehovah reigns! as Jonah safe,
I'm landed, and adore:
Thy will is welcome, let it wear
Its most tremendous form;
Roar, waves; rage, winds! I know that thou
Canst save me by a storm.
From the immortal spirits born,
To thee, their fountain, flow,
If wise; as curl'd around to theirs
Meandering streams below:
85
Not less compell'd by reason's call,
To thee our souls aspire,
Than to thy skies, by nature's law,
High mounts material fire;
To thee aspiring they exult,
I feel my spirits rise,
I feel myself thy son, and pant
For patrimonial skies;
Since ardent thirst of future good,
And generous sense of past,
To thee man's prudence strongly ties,
And binds affection fast;
Since great thy love, and great our want,
And men the wisest blind,
And bliss our aim; pronounce us all
Distracted, or resigned;
Resign'd through duty, interest, shame;
Deep shame! dare I complain,
When (wondrous truth!) in heaven itself
Joy ow'd its birth to pain?
And pain for me! for me was drain'd
Gall's overflowing bowl;
And shall one dropp to murmur bold
Provoke my guilty soul?
If pardon'd this, what cause, what crime
Can indignation raise?
The sun was lighted up to shine,
And man was born to praise;
And when to praise the man shall cease,
Or sun to strike the view;
A cloud dishonors both; but man's
The blacker of the two:
For oh! ingratitude how black!
86
With most profound amaze
At love, which man belov'd o'erlooks,
Astonish'd angels gaze.
Praise cheers, and warms, like generous wine;
Praise, more divine than prayer;
Prayer points our ready path to heaven;
Praise is already there.
Let plausive resignation rise,
And banish all complaint;
All virtues thronging into one,
It finishes the saint;
Makes the man bless'd, as man can be;
Life's labours renders light;
Darts beams through fate's incumbent gloom,
And lights our sun by night;
'T is nature's brightest ornament,
The richest gift of grace,
Rival of angels, and supreme
Proprietor of peace;
Nay, peace beyond, no small degree
Of rapture 't will impart;
Know, madam! when your heart's in heaven,
'All heaven is in your heart.'
But who to heaven their hearts can raise?
Denied divine support,
All virtue dies; support divine
The wise with ardour court:
When prayer partakes the seraph's fire,
'T is mounted on his wing,
Bursts thro' heaven's crystal gates, and
Sure audience of its king:
The labouring soul from sore distress
That bless'd expedient frees;
I see you far advanc'd in peace;
87
I see you on your knees:
How on that posture has the beam
Divine for ever shone!
An humble heart, God's other seat! (58)
The rival of his throne:
And stoops Omnipotence so low!
And condescends to dwell,
Eternity's inhabitant,
Well pleas'd, in such a cell?
Such honour how shall we repay?
How treat our guest divine?
The sacrifice supreme be slain!
Let self-will die: resign.
Thus far, at large, on our disease;
Now let the cause be shown,
Whence rises, and will ever rise,
The dismal human groan:
What our sole fountain of distress?
Strong passion for this scene;
That trifles make important, things
Of mighty moment mean:
When earth's dark maxims poison shed
On our polluted souls,
Our hearts and interests fly as far
Asunder, as the poles.
Like princes in a cottage nurs'd,
Unknown their royal race,
With abject aims, and sordid joys,
Our grandeur we disgrace;
O! for an Archimedes new,
Of moral powers possess'd,
The world to move, and quite expel
That traitor from the breast.
88
No small advantage may be reap'd
From thought whence we descend;
From weighing well, and prizing weigh'd
Our origin, and end:
From far above the glorious sun
To this dim scene we came:
And may, if wise, for ever bask
In great Jehovah's beam:
Let that bright beam on reason rous'd
In awful lustre rise,
Earth's giant ills are dwarf'd at once,
And all disquiet dies.
Earth's glories too their splendour lose,
Those phantoms charm no more;
Empire's a feather for a fool,
And Indian mines are poor:
Then levell'd quite, whilst yet alive,
The monarch and his slave;
Not wait enlighten'd minds to learn
That lesson from the grave:
A George the Third would then be low
As Lewis in renown,
Could he not boast of glory more
Than sparkles from a crown.
When human glory rises high
As human glory can;
When, though the king is truly great,
Still greater is the man;
The man is dead, where virtue fails;
And though the monarch proud
In grandeur shines, his gorgeous robe
Is but a gaudy shroud.
Wisdom! where art thou? None on earth,
Though grasping wealth, fame, power,
89
But what, O death! through thy approach,
Is wiser every hour;
Approach how swift, how unconfin'd!
Worms feast on viands rare,
Those little epicures have kings
To grace their bill of fare:
From kings what resignation due
To that almighty will,
Which thrones bestows, and, when they fail,
Can throne them higher still!
Who truly great? The good and brave,
The masters of a mind
The will divine to do resolv'd,
To suffer it resign'd.
Madam! if that may give it weight,
The trifle you receive
Is dated from a solemn scene,
The border of the grave;
Where strongly strikes the trembling soul
Eternity's dread power,
As bursting on it through the thin
Partition of an hour;
Hear this, Voltaire! but this, from me,
Runs hazard of your frown;
However, spare it; ere you die,
Such thoughts will be your own.
In mercy to yourself forbear
My notions to chastise,
Lest unawares the gay Voltaire
Should blame Voltaire the wise:
Fame's trumpet rattling in your ear,
Now, makes us disagree;
When a far louder trumpet sounds,
Voltaire will close with me:
90
How shocking is that modesty,
Which keeps some honest men
From urging what their hearts suggest,
When brav'd by folly's pen.
Assaulting truths, of which in all
Is sown the sacred seed!
Our constitution's orthodox,
And closes with our creed:
What then are they, whose proud conceits
Superior wisdom boast?
Wretches, who fight their own belief,
And labour to be lost!
Though vice by no superior joys
Her heroes keeps in pay;
Through pure disinterested love
Of ruin they obey!
Strict their devotion to the wrong,
Though tempted by no prize;
Hard their commandments, and their creed
A magazine of lies
From fancy's forge: gay fancy smiles
At reason plain, and cool;
Fancy, whose curious trade it is
To make the finest fool.
Voltaire! long life's the greatest curse
That mortals can receive,
When they imagine the chief end
Of living is to live;
Quite thoughtless of their day of death,
That birthday of their sorrow!
Knowing, it may be distant far,
Nor crush them till-to-morrow.
These are cold, northern thoughts, conceiv'd
91
Beneath an humble cot;
Not mine, your genius, or your state,
No castle is my lot:(59)
But soon, quite level shall we lie;
And, what pride most bemoans,
Our parts, in rank so distant now,
As level as our bones;
Hear you that sound? Alarming sound!
Prepare to meet your fate!
One, who writes finis to our works,
Is knocking at the gate;
Far other works will soon be weigh'd;
Far other judges sit;
Far other crowns be lost or won,
Than fire ambitious wit:
Their wit far brightest will be prov'd,
Who sunk it in good sense;
And veneration most profound
Of dread omnipotence.
'Tis that alone unlocks the gate
Of blest eternity;
O! mayst thou never, never lose
That more than golden key! (60)
Whate'er may seem too rough excuse,
Your good I have at heart:
Since from my soul I wish you well;
As yet we must not part:
Shall you, and I, in love with life,
Life's future schemes contrive,
The world in wonder not unjust,
That we are still alive?
What have we left? How mean in man
A shadow's shade to crave!
When life, so vain! is vainer still,
92
'Tis time to take your leave:
Happier, than happiest life, is death,
Who, falling in the field
Of conflict with his rebel will,
Writes vici, on his shield;
So falling man, immortal heir
Of an eternal prize;
Undaunted at the gloomy grave,
Descends into the skies.
O! how disorder'd our machine,
When contradictions mix!
When nature strikes no less than twelve,
And folly points at six!
To mend the moments of your heart,
How great is my delight
Gently to wind your morals up,
And set your hand aright!
That hand, which spread your wisdom wide
To poison distant lands:
Repent, recant; the tainted age
Your antidote demands;
To Satan dreadfully resign'd,
Whole herds rush down the steep
Of folly, by lewd wits possess'd,
And perish in the deep.
Men's praise your vanity pursues;
'Tis well, pursue it still;
But let it be of men deceas'd,
And you'll resign the will;
And how superior they to those
At whose applause you aim;
How very far superior they
In number, and in name!
93
~ Edward Young,#NFDB
293:Balin And Balan
Pellam the King, who held and lost with Lot
In that first war, and had his realm restored
But rendered tributary, failed of late
To send his tribute; wherefore Arthur called
His treasurer, one of many years, and spake,
'Go thou with him and him and bring it to us,
Lest we should set one truer on his throne.
Man's word is God in man.'
His Baron said
'We go but harken: there be two strange knights
Who sit near Camelot at a fountain-side,
A mile beneath the forest, challenging
And overthrowing every knight who comes.
Wilt thou I undertake them as we pass,
And send them to thee?'
Arthur laughed upon him.
'Old friend, too old to be so young, depart,
Delay not thou for aught, but let them sit,
Until they find a lustier than themselves.'
So these departed. Early, one fair dawn,
The light-winged spirit of his youth returned
On Arthur's heart; he armed himself and went,
So coming to the fountain-side beheld
Balin and Balan sitting statuelike,
Brethren, to right and left the spring, that down,
From underneath a plume of lady-fern,
Sang, and the sand danced at the bottom of it.
And on the right of Balin Balin's horse
Was fast beside an alder, on the left
Of Balan Balan's near a poplartree.
'Fair Sirs,' said Arthur, 'wherefore sit ye here?'
Balin and Balan answered 'For the sake
Of glory; we be mightier men than all
In Arthur's court; that also have we proved;
For whatsoever knight against us came
Or I or he have easily overthrown.'
'I too,' said Arthur, 'am of Arthur's hall,
26
But rather proven in his Paynim wars
Than famous jousts; but see, or proven or not,
Whether me likewise ye can overthrow.'
And Arthur lightly smote the brethren down,
And lightly so returned, and no man knew.
Then Balin rose, and Balan, and beside
The carolling water set themselves again,
And spake no word until the shadow turned;
When from the fringe of coppice round them burst
A spangled pursuivant, and crying 'Sirs,
Rise, follow! ye be sent for by the King,'
They followed; whom when Arthur seeing asked
'Tell me your names; why sat ye by the well?'
Balin the stillness of a minute broke
Saying 'An unmelodious name to thee,
Balin, "the Savage"--that addition thine-My brother and my better, this man here,
Balan. I smote upon the naked skull
A thrall of thine in open hall, my hand
Was gauntleted, half slew him; for I heard
He had spoken evil of me; thy just wrath
Sent me a three-years' exile from thine eyes.
I have not lived my life delightsomely:
For I that did that violence to thy thrall,
Had often wrought some fury on myself,
Saving for Balan: those three kingless years
Have past--were wormwood-bitter to me. King,
Methought that if we sat beside the well,
And hurled to ground what knight soever spurred
Against us, thou would'st take me gladlier back,
And make, as ten-times worthier to be thine
Than twenty Balins, Balan knight. I have said.
Not so--not all. A man of thine today
Abashed us both, and brake my boast. Thy will?'
Said Arthur 'Thou hast ever spoken truth;
Thy too fierce manhood would not let thee lie.
Rise, my true knight. As children learn, be thou
Wiser for falling! walk with me, and move
To music with thine Order and the King.
Thy chair, a grief to all the brethren, stands
Vacant, but thou retake it, mine again!'
27
Thereafter, when Sir Balin entered hall,
The Lost one Found was greeted as in Heaven
With joy that blazed itself in woodland wealth
Of leaf, and gayest garlandage of flowers,
Along the walls and down the board; they sat,
And cup clashed cup; they drank and some one sang,
Sweet-voiced, a song of welcome, whereupon
Their common shout in chorus, mounting, made
Those banners of twelve battles overhead
Stir, as they stirred of old, when Arthur's host
Proclaimed him Victor, and the day was won.
Then Balan added to their Order lived
A wealthier life than heretofore with these
And Balin, till their embassage returned.
'Sir King' they brought report 'we hardly found,
So bushed about it is with gloom, the hall
Of him to whom ye sent us, Pellam, once
A Christless foe of thine as ever dashed
Horse against horse; but seeing that thy realm
Hath prospered in the name of Christ, the King
Took, as in rival heat, to holy things;
And finds himself descended from the Saint
Arimathan Joseph; him who first
Brought the great faith to Britain over seas;
He boasts his life as purer than thine own;
Eats scarce enow to keep his pulse abeat;
Hath pushed aside his faithful wife, nor lets
Or dame or damsel enter at his gates
Lest he should be polluted. This gray King
Showed us a shrine wherein were wonders--yea-Rich arks with priceless bones of martyrdom,
Thorns of the crown and shivers of the cross,
And therewithal (for thus he told us) brought
By holy Joseph thither, that same spear
Wherewith the Roman pierced the side of Christ.
He much amazed us; after, when we sought
The tribute, answered "I have quite foregone
All matters of this world: Garlon, mine heir,
Of him demand it," which this Garlon gave
28
With much ado, railing at thine and thee.
'But when we left, in those deep woods we found
A knight of thine spear-stricken from behind,
Dead, whom we buried; more than one of us
Cried out on Garlon, but a woodman there
Reported of some demon in the woods
Was once a man, who driven by evil tongues
From all his fellows, lived alone, and came
To learn black magic, and to hate his kind
With such a hate, that when he died, his soul
Became a Fiend, which, as the man in life
Was wounded by blind tongues he saw not whence,
Strikes from behind. This woodman showed the cave
From which he sallies, and wherein he dwelt.
We saw the hoof-print of a horse, no more.'
Then Arthur, 'Let who goes before me, see
He do not fall behind me: foully slain
And villainously! who will hunt for me
This demon of the woods?' Said Balan, 'I'!
So claimed the quest and rode away, but first,
Embracing Balin, 'Good my brother, hear!
Let not thy moods prevail, when I am gone
Who used to lay them! hold them outer fiends,
Who leap at thee to tear thee; shake them aside,
Dreams ruling when wit sleeps! yea, but to dream
That any of these would wrong thee, wrongs thyself.
Witness their flowery welcome. Bound are they
To speak no evil. Truly save for fears,
My fears for thee, so rich a fellowship
Would make me wholly blest: thou one of them,
Be one indeed: consider them, and all
Their bearing in their common bond of love,
No more of hatred than in Heaven itself,
No more of jealousy than in Paradise.'
So Balan warned, and went; Balin remained:
Who--for but three brief moons had glanced away
From being knighted till he smote the thrall,
And faded from the presence into years
Of exile--now would strictlier set himself
29
To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy,
Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hovered round
Lancelot, but when he marked his high sweet smile
In passing, and a transitory word
Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem
From being smiled at happier in themselves-Sighed, as a boy lame-born beneath a height,
That glooms his valley, sighs to see the peak
Sun-flushed, or touch at night the northern star;
For one from out his village lately climed
And brought report of azure lands and fair,
Far seen to left and right; and he himself
Hath hardly scaled with help a hundred feet
Up from the base: so Balin marvelling oft
How far beyond him Lancelot seemed to move,
Groaned, and at times would mutter, 'These be gifts,
Born with the blood, not learnable, divine,
Beyond MY reach. Well had I foughten--well-In those fierce wars, struck hard--and had I crowned
With my slain self the heaps of whom I slew-So--better!--But this worship of the Queen,
That honour too wherein she holds him--this,
This was the sunshine that hath given the man
A growth, a name that branches o'er the rest,
And strength against all odds, and what the King
So prizes--overprizes--gentleness.
Her likewise would I worship an I might.
I never can be close with her, as he
That brought her hither. Shall I pray the King
To let me bear some token of his Queen
Whereon to gaze, remembering her--forget
My heats and violences? live afresh?
What, if the Queen disdained to grant it! nay
Being so stately-gentle, would she make
My darkness blackness? and with how sweet grace
She greeted my return! Bold will I be-Some goodly cognizance of Guinevere,
In lieu of this rough beast upon my shield,
Langued gules, and toothed with grinning savagery.'
And Arthur, when Sir Balin sought him, said
'What wilt thou bear?' Balin was bold, and asked
30
To bear her own crown-royal upon shield,
Whereat she smiled and turned her to the King,
Who answered 'Thou shalt put the crown to use.
The crown is but the shadow of the King,
And this a shadow's shadow, let him have it,
So this will help him of his violences!'
'No shadow' said Sir Balin 'O my Queen,
But light to me! no shadow, O my King,
But golden earnest of a gentler life!'
So Balin bare the crown, and all the knights
Approved him, and the Queen, and all the world
Made music, and he felt his being move
In music with his Order, and the King.
The nightingale, full-toned in middle May,
Hath ever and anon a note so thin
It seems another voice in other groves;
Thus, after some quick burst of sudden wrath,
The music in him seemed to change, and grow
Faint and far-off.
And once he saw the thrall
His passion half had gauntleted to death,
That causer of his banishment and shame,
Smile at him, as he deemed, presumptuously:
His arm half rose to strike again, but fell:
The memory of that cognizance on shield
Weighted it down, but in himself he moaned:
'Too high this mount of Camelot for me:
These high-set courtesies are not for me.
Shall I not rather prove the worse for these?
Fierier and stormier from restraining, break
Into some madness even before the Queen?'
Thus, as a hearth lit in a mountain home,
And glancing on the window, when the gloom
Of twilight deepens round it, seems a flame
That rages in the woodland far below,
So when his moods were darkened, court and King
And all the kindly warmth of Arthur's hall
Shadowed an angry distance: yet he strove
31
To learn the graces of their Table, fought
Hard with himself, and seemed at length in peace.
Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat
Close-bowered in that garden nigh the hall.
A walk of roses ran from door to door;
A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:
And down that range of roses the great Queen
Came with slow steps, the morning on her face;
And all in shadow from the counter door
Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once,
As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced
The long white walk of lilies toward the bower.
Followed the Queen; Sir Balin heard her 'Prince,
Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,
As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?'
To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,
'Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.'
'Yea so' she said 'but so to pass me by-So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,
Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.
Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.'
Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers
'Yea--for a dream. Last night methought I saw
That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand
In yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,
And all the light upon her silver face
Flowed from the spiritual lily that she held.
Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes--away:
For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flush
As hardly tints the blossom of the quince
Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.'
'Sweeter to me' she said 'this garden rose
Deep-hued and many-folded! sweeter still
The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.
Prince, we have ridden before among the flowers
In those fair days--not all as cool as these,
Though season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?
Our noble King will send thee his own leech-Sick? or for any matter angered at me?'
32
Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dwelt
Deep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hue
Changed at his gaze: so turning side by side
They past, and Balin started from his bower.
'Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.
Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.
My father hath begotten me in his wrath.
I suffer from the things before me, know,
Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;
A churl, a clown!' and in him gloom on gloom
Deepened: he sharply caught his lance and shield,
Nor stayed to crave permission of the King,
But, mad for strange adventure, dashed away.
He took the selfsame track as Balan, saw
The fountain where they sat together, sighed
'Was I not better there with him?' and rode
The skyless woods, but under open blue
Came on the hoarhead woodman at a bough
Wearily hewing. 'Churl, thine axe!' he cried,
Descended, and disjointed it at a blow:
To whom the woodman uttered wonderingly
'Lord, thou couldst lay the Devil of these woods
If arm of flesh could lay him.' Balin cried
'Him, or the viler devil who plays his part,
To lay that devil would lay the Devil in me.'
'Nay' said the churl, 'our devil is a truth,
I saw the flash of him but yestereven.
And some DO say that our Sir Garlon too
Hath learned black magic, and to ride unseen.
Look to the cave.' But Balin answered him
'Old fabler, these be fancies of the churl,
Look to thy woodcraft,' and so leaving him,
Now with slack rein and careless of himself,
Now with dug spur and raving at himself,
Now with droopt brow down the long glades he rode;
So marked not on his right a cavern-chasm
Yawn over darkness, where, nor far within,
The whole day died, but, dying, gleamed on rocks
Roof-pendent, sharp; and others from the floor,
33
Tusklike, arising, made that mouth of night
Whereout the Demon issued up from Hell.
He marked not this, but blind and deaf to all
Save that chained rage, which ever yelpt within,
Past eastward from the falling sun. At once
He felt the hollow-beaten mosses thud
And tremble, and then the shadow of a spear,
Shot from behind him, ran along the ground.
Sideways he started from the path, and saw,
With pointed lance as if to pierce, a shape,
A light of armour by him flash, and pass
And vanish in the woods; and followed this,
But all so blind in rage that unawares
He burst his lance against a forest bough,
Dishorsed himself, and rose again, and fled
Far, till the castle of a King, the hall
Of Pellam, lichen-bearded, grayly draped
With streaming grass, appeared, low-built but strong;
The ruinous donjon as a knoll of moss,
The battlement overtopt with ivytods,
A home of bats, in every tower an owl.
Then spake the men of Pellam crying 'Lord,
Why wear ye this crown-royal upon shield?'
Said Balin 'For the fairest and the best
Of ladies living gave me this to bear.'
So stalled his horse, and strode across the court,
But found the greetings both of knight and King
Faint in the low dark hall of banquet: leaves
Laid their green faces flat against the panes,
Sprays grated, and the cankered boughs without
Whined in the wood; for all was hushed within,
Till when at feast Sir Garlon likewise asked
'Why wear ye that crown-royal?' Balin said
'The Queen we worship, Lancelot, I, and all,
As fairest, best and purest, granted me
To bear it!' Such a sound (for Arthur's knights
Were hated strangers in the hall) as makes
The white swan-mother, sitting, when she hears
A strange knee rustle through her secret reeds,
Made Garlon, hissing; then he sourly smiled.
'Fairest I grant her: I have seen; but best,
Best, purest? THOU from Arthur's hall, and yet
34
So simple! hast thou eyes, or if, are these
So far besotted that they fail to see
This fair wife-worship cloaks a secret shame?
Truly, ye men of Arthur be but babes.'
A goblet on the board by Balin, bossed
With holy Joseph's legend, on his right
Stood, all of massiest bronze: one side had sea
And ship and sail and angels blowing on it:
And one was rough with wattling, and the walls
Of that low church he built at Glastonbury.
This Balin graspt, but while in act to hurl,
Through memory of that token on the shield
Relaxed his hold: 'I will be gentle' he thought
'And passing gentle' caught his hand away,
Then fiercely to Sir Garlon 'Eyes have I
That saw today the shadow of a spear,
Shot from behind me, run along the ground;
Eyes too that long have watched how Lancelot draws
From homage to the best and purest, might,
Name, manhood, and a grace, but scantly thine,
Who, sitting in thine own hall, canst endure
To mouth so huge a foulness--to thy guest,
Me, me of Arthur's Table. Felon talk!
Let be! no more!'
But not the less by night
The scorn of Garlon, poisoning all his rest,
Stung him in dreams. At length, and dim through leaves
Blinkt the white morn, sprays grated, and old boughs
Whined in the wood. He rose, descended, met
The scorner in the castle court, and fain,
For hate and loathing, would have past him by;
But when Sir Garlon uttered mocking-wise;
'What, wear ye still that same crown-scandalous?'
His countenance blackened, and his forehead veins
Bloated, and branched; and tearing out of sheath
The brand, Sir Balin with a fiery 'Ha!
So thou be shadow, here I make thee ghost,'
Hard upon helm smote him, and the blade flew
Splintering in six, and clinkt upon the stones.
Then Garlon, reeling slowly backward, fell,
And Balin by the banneret of his helm
35
Dragged him, and struck, but from the castle a cry
Sounded across the court, and--men-at-arms,
A score with pointed lances, making at him-He dashed the pummel at the foremost face,
Beneath a low door dipt, and made his feet
Wings through a glimmering gallery, till he marked
The portal of King Pellam's chapel wide
And inward to the wall; he stept behind;
Thence in a moment heard them pass like wolves
Howling; but while he stared about the shrine,
In which he scarce could spy the Christ for Saints,
Beheld before a golden altar lie
The longest lance his eyes had ever seen,
Point-painted red; and seizing thereupon
Pushed through an open casement down, leaned on it,
Leapt in a semicircle, and lit on earth;
Then hand at ear, and harkening from what side
The blindfold rummage buried in the walls
Might echo, ran the counter path, and found
His charger, mounted on him and away.
An arrow whizzed to the right, one to the left,
One overhead; and Pellam's feeble cry
'Stay, stay him! he defileth heavenly things
With earthly uses'--made him quickly dive
Beneath the boughs, and race through many a mile
Of dense and open, till his goodly horse,
Arising wearily at a fallen oak,
Stumbled headlong, and cast him face to ground.
Half-wroth he had not ended, but all glad,
Knightlike, to find his charger yet unlamed,
Sir Balin drew the shield from off his neck,
Stared at the priceless cognizance, and thought
'I have shamed thee so that now thou shamest me,
Thee will I bear no more,' high on a branch
Hung it, and turned aside into the woods,
And there in gloom cast himself all along,
Moaning 'My violences, my violences!'
But now the wholesome music of the wood
Was dumbed by one from out the hall of Mark,
A damsel-errant, warbling, as she rode
36
The woodland alleys, Vivien, with her Squire.
'The fire of Heaven has killed the barren cold,
And kindled all the plain and all the wold.
The new leaf ever pushes off the old.
The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.
'Old priest, who mumble worship in your quire-Old monk and nun, ye scorn the world's desire,
Yet in your frosty cells ye feel the fire!
The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.
'The fire of Heaven is on the dusty ways.
The wayside blossoms open to the blaze.
The whole wood-world is one full peal of praise.
The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.
'The fire of Heaven is lord of all things good,
And starve not thou this fire within thy blood,
But follow Vivien through the fiery flood!
The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell!'
Then turning to her Squire 'This fire of Heaven,
This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,
And beat the cross to earth, and break the King
And all his Table.'
Then they reached a glade,
Where under one long lane of cloudless air
Before another wood, the royal crown
Sparkled, and swaying upon a restless elm
Drew the vague glance of Vivien, and her Squire;
Amazed were these; 'Lo there' she cried--'a crown-Borne by some high lord-prince of Arthur's hall,
And there a horse! the rider? where is he?
See, yonder lies one dead within the wood.
Not dead; he stirs!--but sleeping. I will speak.
Hail, royal knight, we break on thy sweet rest,
Not, doubtless, all unearned by noble deeds.
But bounden art thou, if from Arthur's hall,
To help the weak. Behold, I fly from shame,
A lustful King, who sought to win my love
Through evil ways: the knight, with whom I rode,
37
Hath suffered misadventure, and my squire
Hath in him small defence; but thou, Sir Prince,
Wilt surely guide me to the warrior King,
Arthur the blameless, pure as any maid,
To get me shelter for my maidenhood.
I charge thee by that crown upon thy shield,
And by the great Queen's name, arise and hence.'
And Balin rose, 'Thither no more! nor Prince
Nor knight am I, but one that hath defamed
The cognizance she gave me: here I dwell
Savage among the savage woods, here die-Die: let the wolves' black maws ensepulchre
Their brother beast, whose anger was his lord.
O me, that such a name as Guinevere's,
Which our high Lancelot hath so lifted up,
And been thereby uplifted, should through me,
My violence, and my villainy, come to shame.'
Thereat she suddenly laughed and shrill, anon
Sighed all as suddenly. Said Balin to her
'Is this thy courtesy--to mock me, ha?
Hence, for I will not with thee.' Again she sighed
'Pardon, sweet lord! we maidens often laugh
When sick at heart, when rather we should weep.
I knew thee wronged. I brake upon thy rest,
And now full loth am I to break thy dream,
But thou art man, and canst abide a truth,
Though bitter. Hither, boy--and mark me well.
Dost thou remember at Caerleon once-A year ago--nay, then I love thee not-Ay, thou rememberest well--one summer dawn-By the great tower--Caerleon upon Usk-Nay, truly we were hidden: this fair lord,
The flower of all their vestal knighthood, knelt
In amorous homage--knelt--what else?--O ay
Knelt, and drew down from out his night-black hair
And mumbled that white hand whose ringed caress
Had wandered from her own King's golden head,
And lost itself in darkness, till she cried-I thought the great tower would crash down on both-"Rise, my sweet King, and kiss me on the lips,
38
Thou art my King." This lad, whose lightest word
Is mere white truth in simple nakedness,
Saw them embrace: he reddens, cannot speak,
So bashful, he! but all the maiden Saints,
The deathless mother-maidenhood of Heaven,
Cry out upon her. Up then, ride with me!
Talk not of shame! thou canst not, an thou would'st,
Do these more shame than these have done themselves.'
She lied with ease; but horror-stricken he,
Remembering that dark bower at Camelot,
Breathed in a dismal whisper 'It is truth.'
Sunnily she smiled 'And even in this lone wood,
Sweet lord, ye do right well to whisper this.
Fools prate, and perish traitors. Woods have tongues,
As walls have ears: but thou shalt go with me,
And we will speak at first exceeding low.
Meet is it the good King be not deceived.
See now, I set thee high on vantage ground,
From whence to watch the time, and eagle-like
Stoop at thy will on Lancelot and the Queen.'
She ceased; his evil spirit upon him leapt,
He ground his teeth together, sprang with a yell,
Tore from the branch, and cast on earth, the shield,
Drove his mailed heel athwart the royal crown,
Stampt all into defacement, hurled it from him
Among the forest weeds, and cursed the tale,
The told-of, and the teller.
That weird yell,
Unearthlier than all shriek of bird or beast,
Thrilled through the woods; and Balan lurking there
(His quest was unaccomplished) heard and thought
'The scream of that Wood-devil I came to quell!'
Then nearing 'Lo! he hath slain some brother-knight,
And tramples on the goodly shield to show
His loathing of our Order and the Queen.
My quest, meseems, is here. Or devil or man
Guard thou thine head.' Sir Balin spake not word,
But snatched a sudden buckler from the Squire,
And vaulted on his horse, and so they crashed
39
In onset, and King Pellam's holy spear,
Reputed to be red with sinless blood,
Redded at once with sinful, for the point
Across the maiden shield of Balan pricked
The hauberk to the flesh; and Balin's horse
Was wearied to the death, and, when they clashed,
Rolling back upon Balin, crushed the man
Inward, and either fell, and swooned away.
Then to her Squire muttered the damsel 'Fools!
This fellow hath wrought some foulness with his Queen:
Else never had he borne her crown, nor raved
And thus foamed over at a rival name:
But thou, Sir Chick, that scarce hast broken shell,
Art yet half-yolk, not even come to down-Who never sawest Caerleon upon Usk-And yet hast often pleaded for my love-See what I see, be thou where I have been,
Or else Sir Chick--dismount and loose their casques
I fain would know what manner of men they be.'
And when the Squire had loosed them, 'Goodly!--look!
They might have cropt the myriad flower of May,
And butt each other here, like brainless bulls,
Dead for one heifer!
Then the gentle Squire
'I hold them happy, so they died for love:
And, Vivien, though ye beat me like your dog,
I too could die, as now I live, for thee.'
'Live on, Sir Boy,' she cried. 'I better prize
The living dog than the dead lion: away!
I cannot brook to gaze upon the dead.'
Then leapt her palfrey o'er the fallen oak,
And bounding forward 'Leave them to the wolves.'
But when their foreheads felt the cooling air,
Balin first woke, and seeing that true face,
Familiar up from cradle-time, so wan,
Crawled slowly with low moans to where he lay,
And on his dying brother cast himself
Dying; and HE lifted faint eyes; he felt
One near him; all at once they found the world,
40
Staring wild-wide; then with a childlike wail
And drawing down the dim disastrous brow
That o'er him hung, he kissed it, moaned and spake;
'O Balin, Balin, I that fain had died
To save thy life, have brought thee to thy death.
Why had ye not the shield I knew? and why
Trampled ye thus on that which bare the Crown?'
Then Balin told him brokenly, and in gasps,
All that had chanced, and Balan moaned again.
'Brother, I dwelt a day in Pellam's hall:
This Garlon mocked me, but I heeded not.
And one said "Eat in peace! a liar is he,
And hates thee for the tribute!" this good knight
Told me, that twice a wanton damsel came,
And sought for Garlon at the castle-gates,
Whom Pellam drove away with holy heat.
I well believe this damsel, and the one
Who stood beside thee even now, the same.
"She dwells among the woods" he said "and meets
And dallies with him in the Mouth of Hell."
Foul are their lives; foul are their lips; they lied.
Pure as our own true Mother is our Queen."
'O brother' answered Balin 'woe is me!
My madness all thy life has been thy doom,
Thy curse, and darkened all thy day; and now
The night has come. I scarce can see thee now.
Goodnight! for we shall never bid again
Goodmorrow--Dark my doom was here, and dark
It will be there. I see thee now no more.
I would not mine again should darken thine,
Goodnight, true brother.
Balan answered low
'Goodnight, true brother here! goodmorrow there!
We two were born together, and we die
Together by one doom:' and while he spoke
Closed his death-drowsing eyes, and slept the sleep
With Balin, either locked in either's arm.
41
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,#NFDB
294:Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax
Within this sober Frame expect
Work of no Forrain Architect;
That unto Caves the Quarries drew,
And Forrests did to Pastures hew;
Who of his great Design in pain
Did for a Model vault his Brain,
Whose Columnes should so high be rais'd
To arch the Brows that on them gaz'd.
Why should of all things Man unrul'd
Such unproportion'd dwellings build?
The Beasts are by their Denns exprest:
And Birds contrive an equal Nest;
The low roof'd Tortoises do dwell
In cases fit of Tortoise-shell:
No Creature loves an empty space;
Their Bodies measure out their Place.
But He, superfluously spread,
Demands more room alive then dead.
And in his hollow Palace goes
Where Winds as he themselves may lose.
What need of all this Marble Crust
T'impark the wanton Mose of Dust,
That thinks by Breadth the World t'unite
Though the first Builders fail'd in Height?
But all things are composed here
Like Nature, orderly and near:
In which we the Dimensions find
Of that more sober Age and Mind,
When larger sized Men did stoop
To enter at a narrow loop;
As practising, in doors so strait,
To strain themselves through Heavens Gate.
And surely when the after Age
Shall hither come in Pilgrimage,
These sacred Places to adore,
188
By Vere and Fairfax trod before,
Men will dispute how their Extent
Within such dwarfish Confines went:
And some will smile at this, as well
As Romulus his Bee-like Cell.
Humility alone designs
Those short but admirable Lines,
By which, ungirt and unconstrain'd,
Things greater are in less contain'd.
Let others vainly strive t'immure
The Circle in the Quadrature!
These holy Mathematics can
In ev'ry Figure equal Man.
Yet thus the laden House does sweat,
And scarce indures the Master great:
But where he comes the swelling Hall
Stirs, and the Square grows Spherical;
More by his Magnitude distrest,
Then he is by its straitness prest:
And too officiously it slights
That in it self which him delights.
So Honour better Lowness bears,
Then That unwonted Greatness wears
Height with a certain Grace does bend,
But low Things clownishly ascend.
And yet what needs there here Excuse,
Where ev'ry Thing does answer Use?
Where neatness nothing can condemn,
Nor Pride invent what to contemn?
A Stately Frontispice Of Poor
Adorns without the open Door:
Nor less the Rooms within commends
Daily new Furniture Of Friends.
The House was built upon the Place
Only as for a Mark Of Grace;
And for an Inn to entertain
Its Lord a while, but not remain.
189
Him Bishops-Hill, or Denton may,
Or Bilbrough, better hold then they:
But Nature here hath been so free
As if she said leave this to me.
Art would more neatly have defac'd
What she had laid so sweetly wast;
In fragrant Gardens, shaddy Woods,
Deep Meadows, and transparent Floods.
While with slow Eyes we these survey,
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunly may relate
The progress of this Houses Fate.
A Nunnery first gave it birth.
For Virgin Buildings oft brought forth.
And all that Neighbour-Ruine shows
The Quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy Cloysters Gates
There dwelt the blooming Virgin Thwates,
Fair beyond Measure, and an Heir
Which might Deformity make fair.
And oft She spent the Summer Suns
Discoursing with the Suttle Nuns.
Whence in these Words one to her weav'd,
(As 'twere by Chance) Thoughts long conceiv'd.
"Within this holy leisure we
"Live innocently as you see.
"these Walls restrain the World without,
"But hedge our Liberty about.
"These Bars inclose the wider Den
"Of those wild Creatures, called Men.
"The Cloyster outward shuts its Gates,
"And, from us, locks on them the Grates.
"Here we, in shining Armour white,
"Like Virgin Amazons do fight.
"And our chast Lamps we hourly trim,
"Lest the great Bridegroom find them dim.
"Our Orient Breaths perfumed are
"With insense of incessant Pray'r.
190
"And Holy-water of our Tears
"Most strangly our complexion clears.
"Not Tears of Grief; but such as those
"With which calm Pleasure overflows;
"Or Pity, when we look on you
"That live without this happy Vow.
"How should we grieve that must be seen
"Each one a Spouse, and each a Queen;
"And can in Heaven hence behold
"Our brighter Robes and Crowns of Gold?
"When we have prayed all our Beads,
"Some One the holy Legend reads;
"While all the rest with Needles paint
"The Face and Graces of the Saint.
"But what the Linnen can't receive
"They in their Lives do interweave
"This work the Saints best represents;
"That serves for Altar's Ornaments.
"But much it to our work would add
"If here your hand, your Face we had:
"By it we would our Lady touch;
"Yet thus She you resembles much.
"Some of your Features, as we sow'd,
"Through ev'ry Shrine should be bestow'd.
"And in one Beauty we would take
"Enough a thousand Saints to make.
"And (for I dare not quench the Fire
"That me does for your good inspire)
"'Twere Sacriledge a Mant t'admit
"To holy things, for Heaven fit.
"I see the Angels in a Crown
"On you the Lillies show'ring down:
"And round about you Glory breaks,
"That something more then humane speaks.
"All Beauty, when at such a height,
"Is so already consecrate.
"Fairfax I know; and long ere this
191
"Have mark'd the Youth, and what he is.
"But can he such a Rival seem
"For whom you Heav'n should disesteem?
"Ah, no! and 'twould more Honour prove
"He your Devoto were, then Love.
Here live beloved, and obey'd:
Each one your Sister, each your Maid.
"And, if our Rule seem strictly pend,
"The Rule it self to you shall bend.
"Our Abbess too, now far in Age,
"Doth your succession near presage.
"How soft the yoke on us would lye,
"Might such fair Hands as yours it tye!
"Your voice, the sweetest of the Quire,
"Shall draw Heav'n nearer, raise us higher.
"And your Example, if our Head,
"Will soon us to perfection lead.
"Those Virtues to us all so dear,
"Will straight grow Sanctity when here:
"And that, once sprung, increase so fast
"Till Miracles it work at last.
"Nor is our Order yet so nice,
"Delight to banish as a Vice.
"Here Pleasure Piety doth meet;
"One perfecting the other Sweet.
"So through the mortal fruit we boyl
"The Sugars uncorrupting Oyl:
"And that which perisht while we pull,
"Is thus preserved clear and full.
"For such indeed are all our Arts;
"Still handling Natures finest Parts.
"Flow'rs dress the Altars; for the Clothes,
"The Sea-born Amber we compose;
"Balms for the griv'd we draw; and pasts
"We mold, as Baits for curious tasts.
"What need is here of Man? unless
"These as sweet Sins we should confess.
192
"Each Night among us to your side
"Appoint a fresh and Virgin Bride;
"Whom if Our Lord at midnight find,
"Yet Neither should be left behind.
"Where you may lye as chast in Bed,
"As Pearls together billeted.
"All Night embracing Arm in Arm,
"Like Chrystal pure with Cotton warm.
"But what is this to all the store
"Of Joys you see, and may make more!
"Try but a while, if you be wise:
"The Tryal neither Costs, nor Tyes.
Now Fairfax seek her promis'd faith:
Religion that dispensed hath;
Which She hence forward does begin;
The Nuns smooth Tongue has suckt her in.
Oft, though he knew it was in vain,
Yet would he valiantly complain.
"Is this that Sanctity so great,
"An Art by which you finly'r cheat
"Hypocrite Witches, hence Avant,
"Who though in prison yet inchant!
"Death only can such Theeves make fast,
"As rob though in the Dungeon cast.
"Were there but, when this House was made,
"One Stone that a just Hand had laid,
"It must have fall'n upon her Head
"Who first Thee from thy Faith misled.
"And yet, how well soever ment,
"With them 'twould soon grow fraudulent
"For like themselves they alter all,
"And vice infects the very Wall.
"But sure those Buildings last not long,
"Founded by Folly, kept by Wrong.
"I know what Fruit their Gardens yield,
"When they it think by Night conceal'd.
"Fly from their Vices. 'Tis thy state,
"Not Thee, that they would consecrate.
193
"Fly from their Ruine. How I fear
"Though guiltless lest thou perish there.
What should he do? He would respect
Religion, but not Right neglect:
For first Religion taught him Right,
And dazled not but clear'd his sight.
Sometimes resolv'd his Sword he draws,
But reverenceth then the Laws:
"For Justice still that Courage led;
First from a Judge, then Souldier bred.
Small Honour would be in the Storm.
The Court him grants the lawful Form;
Which licens'd either Peace or Force,
To hinder the unjust Divorce.
Yet still the Nuns his Right debar'd,
Standing upon their holy Guard.
Ill-counsell'd Women, do you know
Whom you resist, or what you do?
Is not this he whose Offspring fierce
Shall fight through all the Universe;
And with successive Valour try
France, Poland, either Germany;
Till one, as long since prophecy'd,
His Horse through conquer'd Britain ride?
Yet, against Fate, his Spouse they kept;
And the great Race would intercept.
Some to the Breach against their Foes
Their Wooden Saints in vain oppose
Another bolder stands at push
With their old Holy-Water Brush.
While the disjointed Abbess threads
The gingling Chain-shot of her Beads.
But their lowd'st Cannon were their Lungs;
And sharpest Weapons were their Tongues.
But, waving these aside like Flyes,
Young Fairfax through the Wall does rise.
Then th' unfrequented Vault appear'd,
194
And superstitions vainly fear'd.
The Relicks False were set to view;
Only the Jewels there were true.
But truly bright and holy Thwaites
That weeping at the Altar waites.
But the glad Youth away her bears,
And to the Nuns bequeaths her Tears:
Who guiltily their Prize bemoan,
Like Gipsies that a Child hath stoln.
Thenceforth (as when th' Inchantment ends
The Castle vanishes or rends)
The wasting Cloister with the rest
Was in one instant dispossest.
At the demolishing, this Seat
To Fairfax fell as by Escheat.
And what both Nuns and Founders will'd
'Tis likely better thus fulfill'd,
For if the Virgin prov'd not theirs,
The Cloyster yet remained hers.
Though many a Nun there made her vow,
'Twas no Religious-House till now.
From that blest Bed the Heroe came,
Whom France and Poland yet does fame:
Who, when retired here to Peace,
His warlike Studies could not cease;
But laid these Gardens out in sport
In the just Figure of a Fort;
And with five Bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for ev'ry Sense.
When in the East the Morning Ray
Hangs out the Colours of the Day,
The Bee through these known Allies hums,
Beating the Dian with its Drumms.
Then Flow'rs their drowsie Eylids raise,
Their Silken Ensigns each displayes,
And dries its Pan yet dank with Dew,
And fills its Flask with Odours new.
195
These, as their Governour goes by,
In fragrant Vollyes they let fly;
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press:
None for the Virgin Nymph; for She
Seems with the Flow'rs a Flow'r to be.
And think so still! though not compare
With Breath so sweet, or Cheek so faire.
Well shot ye Fireman! Oh how sweet,
And round your equal Fires do meet;
Whose shrill report no Ear can tell,
But Ecchoes to the Eye and smell.
See how the Flow'rs, as at Parade,
Under their Colours stand displaid:
Each Regiment in order grows,
That of the Tulip Pinke and Rose.
But when the vigilant Patroul
Of Stars walks round about the Pole,
Their Leaves, that to the stalks are curl'd,
Seem to their Staves the Ensigns furl'd.
Then in some Flow'rs beloved Hut
Each Bee as Sentinel is shut;
And sleeps so too: but, if once stir'd,
She runs you through, or askes The Word.
Oh Thou, that dear and happy Isle
The Garden of the World ere while,
Thou Paradise of four Seas,
Which Heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the World, did guard
With watry if not flaming Sword;
What luckless Apple did we tast,
To make us Mortal, and The Wast.
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet Milltia restore,
When Gardens only had their Towrs,
And all the Garrisons were Flow'rs,
When Roses only Arms might bear,
And Men did rosie Garlands wear?
196
Tulips, in several Colours barr'd,
Were then the Switzers of our Guard.
The Gardiner had the Souldiers place,
And his more gentle Forts did trace.
The Nursery of all things green
Was then the only Magazeen.
The Winter Quarters were the Stoves,
Where he the tender Plants removes.
But War all this doth overgrow:
We Ord'nance Plant and Powder sow.
And yet their walks one on the Sod
Who, had it pleased him and God,
Might once have made our Gardens spring
Fresh as his own and flourishing.
But he preferr'd to the Cinque Ports
These five imaginary Forts:
And, in those half-dry Trenches, spann'd
Pow'r which the Ocean might command.
For he did, with his utmost Skill,
Ambition weed, but Conscience till.
Conscience, that Heaven-nursed Plant,
Which most our Earthly Gardens want.
A prickling leaf it bears, and such
As that which shrinks at ev'ry touch;
But Flow'rs eternal, and divine,
That in the Crowns of Saints do shine.
The sight does from these Bastions ply,
Th' invisible Artilery;
And at proud Cawood Castle seems
To point the Battery of its Beams.
As if it quarrell'd in the Seat
Th' Ambition of its Prelate great.
But ore the Meads below it plays,
Or innocently seems to gaze.
And now to the Abbyss I pass
Of that unfathomable Grass,
Where Men like Grashoppers appear,
197
But Grashoppers are Gyants there:
They, in there squeking Laugh, contemn
Us as we walk more low then them:
And, from the Precipices tall
Of the green spir's, to us do call.
To see Men through this Meadow Dive,
We wonder how they rise alive.
As, under Water, none does know
Whether he fall through it or go.
But, as the Marriners that sound,
And show upon their Lead the Ground,
They bring up Flow'rs so to be seen,
And prove they've at the Bottom been.
No Scene that turns with Engines strange
Does oftner then these Meadows change,
For when the Sun the Grass hath vext,
The tawny Mowers enter next;
Who seem like Israaliies to be,
Walking on foot through a green Sea.
To them the Grassy Deeps divide,
And crowd a Lane to either Side.
With whistling Sithe, and Elbow strong,
These Massacre the Grass along:
While one, unknowing, carves the Rail,
Whose yet unfeather'd Quils her fail.
The Edge all bloody from its Breast
He draws, and does his stroke detest;
Fearing the Flesh untimely mow'd
To him a Fate as black forebode.
But bloody Thestylis, that waites
To bring the mowing Camp their Cates,
Greedy as Kites has trust it up,
And forthwith means on it to sup:
When on another quick She lights,
And cryes, he call'd us Israelites;
But now, to make his saying true,
Rails rain for Quails, for Manna Dew.
198
Unhappy Birds! what does it boot
To build below the Grasses Root;
When Lowness is unsafe as Hight,
And Chance o'retakes what scapeth spight?
And now your Orphan Parents Call
Sounds your untimely Funeral.
Death-Trumpets creak in such a Note,
And 'tis the Sourdine in their Throat.
Or sooner hatch or higher build:
The Mower now commands the Field;
In whose new Traverse seemeth wrought
A Camp of Battail newly fought:
Where, as the Meads with Hay, the Plain
Lyes quilted ore with Bodies slain:
The Women that with forks it filing,
Do represent the Pillaging.
And now the careless Victors play,
Dancing the Triumphs of the Hay;
Where every Mowers wholesome Heat
Smells like an Alexanders Sweat.
Their Females fragrant as the Mead
Which they in Fairy Circles tread:
When at their Dances End they kiss,
Their new-made Hay not sweeter is.
When after this 'tis pil'd in Cocks,
Like a calm Sea it shews the Rocks:
We wondring in the River near
How Boats among them safely steer.
Or, like the Desert Memphis Sand,
Short Pyramids of Hay do stand.
And such the Roman Camps do rise
In Hills for Soldiers Obsequies.
This Scene again withdrawing brings
A new and empty Face of things;
A levell'd space, as smooth and plain,
As Clothes for Lilly strecht to stain.
The World when first created sure
Was such a Table rase and pure.
199
Or rather such is the Toril
Ere the Bulls enter at Madril.
For to this naked equal Flat,
Which Levellers take Pattern at,
The Villagers in common chase
Their Cattle, which it closer rase;
And what below the Sith increast
Is pincht yet nearer by the Breast.
Such, in the painted World, appear'd
Davenant with th'Universal Heard.
They seem within the polisht Grass
A landskip drawen in Looking-Glass.
And shrunk in the huge Pasture show
As spots, so shap'd, on Faces do.
Such Fleas, ere they approach the Eye,
In Multiplyiug Glasses lye.
They feed so wide, so slowly move,
As Constellatious do above.
Then, to conclude these pleasant Acts,
Denton sets ope its Cataracts;
And makes the Meadow truly be
(What it but seem'd before) a Sea.
For, jealous of its Lords long stay,
It try's t'invite him thus away.
The River in it self is drown'd,
And Isl's th' astonish Cattle round.
Let others tell the Paradox,
How Eels now bellow in the Ox;
How Horses at their Tails do kick,
Turn'd as they hang to Leeches quick;
How Boats can over Bridges sail;
And Fishes do the Stables scale.
How Salmons trespassing are found;
And Pikes are taken in the Pound.
But I, retiring from the Flood,
Take Sanctuary in the Wood;
And, while it lasts, my self imbark
200
In this yet green, yet growing Ark;
Where the first Carpenter might best
Fit Timber for his Keel have Prest.
And where all Creatures might have shares,
Although in Armies, not in Paires.
The double Wood of ancient Stocks
Link'd in so thick, an Union locks,
It like two Pedigrees appears,
On one hand Fairfax, th' other Veres:
Of whom though many fell in War,
Yet more to Heaven shooting are:
And, as they Natures Cradle deckt,
Will in green Age her Hearse expect.
When first the Eye this Forrest sees
It seems indeed as Wood not Trees:
As if their Neighbourhood so old
To one great Trunk them all did mold.
There the huge Bulk takes place, as ment
To thrust up a Fifth Element;
And stretches still so closely wedg'd
As if the Night within were hedg'd.
Dark all without it knits; within
It opens passable and thin;
And in as loose an order grows,
As the Corinthean Porticoes.
The Arching Boughs unite between
The Columnes of the Temple green;
And underneath the winged Quires
Echo about their tuned Fires.
The Nightingale does here make choice
To sing the Tryals of her Voice.
Low Shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With Musick high the squatted Thorns.
But highest Oakes stoop down to hear,
And listning Elders prick the Ear.
The Thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
Within the Skin its shrunken claws.
201
But I have for my Musick found
A Sadder, yet more pleasing Sound:
The Stock-doves whose fair necks are grac'd
With Nuptial Rings their Ensigns chast;
Yet always, for some Cause unknown,
Sad pair unto the Elms they moan.
O why should such a Couple mourn,
That in so equal Flames do burn!
Then as I carless on the Bed
Of gelid Straw-berryes do tread,
And through the Hazles thick espy
The hatching Thrastles shining Eye,
The Heron from the Ashes top,
The eldest of its young lets drop,
As if it Stork-like did pretend
That Tribute to its Lord to send.
But most the Hewel's wonders are,
Who here has the Holt-felsters care.
He walks still upright from the Root,
Meas'ring the Timber with his Foot;
And all the way, to keep it clean,
Doth from the Bark the Wood-moths glean.
He, with his Beak, examines well
Which fit to stand and which to fell.
The good he numbers up, and hacks;
As if he mark'd them with the Ax.
But where he, tinkling with his Beak,
Does find the hollow Oak to speak,
That for his building he designs,
And through the tainted Side he mines.
Who could have thought the tallest Oak
Should fall by such a feeble Strok'!
Nor would it, had the Tree not fed
A Traitor-worm, within it bred.
(As first our Flesh corrupt within
Tempts impotent and bashful Sin.
And yet that Worm triumphs not long,
But serves to feed the Hewels young.
202
While the Oake seems to fall content,
Viewing the Treason's Punishment.
Thus I, easie Philosopher,
Among the Birds and Trees confer:
And little now to make me, wants
Or of the Fowles, or of the Plants.
Give me but Wings as they, and I
Streight floting on the Air shall fly:
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted Tree.
Already I begin to call
In their most-learned Original:
And where I Language want,my Signs
The Bird upon the Bough divines;
And more attentive there doth sit
Then if She were with Lime-twigs knit.
No Leaf does tremble in the Wind
Which I returning cannot find.
Out of these scatter'd Sibyls Leaves
Strange Prophecies my Phancy weaves:
And in one History consumes,
Like Mexique Paintings, all the Plumes.
What Rome, Greece, Palestine, ere said
I in this light Mosaick read.
Thrice happy he who, not mistook,
Hath read in Natures mystick Book.
And see how Chance's better Wit
Could with a Mask my studies hit!
The Oak-Leaves me embroyder all,
Between which Caterpillars crawl:
And Ivy, with familiar trails,
Me licks, and clasps, and curles, and hales.
Under this antick Cope I move
Like some great Prelate of the Grove,
Then, languishing with ease, I toss
On Pallets swoln of Velvet Moss;
While the Wind, cooling through the Boughs,
203
Flatters with Air my panting Brows.
Thanks for my Rest ye Mossy Banks,
And unto you cool Zephyr's Thanks,
Who, as my Hair, my Thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the Chaff my Head.
How safe, methinks, and strong, behind
These Trees have I incamp'd my Mind;
Where Beauty, aiming at the Heart,
Bends in some Tree its useless Dart;
And where the World no certain Shot
Can make, or me it toucheth not.
But I on it securely play,
And gaul its Horsemen all the Day.
Bind me ye Woodbines in your 'twines,
Curle me about ye gadding Vines,
And Oh so close your Circles lace,
That I may never leave this Place:
But, lest your Fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your Silken Bondage break,
Do you, O Brambles, chain me too,
And courteous Briars nail me though.
Here in the Morning tye my Chain,
Where the two Woods have made a Lane;
While, like a Guard on either side,
The Trees before their Lord divide;
This, like a long and equal Thread,
Betwixt two Labyrinths does lead.
But, where the Floods did lately drown,
There at the Ev'ning stake me down.
For now the Waves are fal'n and dry'd,
And now the Meadows fresher dy'd;
Whose Grass, with moister colour dasht,
Seems as green Silks but newly washt.
No Serpent new nor Crocodile
Remains behind our little Nile;
Unless it self you will mistake,
Among these Meads the only Snake.
204
See in what wanton harmless folds
It ev'ry where the Meadow holds;
And its yet muddy back doth lick,
Till as a Chrystal Mirrour slick;
Where all things gaze themselves, and doubt
If they be in it or without.
And for his shade which therein shines,
Narcissus like, the Sun too pines.
Oh what a Pleasure 'tis to hedge
My Temples here with heavy sedge;
Abandoning my lazy Side,
Stretcht as a Bank unto the Tide;
Or to suspend my sliding Foot
On the Osiers undermined Root,
And in its Branches tough to hang,
While at my Lines the Fishes twang!
But now away my Hooks, my Quills,
And Angles, idle Utensils.
The Young Maria walks to night:
Hide trifling Youth thy Pleasures slight.
'Twere shame that such judicious Eyes
Should with such Toyes a Man surprize;
She that already is the Law
Of all her Sex, her Ages Aw.
See how loose Nature, in respect
To her, it self doth recollect;
And every thing so whisht and fine,
Starts forth with to its Bonne Mine.
The Sun himself, of Her aware,
Seems to descend with greater Care,
And lest She see him go to Bed,
In blushing Clouds conceales his Head.
So when the Shadows laid asleep
From underneath these Banks do creep,
And on the River as it flows
With Eben Shuts begin to close;
The modest Halcyon comes in sight,
Flying betwixt the Day and Night;
205
And such an horror calm and dumb,
Admiring Nature does benum.
The viscous Air, wheres'ere She fly,
Follows and sucks her Azure dy;
The gellying Stream compacts below,
If it might fix her shadow so;
The Stupid Fishes hang, as plain
As Flies in Chrystal overt'ane,
And Men the silent Scene assist,
Charm'd with the saphir-winged Mist.
Maria such, and so doth hush
The World, and through the Ev'ning rush.
No new-born Comet such a Train
Draws through the Skie, nor Star new-slain.
For streight those giddy Rockets fail,
Which from the putrid Earth exhale,
But by her Flames, in Heaven try'd,
Nature is wholly Vitrifi'd.
'Tis She that to these Gardens gave
That wondrous Beauty which they have;
She streightness on the Woods bestows;
To Her the Meadow sweetness owes;
Nothing could make the River be
So Chrystal-pure but only She;
She yet more Pure, Sweet, Streight, and Fair,
Then Gardens, Woods, Meads, Rivers are.
Therefore what first She on them spent,
They gratefully again present.
The Meadow Carpets where to tread;
The Garden Flow'rs to Crown Her Head;
And for a Glass the limpid Brook,
Where She may all her Beautyes look;
But, since She would not have them seen,
The Wood about her draws a Skreen.
For She, to higher Beauties rais'd,
Disdains to be for lesser prais'd.
She counts her Beauty to converse
206
In all the Languages as hers;
Not yet in those her self imployes
But for the Wisdome, not the Noyse;
Nor yet that Wisdome would affect,
But as 'tis Heavens Dialect.
Blest Nymph! that couldst so soon prevent
Those Trains by Youth against thee meant;
Tears (watry Shot that pierce the Mind;)
And Sighs (Loves Cannon charg'd with Wind;)
True Praise (That breaks through all defence;)
And feign'd complying Innocence;
But knowing where this Ambush lay,
She scap'd the safe, but roughest Way.
This 'tis to have been from the first
In a Domestick Heaven nurst,
Under the Discipline severe
Of Fairfax, and the starry Vere;
Where not one object can come nigh
But pure, and spotless as the Eye;
And Goodness doth it self intail
On Females, if there want a Male.
Go now fond Sex that on your Face
Do all your useless Study place,
Nor once at Vice your Brows dare knit
Lest the smooth Forehead wrinkled sit
Yet your own Face shall at you grin,
Thorough the Black-bag of your Skin;
When knowledge only could have fill'd
And Virtue all those Furows till'd.
Hence She with Graces more divine
Supplies beyond her Sex the Line;
And, like a sprig of Misleto,
On the Fairfacian Oak does grow;
Whence, for some universal good,
The Priest shall cut the sacred Bud;
While her glad Parents most rejoice,
And make their Destiny their Choice.
207
Mean time ye Fields, Springs, Bushes, Flow'rs,
Where yet She leads her studious Hours,
(Till Fate her worthily translates,
And find a Fairfax for our Thwaites)
Employ the means you have by Her,
And in your kind your selves preferr;
That, as all Virgins She preceds,
So you all Woods, Streams, Gardens, Meads.
For you Thessalian Tempe's Seat
Shall now be scorn'd as obsolete;
Aranjeuz, as less, disdain'd;
The Bel-Retiro as constrain'd;
But name not the Idalian Grove,
For 'twas the Seat of wanton Love;
Much less the Dead's Elysian Fields,
Yet nor to them your Beauty yields.
'Tis not, what once it was, the World;
But a rude heap together hurl'd;
All negligently overthrown,
Gulfes, Deserts, Precipices, Stone.
Your lesser World contains the same.
But in more decent Order tame;
You Heaven's Center, Nature's Lap.
And Paradice's only Map.
But now the Salmon-Fishers moist
Their Leathern Boats begin to hoist;
And, like Antipodes in Shoes,
Have shod their Heads in their Canoos.
How Tortoise like, but not so slow,
These rational Amphibii go?
Let's in: for the dark Hemisphere
Does now like one of them appear.
~ Andrew Marvell,#NFDB
295:BOOK THE FIRST
The Creation of the World
Of bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lye:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end:
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv'n,
And grosser air sunk from aetherial Heav'n.
Thus disembroil'd, they take their proper place;
The next of kin, contiguously embrace;
And foes are sunder'd, by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:
Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.
Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num'rous throng
Of pondrous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.
About her coasts, unruly waters roar;
And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form'd the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded Earth into a spacious round:
Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;
And bad the congregated waters flow.
He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part, in Earth are swallow'd up, the most
In ample oceans, disembogu'd, are lost.
He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.
And as five zones th' aetherial regions bind,
Five, correspondent, are to Earth assign'd:
The sun with rays, directly darting down,
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:
The two beneath the distant poles, complain
Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.
Betwixt th' extreams, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot, and cold.
The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
The lighter parts lye next the fires above;
The grosser near the watry surface move:
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,
And thunder's voice, which wretched mortals fear,
And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.
Nor were those blustring brethren left at large,
On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:
Bound as they are, and circumscrib'd in place,
They rend the world, resistless, where they pass;
And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;
Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.
First Eurus to the rising morn is sent
(The regions of the balmy continent);
And Eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the sun.
Westward, the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;
Pleas'd with the remnants of departing light:
Fierce Boreas, with his off-spring, issues forth
T' invade the frozen waggon of the North.
While frowning Auster seeks the Southern sphere;
And rots, with endless rain, th' unwholsom year.
High o'er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The God a clearer space for Heav'n design'd;
Where fields of light, and liquid aether flow;
Purg'd from the pondrous dregs of Earth below.
Scarce had the Pow'r distinguish'd these, when streight
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads, from underneath the mass;
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
And with diffusive light adorn their heav'nly place.
Then, every void of Nature to supply,
With forms of Gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share:
New colonies of birds, to people air:
And to their oozy beds, the finny fish repair.
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav'nly fire
The God of Nature did his soul inspire,
Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain'd th' aetherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos'd into Man.
The Golden Age
The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast:
No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd,
No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:
But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.
The mountain-trees in distant prospect please,
E're yet the pine descended to the seas:
E're sails were spread, new oceans to explore:
And happy mortals, unconcern'd for more,
Confin'd their wishes to their native shore.
No walls were yet; nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,
Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound:
Nor swords were forg'd; but void of care and crime,
The soft creation slept away their time.
The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
And unprovok'd, did fruitful stores allow:
Content with food, which Nature freely bred,
On wildings and on strawberries they fed;
Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
And falling acorns furnish'd out a feast.
The flow'rs unsown, in fields and meadows reign'd:
And Western winds immortal spring maintain'd.
In following years, the bearded corn ensu'd
From Earth unask'd, nor was that Earth renew'd.
From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke;
And honey sweating through the pores of oak.
The Silver Age
But when good Saturn, banish'd from above,
Was driv'n to Hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a silver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
Then summer, autumn, winter did appear:
And spring was but a season of the year.
The sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarg'd the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow;
The wings of winds were clogg'd with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals, into houses driv'n,
Sought shelter from th' inclemency of Heav'n.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds;
With twining oziers fenc'd; and moss their beds.
Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen labour'd first beneath the yoke.
The Brazen Age
To this came next in course, the brazen age:
A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,
Not impious yet...
The Iron Age
Hard steel succeeded then:
And stubborn as the metal, were the men.
Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook:
Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took.
Then sails were spread, to every wind that blew.
Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:
Trees, rudely hollow'd, did the waves sustain;
E're ships in triumph plough'd the watry plain.
Then land-marks limited to each his right:
For all before was common as the light.
Nor was the ground alone requir'd to bear
Her annual income to the crooked share,
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digg'd from her entrails first the precious oar;
Which next to Hell, the prudent Gods had laid;
And that alluring ill, to sight display'd.
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold:
And double death did wretched Man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betray'd,
Now (brandish'd weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands;
No rights of hospitality remain:
The guest, by him who harbour'd him, is slain,
The son-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husb and murders, he the wife.
The step-dame poyson for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;
And justice, here opprest, to Heav'n returns.
The Giants' War
Nor were the Gods themselves more safe above;
Against beleaguer'd Heav'n the giants move.
Hills pil'd on hills, on mountains mountains lie,
To make their mad approaches to the skie.
'Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time
T' avenge with thunder their audacious crime:
Red light'ning plaid along the firmament,
And their demolish'd works to pieces rent.
Sing'd with the flames, and with the bolts transfixt,
With native Earth, their blood the monsters mixt;
The blood, indu'd with animating heat,
Did in th' impregnant Earth new sons beget:
They, like the seed from which they sprung, accurst,
Against the Gods immortal hatred nurst,
An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood;
Expressing their original from blood.
Which when the king of Gods beheld from high
(Withal revolving in his memory,
What he himself had found on Earth of late,
Lycaon's guilt, and his inhumane treat),
He sigh'd; nor longer with his pity strove;
But kindled to a wrath becoming Jove:
Then call'd a general council of the Gods;
Who summon'd, issue from their blest abodes,
And fill th' assembly with a shining train.
A way there is, in Heav'n's expanded plain,
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,
And mortals, by the name of Milky, know.
The ground-work is of stars; through which the road
Lyes open to the Thunderer's abode:
The Gods of greater nations dwell around,
And, on the right and left, the palace bound;
The commons where they can: the nobler sort
With winding-doors wide open, front the court.
This place, as far as Earth with Heav'n may vie,
I dare to call the Louvre of the skie.
When all were plac'd, in seats distinctly known,
And he, their father, had assum'd the throne,
Upon his iv'ry sceptre first he leant,
Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:
Air, Earth, and seas, obey'd th' almighty nod;
And, with a gen'ral fear, confess'd the God.
At length, with indignation, thus he broke
His awful silence, and the Pow'rs bespoke.
I was not more concern'd in that debate
Of empire, when our universal state
Was put to hazard, and the giant race
Our captive skies were ready to imbrace:
For tho' the foe was fierce, the seeds of all
Rebellion, sprung from one original;
Now, wheresoever ambient waters glide,
All are corrupt, and all must be destroy'd.
Let me this holy protestation make,
By Hell, and Hell's inviolable lake,
I try'd whatever in the godhead lay:
But gangren'd members must be lopt away,
Before the nobler parts are tainted to decay.
There dwells below, a race of demi-gods,
Of nymphs in waters, and of fawns in woods:
Who, tho' not worthy yet, in Heav'n to live,
Let 'em, at least, enjoy that Earth we give.
Can these be thought securely lodg'd below,
When I my self, who no superior know,
I, who have Heav'n and Earth at my command,
Have been attempted by Lycaon's hand?
At this a murmur through the synod went,
And with one voice they vote his punishment.
Thus, when conspiring traytors dar'd to doom
The fall of Caesar, and in him of Rome,
The nations trembled with a pious fear;
All anxious for their earthly Thunderer:
Nor was their care, o Caesar, less esteem'd
By thee, than that of Heav'n for Jove was deem'd:
Who with his hand, and voice, did first restrain
Their murmurs, then resum'd his speech again.
The Gods to silence were compos'd, and sate
With reverence, due to his superior state.
Cancel your pious cares; already he
Has paid his debt to justice, and to me.
Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were,
Remains for me thus briefly to declare.
The clamours of this vile degenerate age,
The cries of orphans, and th' oppressor's rage,
Had reach'd the stars: I will descend, said I,
In hope to prove this loud complaint a lye.
Disguis'd in humane shape, I travell'd round
The world, and more than what I heard, I found.
O'er Maenalus I took my steepy way,
By caverns infamous for beasts of prey:
Then cross'd Cyllene, and the piny shade
More infamous, by curst Lycaon made:
Dark night had cover'd Heaven, and Earth, before
I enter'd his unhospitable door.
Just at my entrance, I display'd the sign
That somewhat was approaching of divine.
The prostrate people pray; the tyrant grins;
And, adding prophanation to his sins,
I'll try, said he, and if a God appear,
To prove his deity shall cost him dear.
'Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares,
When I shou'd soundly sleep, opprest with cares:
This dire experiment he chose, to prove
If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:
But first he had resolv'd to taste my pow'r;
Not long before, but in a luckless hour,
Some legates, sent from the Molossian state,
Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:
Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh;
And lays the mangled morsels in a dish:
Some part he roasts; then serves it up, so drest,
And bids me welcome to this humane feast.
Mov'd with disdain, the table I o'er-turn'd;
And with avenging flames, the palace burn'd.
The tyrant in a fright, for shelter gains
The neighb'ring fields, and scours along the plains.
Howling he fled, and fain he wou'd have spoke;
But humane voice his brutal tongue forsook.
About his lips the gather'd foam he churns,
And, breathing slaughters, still with rage he burns,
But on the bleating flock his fury turns.
His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs
Cleaves to his back; a famish'd face he bears;
His arms descend, his shoulders sink away
To multiply his legs for chase of prey.
He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,
And the same rage in other members reigns.
His eyes still sparkle in a narr'wer space:
His jaws retain the grin, and violence of his face
This was a single ruin, but not one
Deserves so just a punishment alone.
Mankind's a monster, and th' ungodly times
Confed'rate into guilt, are sworn to crimes.
All are alike involv'd in ill, and all
Must by the same relentless fury fall.
Thus ended he; the greater Gods assent;
By clamours urging his severe intent;
The less fill up the cry for punishment.
Yet still with pity they remember Man;
And mourn as much as heav'nly spirits can.
They ask, when those were lost of humane birth,
What he wou'd do with all this waste of Earth:
If his dispeopl'd world he would resign
To beasts, a mute, and more ignoble line;
Neglected altars must no longer smoke,
If none were left to worship, and invoke.
To whom the Father of the Gods reply'd,
Lay that unnecessary fear aside:
Mine be the care, new people to provide.
I will from wondrous principles ordain
A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.
Already had he toss'd the flaming brand;
And roll'd the thunder in his spacious hand;
Preparing to discharge on seas and land:
But stopt, for fear, thus violently driv'n,
The sparks should catch his axle-tree of Heav'n.
Remembring in the fates, a time when fire
Shou'd to the battlements of Heaven aspire,
And all his blazing worlds above shou'd burn;
And all th' inferior globe to cinders turn.
His dire artill'ry thus dismist, he bent
His thoughts to some securer punishment:
Concludes to pour a watry deluge down;
And what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.
The northern breath, that freezes floods, he binds;
With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:
The south he loos'd, who night and horror brings;
And foggs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours,
His head, and rheumy eyes distill in show'rs,
With rain his robe, and heavy mantle flow:
And lazy mists are lowring on his brow;
Still as he swept along, with his clench'd fist
He squeez'd the clouds, th' imprison'd clouds resist:
The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;
And show'rs inlarg'd, come pouring on the ground.
Then, clad in colours of a various dye,
Junonian Iris breeds a new supply
To feed the clouds: impetuous rain descends;
The bearded corn beneath the burden bends:
Defrauded clowns deplore their perish'd grain;
And the long labours of the year are vain.
Nor from his patrimonial Heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down;
Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.
The watry tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who rowl from mossie caves (their moist abodes);
And with perpetual urns his palace fill:
To whom in brief, he thus imparts his will.
Small exhortation needs; your pow'rs employ:
And this bad world, so Jove requires, destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your watry store:
Bear down the damms, and open ev'ry door.
The floods, by Nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones, that stopt their way,
And gushing from their source, augment the sea.
Then, with his mace, their monarch struck the ground;
With inward trembling Earth receiv'd the wound;
And rising streams a ready passage found.
Th' expanded waters gather on the plain:
They float the fields, and over-top the grain;
Then rushing onwards, with a sweepy sway,
Bear flocks, and folds, and lab'ring hinds away.
Nor safe their dwellings were, for, sap'd by floods,
Their houses fell upon their houshold Gods.
The solid piles, too strongly built to fall,
High o'er their heads, behold a watry wall:
Now seas and Earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.
One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is born:
And ploughs above, where late he sow'd his corn.
Others o'er chimney-tops and turrets row,
And drop their anchors on the meads below:
Or downward driv'n, they bruise the tender vine,
Or tost aloft, are knock'd against a pine.
And where of late the kids had cropt the grass,
The monsters of the deep now take their place.
Insulting Nereids on the cities ride,
And wond'ring dolphins o'er the palace glide.
On leaves, and masts of mighty oaks they brouze;
And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.
The frighted wolf now swims amongst the sheep;
The yellow lion wanders in the deep:
His rapid force no longer helps the boar:
The stag swims faster, than he ran before.
The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,
Despair of land, and drop into the main.
Now hills, and vales no more distinction know;
And levell'd Nature lies oppress'd below.
The most of mortals perish in the flood:
The small remainder dies for want of food.
A mountain of stupendous height there stands
Betwixt th' Athenian and Boeotian lands,
The bound of fruitful fields, while fields they were,
But then a field of waters did appear:
Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise
Mounts thro' the clouds, and mates the lofty skies.
High on the summit of this dubious cliff,
Deucalion wafting, moor'd his little skiff.
He with his wife were only left behind
Of perish'd Man; they two were human kind.
The mountain nymphs, and Themis they adore,
And from her oracles relief implore.
The most upright of mortal men was he;
The most sincere, and holy woman, she.
When Jupiter, surveying Earth from high,
Beheld it in a lake of water lie,
That where so many millions lately liv'd,
But two, the best of either sex, surviv'd;
He loos'd the northern wind; fierce Boreas flies
To puff away the clouds, and purge the skies:
Serenely, while he blows, the vapours driv'n,
Discover Heav'n to Earth, and Earth to Heav'n.
The billows fall, while Neptune lays his mace
On the rough sea, and smooths its furrow'd face.
Already Triton, at his call, appears
Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears;
And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears.
The soveraign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,
And give the waves the signal to retire.
His wri then shell he takes; whose narrow vent
Grows by degrees into a large extent,
Then gives it breath; the blast with doubling sound,
Runs the wide circuit of the world around:
The sun first heard it, in his early east,
And met the rattling ecchos in the west.
The waters, listning to the trumpet's roar,
Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.
A thin circumference of land appears;
And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds;
The streams, but just contain'd within their bounds,
By slow degrees into their channels crawl;
And Earth increases, as the waters fall.
In longer time the tops of trees appear,
Which mud on their dishonour'd branches bear.
At length the world was all restor'd to view;
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:
Nature beheld her self, and stood aghast,
A dismal desart, and a silent waste.
Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke:
Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind
The best, and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers joyn'd;
Of multitudes, who breath'd the common air,
We two remain; a species in a pair:
The rest the seas have swallow'd; nor have we
Ev'n of this wretched life a certainty.
The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,
A second deluge o'er our heads may break.
Shou'd I be snatcht from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,
How cou'dst thou such a wretched life sustain?
Shou'd I be left, and thou be lost, the sea
That bury'd her I lov'd, shou'd bury me.
Oh cou'd our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolisht Man retrieve,
And perisht people in new souls might live.
But Heav'n is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain,
That we, th' examples of mankind, remain.
He said; the careful couple joyn their tears:
And then invoke the Gods, with pious prayers.
Thus, in devotion having eas'd their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief;
And to Cephysus' brook their way pursue:
The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew;
With living waters, in the fountain bred,
They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,
Then took the way, which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil'd with moss, and mire,
The desart altars void of solemn fire.
Before the gradual, prostrate they ador'd;
The pavement kiss'd; and thus the saint implor'd.
O righteous Themis, if the Pow'rs above
By pray'rs are bent to pity, and to love;
If humane miseries can move their mind;
If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind;
Tell how we may restore, by second birth,
Mankind, and people desolated Earth.
Then thus the gracious Goddess, nodding, said;
Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:
And stooping lowly down, with losen'd zones,
Throw each behind your backs, your mighty mother's bones.
Amaz'd the pair, and mute with wonder stand,
'Till Pyrrha first refus'd the dire command.
Forbid it Heav'n, said she, that I shou'd tear
Those holy reliques from the sepulcher.
They ponder'd the mysterious words again,
For some new sense; and long they sought in vain:
At length Deucalion clear'd his cloudy brow,
And said, the dark Aenigma will allow
A meaning, which, if well I understand,
From sacrilege will free the God's command:
This Earth our mighty mother is, the stones
In her capacious body, are her bones:
These we must cast behind. With hope, and fear,
The woman did the new solution hear:
The man diffides in his own augury,
And doubts the Gods; yet both resolve to try.
Descending from the mount, they first unbind
Their vests, and veil'd, they cast the stones behind:
The stones (a miracle to mortal view,
But long tradition makes it pass for true)
Did first the rigour of their kind expel,
And suppled into softness, as they fell;
Then swell'd, and swelling, by degrees grew warm;
And took the rudiments of human form.
Imperfect shapes: in marble such are seen,
When the rude chizzel does the man begin;
While yet the roughness of the stone remains,
Without the rising muscles, and the veins.
The sappy parts, and next resembling juice,
Were turn'd to moisture, for the body's use:
Supplying humours, blood, and nourishment;
The rest, too solid to receive a bent,
Converts to bones; and what was once a vein,
Its former name and Nature did retain.
By help of pow'r divine, in little space,
What the man threw, assum'd a manly face;
And what the wife, renew'd the female race.
Hence we derive our nature; born to bear
Laborious life; and harden'd into care.
The rest of animals, from teeming Earth
Produc'd, in various forms receiv'd their birth.
The native moisture, in its close retreat,
Digested by the sun's aetherial heat,
As in a kindly womb, began to breed:
Then swell'd, and quicken'd by the vital seed.
And some in less, and some in longer space,
Were ripen'd into form, and took a sev'ral face.
Thus when the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
And seeks, with ebbing tides, his ancient bed,
The fat manure with heav'nly fire is warm'd;
And crusted creatures, as in wombs, are form'd;
These, when they turn the glebe, the peasants find;
Some rude, and yet unfinish'd in their kind:
Short of their limbs, a lame imperfect birth:
One half alive; and one of lifeless earth.
For heat, and moisture, when in bodies join'd,
The temper that results from either kind
Conception makes; and fighting 'till they mix,
Their mingled atoms in each other fix.
Thus Nature's hand the genial bed prepares
With friendly discord, and with fruitful wars.
From hence the surface of the ground, with mud
And slime besmear'd (the faeces of the flood),
Receiv'd the rays of Heav'n: and sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin:
Some were of sev'ral sorts produc'd before,
But of new monsters, Earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python too, the wondring world to fright,
And the new nations, with so dire a sight:
So monstrous was his bulk, so large a space
Did his vast body, and long train embrace.
Whom Phoebus basking on a bank espy'd;
E're now the God his arrows had not try'd
But on the trembling deer, or mountain goat;
At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.
Though ev'ry shaft took place, he spent the store
Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before
Th' expiring serpent wallow'd in his gore.
Then, to preserve the fame of such a deed,
For Python slain, he Pythian games decred.
Where noble youths for mastership shou'd strive,
To quoit, to run, and steeds, and chariots drive.
The prize was fame: in witness of renown
An oaken garl and did the victor crown.
The laurel was not yet for triumphs born;
But every green alike by Phoebus worn,
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn.
The Transformation of Daphne into a Lawrel
The first and fairest of his loves, was she
Whom not blind fortune, but the dire decree
Of angry Cupid forc'd him to desire:
Daphne her name, and Peneus was her sire.
Swell'd with the pride, that new success attends,
He sees the stripling, while his bow he bends,
And thus insults him: Thou lascivious boy,
Are arms like these for children to employ?
Know, such atchievements are my proper claim;
Due to my vigour, and unerring aim:
Resistless are my shafts, and Python late
In such a feather'd death, has found his fate.
Take up the torch (and lay my weapons by),
With that the feeble souls of lovers fry.
To whom the son of Venus thus reply'd,
Phoebus, thy shafts are sure on all beside,
But mine of Phoebus, mine the fame shall be
Of all thy conquests, when I conquer thee.
He said, and soaring, swiftly wing'd his flight:
Nor stopt but on Parnassus' airy height.
Two diff'rent shafts he from his quiver draws;
One to repel desire, and one to cause.
One shaft is pointed with refulgent gold:
To bribe the love, and make the lover bold:
One blunt, and tipt with lead, whose base allay
Provokes disdain, and drives desire away.
The blunted bolt against the nymph he drest:
But with the sharp transfixt Apollo's breast.
Th' enamour'd deity pursues the chace;
The scornful damsel shuns his loath'd embrace:
In hunting beasts of prey, her youth employs;
And Phoebe rivals in her rural joys.
With naked neck she goes, and shoulders bare;
And with a fillet binds her flowing hair.
By many suitors sought, she mocks their pains,
And still her vow'd virginity maintains.
Impatient of a yoke, the name of bride
She shuns, and hates the joys, she never try'd.
On wilds, and woods, she fixes her desire:
Nor knows what youth, and kindly love, inspire.
Her father chides her oft: Thou ow'st, says he,
A husb and to thy self, a son to me.
She, like a crime, abhors the nuptial bed:
She glows with blushes, and she hangs her head.
Then casting round his neck her tender arms,
Sooths him with blandishments, and filial charms:
Give me, my Lord, she said, to live, and die,
A spotless maid, without the marriage tye.
'Tis but a small request; I beg no more
Than what Diana's father gave before.
The good old sire was soften'd to consent;
But said her wish wou'd prove her punishment:
For so much youth, and so much beauty join'd,
Oppos'd the state, which her desires design'd.
The God of light, aspiring to her bed,
Hopes what he seeks, with flattering fancies fed;
And is, by his own oracles, mis-led.
And as in empty fields the stubble burns,
Or nightly travellers, when day returns,
Their useless torches on dry hedges throw,
That catch the flames, and kindle all the row;
So burns the God, consuming in desire,
And feeding in his breast a fruitless fire:
Her well-turn'd neck he view'd (her neck was bare)
And on her shoulders her dishevel'd hair;
Oh were it comb'd, said he, with what a grace
Wou'd every waving curl become her face!
He view'd her eyes, like heav'nly lamps that shone,
He view'd her lips, too sweet to view alone,
Her taper fingers, and her panting breast;
He praises all he sees, and for the rest
Believes the beauties yet unseen are best:
Swift as the wind, the damsel fled away,
Nor did for these alluring speeches stay:
Stay Nymph, he cry'd, I follow, not a foe.
Thus from the lyon trips the trembling doe;
Thus from the wolf the frighten'd lamb removes,
And, from pursuing faulcons, fearful doves;
Thou shunn'st a God, and shunn'st a God, that loves.
Ah, lest some thorn shou'd pierce thy tender foot,
Or thou shou'dst fall in flying my pursuit!
To sharp uneven ways thy steps decline;
Abate thy speed, and I will bate of mine.
Yet think from whom thou dost so rashly fly;
Nor basely born, nor shepherd's swain am I.
Perhaps thou know'st not my superior state;
And from that ignorance proceeds thy hate.
Me Claros, Delphi, Tenedos obey;
These hands the Patareian scepter sway.
The King of Gods begot me: what shall be,
Or is, or ever was, in Fate, I see.
Mine is th' invention of the charming lyre;
Sweet notes, and heav'nly numbers, I inspire.
Sure is my bow, unerring is my dart;
But ah! more deadly his, who pierc'd my heart.
Med'cine is mine; what herbs and simples grow
In fields, and forrests, all their pow'rs I know;
And am the great physician call'd, below.
Alas that fields and forrests can afford.
No remedies to heal their love-sick lord!
To cure the pains of love, no plant avails:
And his own physick, the physician falls.
She heard not half; so furiously she flies;
And on her ear th' imperfect accent dies,
Fear gave her wings; and as she fled, the wind
Increasing, spread her flowing hair behind;
And left her legs and thighs expos'd to view:
Which made the God more eager to pursue.
The God was young, and was too hotly bent
To lose his time in empty compliment:
But led by love, and fir'd with such a sight,
Impetuously pursu'd his near delight.
As when th' impatient greyhound slipt from far,
Bounds o'er the glebe to course the fearful hare,
She in her speed does all her safety lay;
And he with double speed pursues the prey;
O'er-runs her at the sitting turn, and licks
His chaps in vain, and blows upon the flix:
She scapes, and for the neighb'ring covert strives,
And gaining shelter, doubts if yet she lives:
If little things with great we may compare,
Such was the God, and such the flying fair,
She urg'd by fear, her feet did swiftly move,
But he more swiftly, who was urg'd by love.
He gathers ground upon her in the chace:
Now breathes upon her hair, with nearer pace;
And just is fast'ning on the wish'd embrace.
The nymph grew pale, and in a mortal fright,
Spent with the labour of so long a flight;
And now despairing, cast a mournful look
Upon the streams of her paternal brook;
Oh help, she cry'd, in this extreamest need!
If water Gods are deities indeed:
Gape Earth, and this unhappy wretch intomb;
Or change my form, whence all my sorrows come.
Scarce had she finish'd, when her feet she found
Benumb'd with cold, and fasten'd to the ground:
A filmy rind about her body grows;
Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs:
The nymph is all into a lawrel gone;
The smoothness of her skin remains alone.
Yet Phoebus loves her still, and casting round
Her bole, his arms, some little warmth he found.
The tree still panted in th' unfinish'd part:
Not wholly vegetive, and heav'd her heart.
He fixt his lips upon the trembling rind;
It swerv'd aside, and his embrace declin'd.
To whom the God, Because thou canst not be
My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree:
Be thou the prize of honour, and renown;
The deathless poet, and the poem, crown.
Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
And, after poets, be by victors worn.
Thou shalt returning Caesar's triumph grace;
When pomps shall in a long procession pass.
Wreath'd on the posts before his palace wait;
And be the sacred guardian of the gate.
Secure from thunder, and unharm'd by Jove,
Unfading as th' immortal Pow'rs above:
And as the locks of Phoebus are unshorn,
So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn.
The grateful tree was pleas'd with what he said;
And shook the shady honours of her head.
The Transformation of Io into a Heyfer
An ancient forest in Thessalia grows;
Which Tempe's pleasing valley does inclose:
Through this the rapid Peneus take his course;
From Pindus rolling with impetuous force;
Mists from the river's mighty fall arise:
And deadly damps inclose the cloudy skies:
Perpetual fogs are hanging o'er the wood;
And sounds of waters deaf the neighbourhood.
Deep, in a rocky cave, he makes abode
(A mansion proper for a mourning God).
Here he gives audience; issuing out decrees
To rivers, his dependant deities.
On this occasion hither they resort;
To pay their homage, and to make their court.
All doubtful, whether to congratulate
His daughter's honour, or lament her fate.
Sperchaeus, crown'd with poplar, first appears;
Then old Apidanus came crown'd with years:
Enipeus turbulent, Amphrysos tame;
And Aeas last with lagging waters came.
Then, of his kindred brooks, a num'rous throng
Condole his loss; and bring their urns along.
Not one was wanting of the wat'ry train,
That fill'd his flood, or mingled with the main:
But Inachus, who in his cave, alone,
Wept not another's losses, but his own,
For his dear Io, whether stray'd, or dead,
To him uncertain, doubtful tears he shed.
He sought her through the world; but sought in vain;
And no where finding, rather fear'd her slain.
Her, just returning from her father's brook,
Jove had beheld, with a desiring look:
And, Oh fair daughter of the flood, he said,
Worthy alone of Jove's imperial bed,
Happy whoever shall those charms possess;
The king of Gods (nor is thy lover less)
Invites thee to yon cooler shades; to shun
The scorching rays of the meridian sun.
Nor shalt thou tempt the dangers of the grove
Alone, without a guide; thy guide is Jove.
No puny Pow'r, but he whose high comm and
Is unconfin'd, who rules the seas and land;
And tempers thunder in his awful hand,
Oh fly not: for she fled from his embrace
O'er Lerna's pastures: he pursu'd the chace
Along the shades of the Lyrcaean plain;
At length the God, who never asks in vain,
Involv'd with vapours, imitating night,
Both Air, and Earth; and then suppress'd her flight,
And mingling force with love, enjoy'd the full delight.
Mean-time the jealous Juno, from on high,
Survey'd the fruitful fields of Arcady;
And wonder'd that the mist shou'd over-run
The face of day-light, and obscure the sun.
No nat'ral cause she found, from brooks, or bogs,
Or marshy lowlands, to produce the fogs;
Then round the skies she sought for Jupiter,
Her faithless husband; but no Jove was there:
Suspecting now the worst, Or I, she said,
Am much mistaken, or am much betray'd.
With fury she precipitates her flight:
Dispels the shadows of dissembled night;
And to the day restores his native light.
Th' Almighty Leacher, careful to prevent
The consequence, foreseeing her descent,
Transforms his mistress in a trice; and now
In Io's place appears a lovely cow.
So sleek her skin, so faultless was her make,
Ev'n Juno did unwilling pleasure take
To see so fair a rival of her love;
And what she was, and whence, enquir'd of Jove:
Of what fair herd, and from what pedigree?
The God, half caught, was forc'd upon a lye:
And said she sprung from Earth. She took the word,
And begg'd the beauteous heyfer of her lord.
What should he do? 'twas equal shame to Jove
Or to relinquish, or betray his love:
Yet to refuse so slight a gift, wou'd be
But more t' increase his consort's jealousie:
Thus fear, and love, by turns, his heart assail'd;
And stronger love had sure, at length, prevail'd:
But some faint hope remain'd, his jealous queen
Had not the mistress through the heyfer seen.
The cautious Goddess, of her gift possest,
Yet harbour'd anxious thoughts within her breast;
As she who knew the falshood of her Jove;
And justly fear'd some new relapse of love.
Which to prevent, and to secure her care,
To trusty Argus she commits the fair.
The head of Argus (as with stars the skies)
Was compass'd round, and wore an hundred eyes.
But two by turns their lids in slumber steep;
The rest on duty still their station keep;
Nor cou'd the total constellation sleep.
Thus, ever present, to his eyes, and mind,
His charge was still before him, tho' behind.
In fields he suffer'd her to feed by Day,
But when the setting sun to night gave way,
The captive cow he summon'd with a call;
And drove her back, and ty'd her to the stall.
On leaves of trees, and bitter herbs she fed,
Heav'n was her canopy, bare earth her bed:
So hardly lodg'd, and to digest her food,
She drank from troubled streams, defil'd with mud.
Her woeful story fain she wou'd have told,
With hands upheld, but had no hands to hold.
Her head to her ungentle keeper bow'd,
She strove to speak, she spoke not, but she low'd:
Affrighted with the noise, she look'd around,
And seem'd t' inquire the author of the sound.
Once on the banks where often she had play'd
(Her father's banks), she came, and there survey'd
Her alter'd visage, and her branching head;
And starting, from her self she wou'd have fled.
Her fellow nymphs, familiar to her eyes,
Beheld, but knew her not in this disguise.
Ev'n Inachus himself was ignorant;
And in his daughter, did his daughter want.
She follow'd where her fellows went, as she
Were still a partner of the company:
They stroak her neck; the gentle heyfer stands,
And her neck offers to their stroaking hands.
Her father gave her grass; the grass she took;
And lick'd his palms, and cast a piteous look;
And in the language of her eyes, she spoke.
She wou'd have told her name, and ask'd relief,
But wanting words, in tears she tells her grief.
Which, with her foot she makes him understand;
And prints the name of Io in the sand.
Ah wretched me! her mournful father cry'd;
She, with a sigh, to wretched me reply'd:
About her milk-white neck, his arms he threw;
And wept, and then these tender words ensue.
And art thou she, whom I have sought around
The world, and have at length so sadly found?
So found, is worse than lost: with mutual words
Thou answer'st not, no voice thy tongue affords:
But sighs are deeply drawn from out thy breast;
And speech deny'd, by lowing is express'd.
Unknowing, I prepar'd thy bridal bed;
With empty hopes of happy issue fed.
But now the husb and of a herd must be
Thy mate, and bell'wing sons thy progeny.
Oh, were I mortal, death might bring relief:
But now my God-head but extends my grief:
Prolongs my woes, of which no end I see,
And makes me curse my immortality!
More had he said, but fearful of her stay,
The starry guardian drove his charge away,
To some fresh pasture; on a hilly height
He sate himself, and kept her still in sight.
The Eyes of Argus transform'd into a Peacock's Train
Now Jove no longer cou'd her suff'rings bear;
But call'd in haste his airy messenger,
The son of Maia, with severe decree
To kill the keeper, and to set her free.
With all his harness soon the God was sped,
His flying hat was fastned on his head,
Wings on his heels were hung, and in his hand
He holds the vertue of the snaky wand.
The liquid air his moving pinions wound,
And, in the moment, shoot him on the ground.
Before he came in sight, the crafty God
His wings dismiss'd, but still retain'd his rod:
That sleep-procuring wand wise Hermes took,
But made it seem to sight a sherpherd's hook.
With this, he did a herd of goats controul;
Which by the way he met, and slily stole.
Clad like a country swain, he pip'd, and sung;
And playing, drove his jolly troop along.
With pleasure, Argus the musician heeds;
But wonders much at those new vocal reeds.
And whosoe'er thou art, my friend, said he,
Up hither drive thy goats, and play by me:
This hill has browz for them, and shade for thee.
The God, who was with ease induc'd to climb,
Began discourse to pass away the time;
And still betwixt, his tuneful pipe he plies;
And watch'd his hour, to close the keeper's eyes.
With much ado, he partly kept awake;
Not suff'ring all his eyes repose to take:
And ask'd the stranger, who did reeds invent,
And whence began so rare an instrument?
The Transformation of Syrinx into Reeds
Then Hermes thus: A nymph of late there was
Whose heav'nly form her fellows did surpass.
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia's plains,
Belov'd by deities, ador'd by swains:
Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursu'd,
As oft she did the lustful Gods delude:
The rural, and the woodl and Pow'rs disdain'd;
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain'd:
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe's self she seems,
So tall, so streight, such well-proportion'd limbs:
The nicest eye did no distinction know,
But that the goddess bore a golden bow:
Distinguish'd thus, the sight she cheated too.
Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore.
But e'er he thus began, she took her flight
So swift, she was already out of sight.
Nor stay'd to hear the courtship of the God;
But bent her course to Ladon's gentle flood:
There by the river stopt, and tir'd before;
Relief from water nymphs her pray'rs implore.
Now while the lustful God, with speedy pace,
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
He fill'd his arms with reeds, new rising on the place.
And while he sighs, his ill success to find,
The tender canes were shaken by the wind;
And breath'd a mournful air, unheard before;
That much surprizing Pan, yet pleas'd him more.
Admiring this new musick, Thou, he said,
Who canst not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the confort of my mind:
And often, often to my lips be joyn'd.
He form'd the reeds, proportion'd as they are,
Unequal in their length, and wax'd with care,
They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.
While Hermes pip'd, and sung, and told his tale,
The keeper's winking eyes began to fail,
And drowsie slumber on the lids to creep;
'Till all the watchman was at length asleep.
Then soon the God his voice, and song supprest;
And with his pow'rful rod confirm'd his rest:
Without delay his crooked faulchion drew,
And at one fatal stroke the keeper slew.
Down from the rock fell the dissever'd head,
Opening its eyes in death; and falling, bled;
And mark'd the passage with a crimson trail:
Thus Argus lies in pieces, cold, and pale;
And all his hundred eyes, with all their light,
Are clos'd at once, in one perpetual night.
These Juno takes, that they no more may fail,
And spreads them in her peacock's gaudy tail.
Impatient to revenge her injur'd bed,
She wreaks her anger on her rival's head;
With Furies frights her from her native home;
And drives her gadding, round the world to roam:
Nor ceas'd her madness, and her flight, before
She touch'd the limits of the Pharian shore.
At length, arriving on the banks of Nile,
Wearied with length of ways, and worn with toil,
She laid her down; and leaning on her knees,
Invok'd the cause of all her miseries:
And cast her languishing regards above,
For help from Heav'n, and her ungrateful Jove.
She sigh'd, she wept, she low'd; 'twas all she cou'd;
And with unkindness seem'd to tax the God.
Last, with an humble pray'r, she beg'd repose,
Or death at least, to finish all her woes.
Jove heard her vows, and with a flatt'ring look,
In her behalf to jealous Juno spoke,
He cast his arms about her neck, and said,
Dame, rest secure; no more thy nuptial bed
This nymph shall violate; by Styx I swear,
And every oath that binds the Thunderer.
The Goddess was appeas'd; and at the word
Was Io to her former shape restor'd.
The rugged hair began to fall away;
The sweetness of her eyes did only stay,
Tho' not so large; her crooked horns decrease;
The wideness of her jaws and nostrils cease:
Her hoofs to hands return, in little space:
The five long taper fingers take their place,
And nothing of the heyfer now is seen,
Beside the native whiteness of the skin.
Erected on her feet she walks again:
And two the duty of the four sustain.
She tries her tongue; her silence softly breaks,
And fears her former lowings when she speaks:
A Goddess now, through all th' Aegyptian State:
And serv'd by priests, who in white linnen wait.
Her son was Epaphus, at length believ'd
The son of Jove, and as a God receiv'd;
With sacrifice ador'd, and publick pray'rs,
He common temples with his mother shares.
Equal in years, and rival in renown
With Epaphus, the youthful Phaeton
Like honour claims; and boasts his sire the sun.
His haughty looks, and his assuming air,
The son of Isis could no longer bear:
Thou tak'st thy mother's word too far, said he,
And hast usurp'd thy boasted pedigree.
Go, base pretender to a borrow'd name.
Thus tax'd, he blush'd with anger, and with shame;
But shame repress'd his rage: the daunted youth
Soon seeks his mother, and enquires the truth:
Mother, said he, this infamy was thrown
By Epaphus on you, and me your son.
He spoke in publick, told it to my face;
Nor durst I vindicate the dire disgrace:
Even I, the bold, the sensible of wrong,
Restrain'd by shame, was forc'd to hold my tongue.
To hear an open slander, is a curse:
But not to find an answer, is a worse.
If I am Heav'n-begot, assert your son
By some sure sign; and make my father known,
To right my honour, and redeem your own.
He said, and saying cast his arms about
Her neck, and beg'd her to resolve the doubt.
'Tis hard to judge if Clymene were mov'd
More by his pray'r, whom she so dearly lov'd,
Or more with fury fir'd, to find her name
Traduc'd, and made the sport of common fame.
She stretch'd her arms to Heav'n, and fix'd her eyes
On that fair planet that adorns the skies;
Now by those beams, said she, whose holy fires
Consume my breast, and kindle my desires;
By him, who sees us both, and clears our sight,
By him, the publick minister of light,
I swear that Sun begot thee; if I lye,
Let him his chearful influence deny:
Let him no more this perjur'd creature see;
And shine on all the world but only me.
If still you doubt your mother's innocence,
His eastern mansion is not far from hence;
With little pains you to his Leve go,
And from himself your parentage may know.
With joy th' ambitious youth his mother heard,
And eager, for the journey soon prepar'd.
He longs the world beneath him to survey;
To guide the chariot; and to give the day:
From Meroe's burning sands he bends his course,
Nor less in India feels his father's force:
His travel urging, till he came in sight;
And saw the palace by the purple light.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
~ Ovid, BOOK THE FIRST
,#NFDB
296:The Door Of Humility
ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;
But natured only to rejoice
At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voice,
In patience through the darkness grope;
Until our finer sense expands,
And we exchange for holier sight
The earthly help of voice and hands,
And in His light behold the Light.
Let there be Light! The self-same Power
That out of formless dark and void
Endued with life's mysterious dower
Planet, and star, and asteroid;
That moved upon the waters' face,
And, breathing on them His intent,
Divided, and assigned their place
To, ocean, air, and firmament;
That bade the land appear, and bring
Forth herb and leaf, both fruit and flower,
Cattle that graze, and birds that sing,
Ordained the sunshine and the shower;
That, moulding man and woman, breathed
In them an active soul at birth
In His own image, and bequeathed
To them dominion over Earth;
That, by whatever is, decreed
418
His Will and Word shall be obeyed,
From loftiest star to lowliest seed;The worm and me He also made.
And when, for nuptials of the Spring
With Summer, on the vestal thorn
The bridal veil hung flowering,
A cry was heard, and I was born.
II
To be by blood and long descent
A member of a mighty State,
Whose greatness, sea-girt, but unpent
By ocean, makes the world more great;
That, ranging limitless, hath won
A Rule more wide than that of Rome,
And, journeying onward with the sun,
In every zone hath found a home;
That, keeping old traditions fast,
Still hails the things that are to be,
And, firmly rooted in the Past,
On Law hath grafted Liberty;That is a birthright nobler far
Than princely claim or Right Divine
From far-off rapine, wanton war,
And I could feel this birthright mine.
And not the lowliest hand that drives
Or share or loom, if so it be
Of British strain, but thence derives
A patent of nobility.
III
The guiding of the infant years
Onward to good, away from guile,
A mother's humanising tears,
A father's philosophic smile;
419
Refining beauty, gentle ways,
The admonitions of the wise,
The love that watches, helps, and prays,
And pities, but doth ne'er despise;
An ancient Faith, abiding hope,
The charity that suffers long,
But flames with sacred zeal to cope
With man's injustice, nature's wrong;
Melodious leisure, learnëd shelf,
Discourse of earnest, temperate mind,
The playful wit that of itself
Flashes, but leaves no wound behind;
The knowledge gleaned from Greece and Rome,
From studious Teuton, sprightly Gaul,
The lettered page, the mellow tome,
And poets' wisdom more than all;These, when no lips severe upbraid,
But counsel rather than control,
In budding boyhood lend their aid
To sensibility of soul.
IV
But, more than mentor, mother, sire,
Can lend to shape the future man
With help of learning or of lyre,
Of ancient rule, or modern plan,
Is that which with our breath we bring
Into the world, we know not whence,
That needs nor care nor fostering,
Because an instinct and a sense.
And days and years are all forgot
When Nature's aspect, growth, and grace,
And veering moods, to me were not
The features of the Loved One's face.
420
The
The
The
The
cloud whose shadow skims the lake,
shimmering haze of summer noon,
voice of April in the brake,
silence of the mounting moon,
Swaying of bracken on the hill,
The murmur of the vagrant stream,
These motions of some unseen Will,
These babblings of some heavenly dream,
Seemed tokens of divine desire
To hold discourse with me, and so
To touch my lips with hallowed fire,
And tell me things I ought to know.
I gazed and listened, all intent,
As to the face and voice of Fate,
But what they said, or what they meant,
I could surmise not, nor translate.
They did but lure me to unrest,
Unanswered questioning, longings vain,
As when one scans some palimpsest
No erudition can explain;
But left me with a deep distaste
For common speech, that still did seem
More meaningless than mountain waste,
Less human than the far-off stream.
So that a stranger in the land
Wherein I moved, where'er I went,
I dwelt, whom none could understand,
Or exorcise my discontent.
And I to them, and they to me
Seemed from two different planets come,
And, save to flower and wild-bird's glee,
My heart was deaf, my soul was dumb.
421
But slowly dawned a happier time
When I began to apprehend,
And catch, as in some poet's rhyme,
The intimations of a friend;
When Nature spake no unknown tongue,
But language kindred to my thought,
Till everything She said, I sung,
In notes unforced, in words unsought.
And I to Her so closely drew,
The seasons round, in mind and mood,
I felt at length as if we knew
Self-same affection, self-same feud:
That both alike scorned worldly aim,
Profit, applause, parade, and pride,
Whereby the love of generous fame
And worthy deeds grows petrified.
I did as yet not understand
Nature is far more vast than I,
Deep as the ocean, wide as land,
And overarching as the sky;
And but responded to my call,
And only felt and fed my need,
Because She doth the same for all
Who to her pity turn and plead.
VI
Shall man have mind, and Nature none,
Shall I, not she, have soul and heart?
Nay, rather, if we be not one,
Each is of each the counterpart.
She too may have within her breast
A conscience, if not like to yours,
A sense of rightness ill at rest,
Long as her waywardness endures.
422
And hence her thunder, earthquakes, hail,
Her levin bolts, her clouds' discharge:
She sins upon a larger scale,
Because She is herself more large.
Hence, too, when She hath pierced with pain
The heart of man, and wrecked his years,
The pity of the April rain,
And late repentance of her tears.
She is no better, worse, than we;
We can but say she seems more great,
That half her will, like ours, is free,
And half of it is locked in Fate.
Nor need we fear that we should err
Beyond our scope in reasoning thus,That there must be a God for Her,
If that there be a God for us.
VII
The chiming of the Sabbath bell,
The silence of the Sabbath fields,
Over the hamlet cast a spell
To which the gracious spirit yields.
Sound is there none of wheel or wain,
Husht stands the anvil, husht the forge,
No shout is heard in rustic lane,
No axe resounds in timbered gorge.
No flail beats time on granary floor,
The windmill's rushing wings are stayed,
And children's glee rings out no more
From hedgerow bank or primrose glade.
The big-boned team that firm and slow
Draw yoked, are free to couch or stray;
The basking covey seem to know
None will invade their peace to-day.
423
And speckless swains, and maidens neat,
Through rustic porch, down cottage stair,
Demurely up the village street
Stream onward to the House of Prayer.
They kneel as they were taught to kneel
In childhood, and demand not why,
But, as they chant or answer, feel
A vague communion with the sky.
VIII
But when the impetuous mind is spurred
To range through epochs great but gone,
And, heedless of dogmatic word,
With fearless ardour presses on,
Confronting pulpit, sceptre, shrine,
With point by Logic beaten out,
And, questioning tenets deemed divine
With human challenge, human doubt,
Hoists Reason's sail, and for the haze
Of ocean quits Tradition's shore,
Awhile he comes, and kneels, and prays,
Then comes and kneels, but prays no more;
And only for the love he bears
To those who love him, and who reared
His frame to genuflexion, shares
In ritual, vain, if still revered.
His Gods are many or are none,
Saturn and Mithra, Christ and Jove,
Consorting, as the Ages run,
With Vestal choir or Pagan drove.
Abiding still by Northern shores,
He sees far off on Grecian coast
Veiled Aphrodite, but adores
Minerva and Apollo most.
424
Beauty of vision, voice, and mind,
Enthrall him so, that unto him
All Creeds seem true, if he but find
Siren, or saint, or seraphim.
And thus once more he dwells apart,
His inward self enswathed in mist,
Blending with poet's pious heart
The dreams of pagan Hedonist.
IX
If Beauty be the Spirit's quest,
Its adoration, creed, and shrine,
Wherein its restlessness finds rest,
And earthly type of the Divine,
Must there for such not somewhere be
A blending of all beauteous things
In some one form wherein we see
The sum of our imaginings?
The smile on mountain's musing brow,
Sunrise and sunset, moon and star,
Wavelets around the cygnet's prow,
Glamour anear and charm afar;
The silence of the silvery pool,
Autumn's reserve and Summer's fire,
Slow vanishings of Winter's rule
To free full voice of April's choir;The worshippers of Beauty find
In maiden form, and face, and tress;
Faint intimations of her mind
And undulating loveliness.
Bound, runnels, bound, bound on, and flow!
Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!
425
Gone is the Winter, fled the snow,
And all that lives is flushed with Spring.
Harry the woods, young truant folk,
For flowers to deck your cottage sills,
And, underneath my orchard oak,
Cluster, ye golden daffodils!
Unfettered by domestic vow,
Cuckoo, proclaim your vagrant loves,
And coo upon the self-same bough,
Inseparable turtle-doves.
Soar, laverock, soar on song to sky,
And with the choir of Heaven rejoice!
You cannot be more glad than I,
Who feel Her gaze, and hear Her voice:
Who see Her cheek more crimson glow,
And through Her veins love's current stream,
And feel a fear She doth but know
Is kin to joy and dawning dream.
Bound, rivulets, bound, bound on, and flow!
Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!
Gone from the world are want and woe,
And I myself am one with Spring.
XI
They err who say that Love is blind,
Or, if it be, 'tis but in part,
And that, if for fair face it find
No counterpart in mind and heart,
It dwells on that which it beholds,
Fair fleshly vision void of soul,
Deeming, illusioned, this enfolds,
Longing's fulfilment, end, and whole.
Were such my hapless carnal lot,
I too might evanescent bliss
426
Embrace, fierce-fancied, fast forgot,
Then leave for some fresh loveliness.
But April gaze, and Summer tress,
With something of Autumnal thought,
In Her seem blent to crown and bless
A bond I long in dreams have sought.
She looks as though She came to grace
The earth, from world less soiled than this,
Around her head and virgin face
Halo of heavenly holiness.
XII
He who hath roamed through various lands,
And, wheresoe'er his steps are set,
The kindred meaning understands
Of spire, and dome, and minaret;
By Roman river, Stamboul's sea,
In Peter's or Sophia's shrine,
Acknowledges with reverent knee
The presence of the One Divine;
Who, to the land he loves so well
Returning, towards the sunset hour
Wends homeward, feels yet stronger spell
In lichened roof and grey church-tower;
Round whose foundations, side by side,
Sleep hamlet wit and village sage,
While loud the blackbird cheers his bride
Deep in umbrageous Vicarage.
XIII
Was it that sense which some aver
Foreshadows Fate it doth not see,
That gave unwittingly to Her
The name, for ever dear to me,
427
Borne by that tearful Mother whom,
Nigh unto Ostia's shelving sand,
Augustine laid in lonely tomb,
Ere sailing for his Afric land?
But I at least should have foreseen,
When Monica to me had grown
Familiar word, that names may mean
More than by word and name is shown;
That nought can keep two lives apart
More than divorce 'twixt mind and mind,
Even though heart be one with heart;Alas! Alas! Yes, Love is blind.
XIV
How could I think of jarring Creeds,
And riddles that unread remain,
Or ask if Heaven's indulgence heeds
Broils born of man's polemic brain,
And pause because my venturous mind
Had roamed through tracks of polar thought,
Whence mightiest spirits turn back blind,
Since finding not the thing they sought,
When Love, with luring gifts in hand,
Beauty, refinement, smile, caress,
Heart to surmise and understand,
And crowning grace of holiness,
Stood there before me, and, with gaze
I had been purblind not to see,
Said, ``I to you will, all my days,
Give what you yearn to give to me''?
Must both then sorrow, while we live,
Because, rejoicing, I forgot
Something there was I could not give,
Because, alas! I had it not.
428
XV
She comes from Vicarage Garden, see!
Radiant as morning, lithe and tall,
Fresh lilies in her hand, but She
The loveliest lily of them all.
The thrushes in their fluting pause,
The bees float humming round her head,
Earth, air, and heaven shine out because
They hear her voice, and feel her tread.
Up in the fretted grey church-tower,
That rustic gaze for miles can see,
The belfry strikes the silvery hour,
Announcing her propinquity.
And I who, fearful to be late,
Passed long since through the deerpark pale,
And loitered by the churchyard gate,
Once more exclaim, ``Hail! loved one! hail!''
We pass within, and up the nave,
Husht, because Heaven seems always there,
Wend choirward, where, devoutly grave,
She kneels, to breathe a silent prayer.
She takes the flowers I too have brought,
Blending them deftly with her own,
And ranges them, as quick as thought,
Around the white-draped altar-throne.
How could she know my gaze was not
On things unseen, but fixed on Her,
That, as She prayed, I all forgot
The worship in the worshipper?While She beheld, as in a glass,
The Light Divine, that I but sought
Sight of her soul?-Alas! Alas!
Love is yet blinder than I thought.
429
XVI
Who hath not seen a little cloud
Up from the clear horizon steal,
And, mounting lurid, mutter loud
Premonitory thunder-peal?
Husht grows the grove, the summer leaf
Trembles and writhes, as if in pain,
And then the sky, o'ercharged with grief,
Bursts into drenching tears of rain.
I through the years had sought to hide
My darkening doubts from simple sight.
'Tis sacrilegious to deride
Faith of unquestioning neophyte.
And what, methought, is Doubt at best?
A sterile wind through seeded sedge
Blowing for nought, an empty nest
That lingers in a leafless hedge.
Pain, too, there is we should not share
With others lest it mar their joy;
There is a quiet bliss in prayer
None but the heartless would destroy.
But just as Love is quick divined
From heightened glow or visage pale,
The meditations of the Mind
Disclose themselves through densest veil.
And 'tis the unloving and least wise
Who through life's inmost precincts press,
And with unsympathetic eyes
Outrage our sacred loneliness.
Then, when their sacrilegious gaze
The mournful void hath half surmised,
To some more tender soul they raise
The veil of ignorance it prized.
430
XVII
`What though I write farewell I could
Not utter, lest your gaze should chide,
'Twill by your love be understood
My love is still, dear, at your side.
``Nor must we meet to speak goodbye,
Lest that my Will should lose its choice,
And conscience waver, for then I
Should see your face and hear your voice.
``But, when you find yourself once more,
Come back, come back and look for me,
Beside the little lowly door,
The Doorway of Humility.''
XVIII
There! Peace at last! The far-off roar
Of human passion dies away.
``Welcome to our broad shade once more,''
The waning woodlands seem to say:
The music of the vagrant wind,
That wandered aimlessly, is stilled;
The songless branches all remind
That Summer's glory is fulfilled.
The fluttering of the falling leaves
Dimples the leaden pool awhile;
So Age impassively receives
Youth's tale of troubles with a smile.
Thus, as the seasons steal away,
How much is schemed, how little done,
What splendid plans at break of day!
What void regrets at set of sun!
The world goes round, for you, for me,
For him who sleeps, for him who strives,
And the cold Fates indifferent see
431
Crowning or failure of our lives.
Then fall, ye leaves, fade, summer breeze!
Grow, sedges, sere on every pool!
Let each old glowing impulse freeze,
Let each old generous project cool!
It is not wisdom, wit, nor worth,
Self-sacrifice nor friendship true,
Makes venal devotees of earth
Prostrate themselves and worship you.
The consciousness of sovran powers,
The stubborn purpose, steadfast will,
Have ever, in this world of ours,
Achieved success, achieve it still.
Farewell, ye woods! No more I sit;
Great voices in the distance call.
If this be peace, enough of it!
I go. Fall, unseen foliage, fall!
XIX
Nay, but repress rebellious woe!
In grief 'tis not that febrile fool,
Passion, that can but overthrow,
But Resignation, that should rule.
In patient sadness lurks a gift
To purify the life it stings,
And, as the days move onward, lift
The lonely heart to loftier things;
Bringing within one's ripening reach
The sceptre of majestic Thought,
Wherefrom one slowly learns to teach
The Wisdom to oneself it taught.
And unto what can man aspire,
On earth, more worth the striving for,
Than to be Reason's loftier lyre,
432
And reconciling monitor;
To strike a more resounding string
And deeper notes of joy and pain,
Than such as but lamenting sing,
Or warble but a sensuous strain:
So, when my days are nearly sped,
And my last harvest labours done,
That I may have around my head
The halo of a setting sun.
Yet even if be heard above
Such selfish hope, presumptuous claim,
Better one hour of perfect love
Than an eternity of Fame!
XX
Where then for grief seek out the cure?
What scenes will bid my smart to cease?
High peaks should teach one to endure,
And lakes secluded bring one peace.
Farewell awhile, then, village bells,
Autumnal wood and harvest wain!
And welcome, as it sinks or swells,
The music of the mighty main,
That seems to say, now loud, now low,
Rising or falling, sweet or shrill,
``I pace, a sentry, to and fro,
To guard your Island fortress still.''
The roses falter on their stalk,
The late peach reddens on the wall,
The flowers along the garden walk
Unheeded fade, unheeded fall.
My gates unopened drip with rain,
The wolf-hound wends from floor to floor,
And, listening for my voice in vain,
433
Waileth along the corridor.
Within the old accustomed place
Where we so oft were wont to be,
Kneeling She prays, while down her face
The fruitless tears fall silently.
SWITZERLAND
XXI
Rain, wind, and rain. The writhing lake
Scuds to and fro to scape their stroke:
The mountains veil their heads, and make
Of cloud and mist a wintry cloak.
Through where the arching pinewoods make
Dusk cloisters down the mountain side,
The loosened avalanches take
Valeward their way, with death for guide,
And toss their shaggy manes and fling
To air their foam and tawny froth,
From ledge and precipice bound and spring,
With hungry roar and deepening wrath;
Till, hamlet homes and orchards crushed,
And, rage for further ravin stayed,
They slumber, satiated, husht,
Upon the ruins they have made.
I rise from larch-log hearth, and, lone,
Gaze on the spears of serried rain,
That faster, nigher, still are blown,
Then stream adown the window pane.
The peasant's goatskin garments drip,
As home he wends with lowered head,
Shakes off the drops from lid and lip,
Then slinks within his châlet shed.
434
The cattle bells sound dull and hoarse,
The boats rock idly by the shore;
Only the swollen torrents course
With faster feet and fuller roar.
Mournful, I shape a mournful song,
And ask the heavens, but ask in vain,
``How long, how long?'' Ah! not so long
As, in my heart, rain, wind, and rain.
XXII
I ask the dark, the dawn, the sun,
The domeward-pointing peaks of snow,
Lofty and low alike, but none
Will tell me what I crave to know.
My mind demands, ``Whence, Whither, Why?''
From mountain slope and green defile,
And wait the answer. The replyA far-off irresponsive smile.
I ask the stars, when mortals sleep,
The pensive moon, the lonely winds;
But, haply if they know, they keep
The secret of secluded minds.
Shall I in
Straining
Where in
Where in
vain, then, strive to find,
towards merely fancied goal?
the lily lurks the mind,
the rose discern the soul?
More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake,
The mountains yet more heartless seem,
And life's unceasing quest and ache
Only a dream within a dream.
We know no more, though racked with thought
Than he who, in yon châlet born,
Gives not the riddle, Life, a thought,
But lays him down and sleeps till morn.
435
Sometimes he kneels; I cannot kneel,
So suffer from a wider curse
Than Eden's outcasts, for I feel
An exile in the universe.
The rudeness of his birth enures
His limbs to every season's stings,
And, never probing, so endures
The sadness at the heart of things.
When lauwine growls, and thunder swells,
Their far-off clamour sounds to me
But as the noise of clanging bells
Above a silent sanctuary.
It is their silence that appals,
Their aspect motionless that awes,
When searching spirit vainly calls
On the effect to bare the Cause.
I get no answer, near or far;
The mountains, though they soar so high,
And scale the pathless ether, are
No nearer unto God than I.
There dwells nor mystery nor veil
Round the clear peaks no foot hath trod;
I, gazing on their frontage pale,
See but the waning ghost of God.
Is Faith then but a drug for sleep,
And Hope a fondly soothing friend
That bids us, when it sees us weep,
Wait for the End that hath no end?
Then do I hear voice unforgot
Wailing across the distance dim,
``Think, dear! If God existeth not,
Why are you always seeking Him?''
XXIII
436
Like glowing furnace of the forge,
How the winds rise and roar, as they
Up twisting valley, craggy gorge,
Seek, and still seek, to storm their way;
Then, baffled, up the open slope
With quickening pulses scale and pant,
Indomitably bent to cope
With bristling fronts of adamant.
All through the day resounds the strife,
Then doth at sunset hour subside:
So the fierce passions of our life
Slowly expire at eventide.
By Nature we are ne'er misled;
We see most truly when we dream.
A singer wise was he who said,
``Follow the gleam! Follow the gleam!''
XXIV
I dreamed, last night, again I stood,
Silent, without the village shrine,
While She in modest maidenhood
Left, fondly clasped, her hand in mine.
And, with a face as cerecloth white,
And tears like those that by the bier
Of loved one lost make dim the sight,
She poured her sorrows in mine ear.
``I love your voice, I love your gaze,
But there is something dearer still,
The faith that kneels, the hope that prays,
And bows before the Heavenly Will.
``Not where hills rise, or torrents roll,
Seek Him, nor yet alone, apart;
He dwells within the troubled soul,
His home is in the human heart.
437
``Withal, the peaceful mountains may
'Twixt doubt and yearning end the strife:
So ponder, though you cannot pray,
And think some meaning into life:
``Nor like to those that cross the main
To wander witless through strange land,
Hearing unmastered tongues, disdain
The speech they do not understand.
``Firm stands my faith that they who sound
The depths of doubt Faith yet will save:
They are like children playing round
A still remembered mother's grave;
``Not knowing, when they wax more old,
And somewhat can her vision share,
She will the winding-sheet unfold,
And beckon them to evening prayer.''
Then, with my hand betwixt her hands,
She laid her lips upon my brow,
And, as to one who understands,
Said, ``Take once more my vestal vow.
``No other gaze makes mine to glow,
No other footstep stirs my heart,
To me you only dearer grow,
Dearer and nearer, more apart.
``Whene'er you come with humble mind,
The little Door stands open wide,
And, bending low, you still will find
Me waiting on the other side.''
Her silence woke me. . . . To your breast
Fold me, O sleep! and seal mine ears;
That She may roam through my unrest
Till all my dreams are drenched with tears!
XXV
438
Why linger longer, subject, here,
Where Nature sits and reigns alone,
Inspiring love not, only fear,
Upon her autocratic throne?
Her edicts are the rigid snow,
The wayward winds, the swaying branch;
She hath no pity to bestow,
Her law the lawless avalanche.
Though soon cascades will bound and sing,
That now but drip with tears of ice,
And upland meadows touched by Spring
Blue gentian blend with edelweiss,
Hence to the Land of youthful dreams,
The Land that taught me all I know.
Farewell, lone mountain-peaks and streams;
Yet take my thanks before I go.
You gave me shelter when I fled,
But sternly bade me stem my tears,
Nor aimless roam with rustling tread
'Mong fallen leaves of fruitless years.
ITALY
XXVI
Upon the topmost wheel-track steep,
The parting of two nations' ways,
Athwart stone cross engraven deep,
The name ``Italia'' greets the gaze!
I trembled, when I saw it first,
With joy, my boyish longings fed,
The headspring of my constant thirst,
The altar of my pilgrim tread.
Now once again the magic word,
So faintly borne to Northern home,
Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard
439
Beneath some universal dome.
The forests soften to a smile,
A smile the very mountains wear,
Through mossy gorge and grassed defile
Torrents race glad and debonair.
From casement, balcony and door,
Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine,
And sun-bronzed faces bask before
Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year's wine.
Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steers
Take, like their lords, no heed of time.
Hark! now the evening star appears,
Ave Maria belfries chime.
The maidens knit, and glance, and sing,
With glowing gaze 'neath ebon tress,
And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring,
Seem burgeoning into tenderness.
On waveless lake where willows weep,
The Borromean Islands rest
As motionless as babe asleep
Upon a slumbering Mother's breast.
O Land of sunshine, song, and Love!
Whether thy children reap or sow,
Of Love they chant on hills above,
Of Love they sing in vale below.
But what avail the love-linked hands,
And love-lit eyes, to them that roam
Passionless through impassioned lands,
Since they have left their heart at home!
XXVII
Among my dreams, now known as dreams
In this my reawakened life,
I thought that by historic streams,
440
Apart from stress, aloof from strife,
By rugged paths that twist and twine
Through olive slope and chesnut wood
Upward to mediaeval shrine,
Or high conventual brotherhood,
Along the mountain-curtained track
Round peaceful lake where wintry bands
Halt briefly but to bivouac
Ere blustering on to Northern lands;Through these, through all I first did see,
With me to share my raptures none,
That nuptialled Monica would be
My novice and companion:
That we should float from mere to mere,
And sleep within some windless cove,
With nightingales to lull the ear,
From ilex wood and orange grove;
Linger at hamlets lost to fame,
That still wise-wandering feet beguile,
To gaze on frescoed wall or frame
Lit by Luini's gracious smile.
Now, but companioned by my pain,
Among each well-remembered scene
I can but let my Fancy feign
The happiness that might have been;
Imagine that I hear her voice,
Imagine that I feel her hand,
And I, enamoured guide, rejoice
To see her swift to understand.
Alack! Imagination might
As lief with rustic Virgil roam,
Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight
At Pliny's philosophic home;
441
Hear one majestically trace
Rome's world-wide sway from wattled wall,
And read upon the other's face
The omens of an Empire's fall.
XXVIII
Like moonlight seen through forest leaves,
She shines upon me from afar,
What time men reap the ripened sheaves,
And Heaven rains many a falling star.
I gaze up to her lofty height,
And feel how far we dwell apart:
O if I could, this night, this night,
Fold her full radiance to my heart!
But She in Heaven, and I on earth,
Still journey on, but each alone;
She, maiden Queen of sacred birth,
Who with no consort shares her throne.
XXIX
What if She ever thought She saw
The self within myself prefer
Communion with the silent awe
Of far-off mountains more than Her;
That Nature hath the mobile grace
To make life with our moods agree,
And so had grown the Loved One's face,
Since it nor checked nor chided me;
Or from the tasks that irk and tire
I sought for comfort from the Muse,
Because it grants the mind's desire
All that familiar things refuse.
How vain such thought! The face, the form,
Of mountain summits but express,
Clouded or clear, in sun or storm,
442
Feebly Her spirit's loftiness.
Did I explore from pole to pole,
In Nature's aspect I should find
But faint reflections of Her soul,
Dim adumbrations of Her mind.
O come and test with lake, with stream,
With mountain, which the stronger be,
Thou, my divinest dearest dream,
My Muse, and more than Muse, to me!
XXX
They tell me that Jehovah speaks
In silent grove, on lonely strand,
And summit of the mountain peaks;
Yet there I do not understand.
The stars, disdainful of my thought,
Majestic march toward their goal,
And to my nightly watch have brought
No explanation to my soul.
The truth I seek I cannot find,
In air or sky, on land or sea;
If the hills have their secret mind,
They will not yield it up to me:
Like one who lost mid lonely hills
Still seeks but cannot find his way,
Since guide is none save winding rills,
That seem themselves, too, gone astray.
And so from rise to set of sun,
At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze,
I but behold the face of One
Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays.
What know I that She doth not know?
What I know not, She understands:
With heavenly gifts She overflows,
443
While I have only empty hands.
O weary wanderer! Best forego
This questioning of wind and wave.
For you the sunshine and the snow,
The womb, the cradle, and the grave.
XXXI
How blest, when organ concords swell,
And anthems are intoned, are they
Who neither reason nor rebel,
But meekly bow their heads and pray.
And such the peasants mountain-bred,
Who hail to-day with blithe accord
Her Feast Who to the Angel said,
``Behold the Handmaid of the Lord!''
Downward they wind from pastoral height,
Or hamlet grouped round shattered towers,
To wend to shrine more richly dight,
And bring their gift of wilding flowers;
Their gifts, their griefs, their daily needs,
And lay these at Her statue's base,
Who never, deem they, intercedes
Vainly before the Throne of Grace.
Shall I, because I stand apart,
A stranger to their pious vows,
Scorn their humility of heart
That pleads before the Virgin Spouse,
Confiding that the Son will ne'er,
If in His justice wroth with them,
Refuse to harken to Her prayer
Who suckled Him in Bethlehem?
Of all the intercessors born
By man's celestial fancy, none
444
Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn,
Lowly and lone, as She hath done.
The maiden faithful to Her shrine
Bids demons of temptation flee,
And mothers fruitful as the vine
Retain their vestal purity.
Too trustful love, by lust betrayed,
And by cold worldlings unforgiven,
Unto Her having wept and prayed,
Faces its fate, consoled and shriven.
The restless, fiercely probing mind
No honey gleans, though still it stings.
What comfort doth the spirit find
In Reason's endless reasonings?
They have no solace for my grief,
Compassion none for all my pain:
They toss me like the fluttering leaf,
And leave me to the wind and rain.
XXXII
If Conscience be God's Law to Man,
Then Conscience must perforce arraign
Whatever falls beneath the ban
Of that allotted Suzerain.
And He, who bids us not to swerve,
Whither the wayward passions draw,
From its stern sanctions, must observe
The limits of the self-same Law.
Yet, if obedient Conscience scan
The sum of wrongs endured and done
Neither by act nor fault of Man,
They rouse it to rebellion.
Life seems of life by life bereft
445
Through some immitigable curse,
And Man sole moral being left
In a non-moral Universe.
My Conscience would my Will withstand,
Did Will project a world like this:
Better Eternal vacuum still,
Than murder, lust, and heartlessness!
If Man makes Conscience, then being good
Is only being worldly wise,
And universal brotherhood
A comfortable compromise.
O smoke of War! O blood-steeped sod!
O groans of fratricidal strife!
Who will explain the ways of God,
That I may be at peace with life!
The moral riddle 'tis that haunts,
Primeval and unending curse,
Racking the mind when pulpit vaunts
A Heaven-created Universe.
Yet whence came Life, and how begin?
Rolleth the globe by choice or chance?
Dear Lord! Why longer shut me in
This prison-house of ignorance!
FLORENCE
XXXIII
City acclaimed ere Dante's days
Fair, and baptized in field of flowers,
Once more I scan with tender gaze
Your glistening domes, your storied towers.
I feel as if long years had flown
Since first with eager heart I came,
446
And, girdled by your mountain zone,
Found you yet fairer than your fame.
It was the season purple-sweet
When figs are plump, and grapes are pressed,
And all your sons with following feet
Bore a dead Poet to final rest.
You seemed to fling your gates ajar,
And softly lead me by the hand,
Saying, ``Behold! henceforth you are
No stranger in the Tuscan land.''
And though no love my love can wean
From native crag and cradling sea,
Yet Florence from that hour hath been
More than a foster-nurse to me.
When mount I terraced slopes arrayed
In bridal bloom of peach and pear,
While under olive's phantom shade
Lupine and beanflower scent the air,
The wild-bees hum round golden bay,
The green frog sings on fig-tree bole,
And, see! down daisy-whitened way
Come the slow steers and swaying pole.
The fresh-pruned vine-stems, curving, bend
Over the peaceful wheaten spears,
And with the glittering sunshine blend
Their transitory April tears.
O'er wall and trellis trailed and wound,
Hang roses blushing, roses pale;
And, hark! what was that silvery sound?
The first note of the nightingale.
Curtained, I close my lids and dream
Of Beauty seen not but surmised,
And, lulled by scent and song, I seem
Immortally imparadised.
447
When from the deep sweet swoon I wake
And gaze past slopes of grape and grain,
Where Arno, like some lonely lake,
Silvers the far-off seaward plain,
I see celestial sunset fires
That lift us from this earthly leaven,
And darkly silent cypress spires
Pointing the way from hill to Heaven.
Then something more than mortal steals
Over the wavering twilight air,
And, messenger of nightfall, peals
From each crowned peak a call to prayer.
And now the last meek prayer is said,
And, in the hallowed hush, there is
Only a starry dome o'erhead,
Propped by columnar cypresses.
XXXIV
Re-roaming through this palaced town,
I suddenly, 'neath grim-barred pile,
Catch sight of Dante's awful frown,
Or Leonardo's mystic smile;
Then, swayed by memory's fancy, stroll
To where from May-day's flaming pyre
Savonarola's austere soul
Went up to Heaven in tongues of fire;
Or Buonarroti's plastic hand
Made marble block from Massa's steep
Dawn into Day at his command,
Then plunged it into Night and Sleep.
No later wanderings can dispel
The glamour of the bygone years;
And, through the streets I know so well,
448
I scarce can see my way for tears.
XXXV
A sombre shadow seems to fall
On comely altar, transept fair;
The saints are still on frescoed wall,
But who comes thither now for prayer?
Men throng from far-off stranger land,
To stare, to wonder, not to kneel,
With map and guide-book in their hand
To tell them what to think and feel.
They scan, they prate, they marvel why
The figures still expressive glow,
Oblivious they were painted by
Adoring Frà Angelico.
Did Dante from his tomb afar
Return, his wrongs redressed at last,
And see you, Florence, as you are,
Half alien to your gracious Past,
Finding no Donatello now,
No reverent Giotto 'mong the quick,
To glorify ascetic vow
Of Francis or of Dominic;
Self-exiled by yet sterner fate
Than erst, he would from wandering cease,
And, ringing at monastic gate,
Plead, ``I am one who craves for peace.''
And what he sought but ne'er could find,
Shall I, less worthy, hope to gain,
The freedom of the tranquil mind,
The lordship over loss and pain?
More than such peace I found when I
Did first, in unbound youth, repair
449
To Tuscan shrine, Ausonian sky.
I found it, for I brought it there.
XXXVI
Yet Art brings peace, itself is Peace,
And, as I on these frescoes gaze,
I feel all fretful tumults cease
And harvest calm of mellower days.
For Soul too hath its seasons. Time,
That leads Spring, Summer, Autumn, round,
Makes our ephemeral passions chime
With something permanent and profound.
And, as in Nature, April oft
Strives to revert to wintry hours,
But shortly upon garth and croft
Re-sheds warm smiles and moistening showers,
Or, for one day, will Autumn wear
The gayer garments of the Spring,
And then athwart the wheatfields bare
Again her graver shadows fling;
So, though the Soul hath moods that veer,
And seem to hold no Rule in awe,
Like the procession of the year,
It too obeys the sovran Law.
Nor Art itself brings settled peace,
Until the mind is schooled to know
That gusts subside and tumults cease
Only in sunset's afterglow.
Life's contradictions vanish then,
Husht thought replacing clashing talk
Among the windy ways of men.
'Tis in the twilight Angels walk.
450
ROME
XXXVII
The last warm gleams of sunset fade
From cypress spire and stonepine dome,
And, in the twilight's deepening shade,
Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome.
Husht the Madonna's Evening Bell;
The steers lie loosed from wain and plough;
The vagrant monk is in his cell,
The meek nun-novice cloistered now.
Pedant's presumptuous voice no more
Vexes the spot where Caesar trod,
And o'er the pavement's soundless floor
Come banished priest and exiled God.
The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among
The regal hillside's tangled scrubs,
With doting gaze and fondling tongue
Suckles the Vestal's twin-born cubs.
Yet once again Evander leads
Æneas to his wattled home,
And, throned on Tiber's fresh-cut reeds,
Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome.
From out the tawny dusk one hears
The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids,
The rush to arms, then swift the tears
That separate the clashing blades.
The Lictors with their fasces throng
To quell the Commons' rising roar,
As Tullia's chariot flames along,
Splashed with her murdered father's gore.
Her tresses free from band or comb,
Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall,
451
And fresh as Fiumicino's foam,
Mounts her pentelic pedestal.
With languid lids, and lips apart,
And curving limbs like wave half-furled,
Unarmed she dominates the heart,
And without sceptre sways the world.
Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars
Stalks through the Forum's fallen fanes,
Or, changed of mien and healed of scars,
Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains.
With waves of song from wakening lyre
Apollo routs the wavering night,
While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir
Wind chanting up the Sacred Height,
Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed,
And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam,
Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed,
And frowns against the foes of Rome.
You cannot kill the Gods. They still
Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned,
Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill,
And renovate their rites profaned.
Diana's hounds still lead the chase,
Still Neptune's Trident crests the sea,
And still man's spirit soars through space
On feathered heels of Mercury.
No flood can quench the Vestals' Fire;
The Flamen's robes are still as white
As ere the Salii's armoured choir
Were drowned by droning anchorite.
The saint may seize the siren's seat,
The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun;
Ne'er will, though all beside should fleet,
The Olympian Presence be withdrawn.
452
Here, even in the noontide glare,
The Gods, recumbent, take their ease;
Go look, and you will find them there,
Slumbering behind some fallen frieze.
But most, when sunset glow hath paled,
And come, as now, the twilight hour,
In vesper vagueness dimly veiled
I feel their presence and their power.
What though their temples strew the ground,
And to the ruin owls repair,
Their home, their haunt, is all around;
They drive the cloud, they ride the air.
And, when the planets wend their way
Along the never-ageing skies,
``Revere the Gods'' I hear them say;
``The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.''
Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers
Through marble fissures, granite rents;
Only Imagination rears
Imperishable monuments.
Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine,
Level the altar, fire the fane:
There is no razing the Divine;
The Gods return, the Gods remain.
XXXVIII
Christ is arisen. The place wherein
They laid Him shows but cerements furled,
And belfry answers belfry's din
To ring the tidings round the world.
Grave Hierarchs come, an endless band,
In jewelled mitre, cope embossed,
Who bear Rome's will to every land
453
In all the tongues of Pentecost.
Majestic, along marble floor,
Walk Cardinals in blood-red robe,
Martyrs for Faith and Christ no more,
Who gaze as though they ruled the globe.
With halberds bare and doublets slashed,
Emblems that war will never cease,
Come martial guardians, unabashed,
And march afront the Prince of Peace.
Then, in his gestatorial Chair
See Christ's vicegerent, bland, benign,
To crowds all prostrate as in prayer
Lean low, and make the Holy Sign.
Then trumpets shrill, and organ peals,
Throughout the mighty marble pile,
Whileas a myriad concourse kneels
In dense-packed nave and crowded aisle.
Hark to the sudden hush! Aloft
From unseen source in empty dome
Swells prayerful music silvery-soft,
Borne from far-off celestial Home.
Then, when the solemn rite is done,
The worshippers stream out to where
Dance fountains glittering in the sun,
While expectation fills the air.
Now on high balcony He stands,
And-save for the Colonna curse,Blesses with high-uplifted hands
The City and the Universe.
Christ is arisen! But scarce as when,
On the third day of death and gloom,
Came ever-loving Magdalen
With tears and spices to His tomb.
454
XXXIX
The Tiber winds its sluggish way
Through niggard tracts whence Rome's command
Once cast the shadow of her sway,
O'er Asian city, Afric sand.
Nor even yet doth She resign
Her sceptre. Still the spell is hers,
Though she may seem a rifled shrine
'Mid circumjacent sepulchres.
One after one, they came, they come,
Gaul, Goth, Savoy, to work their will;
She answers, when She most seems dumb,
``I wore the Crown, I wear it still.
``From Jove I first received the gift,
I from Jehovah wear it now,
Nor shall profane invader lift
The diadem from off my brow.
``The Past is mine, and on the Past
The Future builds; and Time will rear
The next strong structure on the last,
Where men behold but shattered tier.
``The Teuton hither hies to teach,
To prove, disprove, to delve and probe.
Fool! Pedant! Does he think to reach
The deep foundations of the globe?''
For me, I am content to tread
On Sabine dust and Gothic foe.
Leave me to deepening silent dread
Of vanished Empire's afterglow.
In this Imperial wilderness
Why rashly babble and explore?
O, let me know a little less,
So I may feel a little more!
455
XL
For upward of one thousand years,
Here men and women prayed to Jove,
With smiles and incense, gifts and tears,
In secret shrine, or civic grove;
And, when Jove did not seem to heed,
Sought Juno's mediatorial power,
Or begged fair Venus intercede
And melt him in his amorous hour.
Sages invoked Minerva's might;
The Poet, ere he struck the lyre,
Prayed to the God of Song and Light
To touch the strings with hallowed fire.
With flaming herbs were altars smoked
Sprinkled with blood and perfumed must,
And gods and goddesses invoked
To second love or sanction lust.
And did they hear and heed the prayer,
Or, through that long Olympian reign,
Were they divinities of air
Begot of man's fantastic brain?
In Roman halls their statues still
Serenely stand, but no one now
Ascends the Capitolian Hill,
To render thanks, or urge the vow.
Through now long centuries hath Rome
Throned other God, preached other Creed,
That here still have their central home,
And feed man's hope, content his need.
Against these, too, will Time prevail?
No! Let whatever gestates, be,
Secure will last the tender tale
456
From Bethlehem to Calvary.
Throughout this world of pain and loss,
Man ne'er will cease to bend his knee
To Crown of Thorns, to Spear, to Cross,
And Doorway of Humility.
XLI
If Reason be the sole safe guide
In man implanted from above,
Why crave we for one only face,
Why consecrate the name of Love?
Faces there are no whit less fair,
Yet ruddier lip, more radiant eye,
Same rippling smile, same auburn hair,
But not for us. Say, Reason, why.
Why bound our hearts when April pied
Comes singing, or when hawthorn blows?
Doth logic in the lily hide,
And where's the reason in the rose?
Why weld our keels and launch our ships,
If Reason urge some wiser part,
Kiss England's Flag with dying lips
And fold its glories to the heart?
In this gross world we touch and see,
If Reason be no trusty guide,
For world unseen why should it be
The sole explorer justified?
The homing swallow knows its nest,
Sure curves the comet to its goal,
Instinct leads Autumn to its rest,
And why not Faith the homing soul?
Is Reason so aloof, aloft,
It doth not 'gainst itself rebel,
457
And are not Reason's reasonings oft
By Reason proved unreasonable?
He is perplexed no more, who prays,
``Hail, Mary Mother, full of grace!''
O drag me from Doubt's endless maze,
And let me see my Loved One's face!
XLII
``Upon this rock!'' Yet even here
Where Christian God ousts Pagan wraith,
Rebellious Reason whets its spear,
And smites upon the shield of Faith.
On sacred mount, down seven-hilled slopes,
Fearless it faces foe and friend,
Saying to man's immortal hopes,
``Whatso began, perforce must end.''
Not men alone, but gods too, die;
Fanes are, like hearths, left bare and lone;
This earth will into fragments fly,
And Heaven itself be overthrown.
Why then should Man immortal be?
He is but fleeting form, to fade,
Like momentary cloud, or sea
Of waves dispersed as soon as made.
Yet if 'tis Force, not Form, survives,
Meseems therein that one may find
Some comfort for distressful lives;
For, if Force ends not, why should Mind?
Is Doubt more forceful than Belief?
The doctor's cap than friar's cowl?
O ripeness of the falling leaf!
O wisdom of the moping owl!
Man's Mind will ever stand apart
458
From Science, save this have for goal
The evolution of the heart,
And sure survival of the Soul.
XLIII
The Umbilicum lonely stands
Where once rose porch and vanished dome;
But he discerns who understands
That every road may lead to Rome.
Enthroned in Peter's peaceful Chair,
The spiritual Caesar sways
A wider Realm of earth and air
Than trembled at Octavian's gaze.
His universal arms embrace
The saint, the sinner, and the sage,
And proffer refuge, comfort, grace
To tribulation's pilgrimage.
Here scientific searchers find
Precursors for two thousand years,
Who in a drouthy world divined
Fresh springs for human doubts and fears.
Here fair chaste Agnes veils her face
From prowlers of the sensual den,
And pity, pardon, and embrace
Await repentant Magdalen.
Princess and peasant-mother wend
To self-same altar, self-same shrine,
And Cardinal and Patriarch bend
Where lepers kneel, and beggars whine.
And is there then, in my distress,
No road, no gate, no shrine, for me?
The answer comes, ``Yes, surely, yes!
The Doorway of Humility.''
459
O rival Faiths! O clamorous Creeds!
Would you but hush your strife in prayer,
And raise one Temple for our needs,
Then, then, we all might worship there.
But dogma new with dogma old
Clashes to soothe the spirit's grief,
And offer to the unconsoled
Polyglot Babel of Belief!
XLIV
The billows roll, and rise, and break,
Around me; fixedly shine the stars
In clear dome overhead, and take
Their course, unheeding earthly jars.
Yet if one's upward gaze could be
But stationed where the planets are,
The star were restless as the sea,
The sea be tranquil as the star.
Hollowed like cradle, then like grave,
Now smoothly curved, now shapeless spray,
Withal the undirected wave
Forms, and reforms, and knows its way.
Then, waters, bear me on where He,
Ere death absolved at Christian font,
Removed Rome's menaced majesty
Eastward beyond the Hellespont.
Foreseeing not what Fate concealed,
But Time's caprice would there beget,
That Cross would unto Crescent yield,
Caesar and Christ to Mahomet.
Is it then man's predestined state
To search for, ne'er to find, the Light?
Arise, my Star, illuminate
These empty spaces of the Night!
460
XLV
Last night I heard the cuckoo call
Among the moist green glades of home,
And in the Chase around the Hall
Saw the May hawthorn flower and foam.
Deep in the wood where primrose stars
Paled before bluebell's dazzling reign,
The nightingale's sad sobbing bars
Rebuked the merle's too joyful strain.
The kine streamed forth from stall and byre,
The foal frisked round its mother staid,
The meads, by sunshine warmed, took fire,
And lambs in pasture, bleating, played.
The uncurbed rivulets raced to where
The statelier river curled and wound,
And trout, of human step aware,
Shot through the wave without a sound.
Adown the village street, as clear
As in one's wakeful mid-day hours,
Beheld I Monica drawing near,
Her vestal lap one crib of flowers.
Lending no look to me, she passed
By the stone path, as oft before,
Between old mounds Spring newly grassed,
And entered through the Little Door.
Led by her feet, I hastened on,
But, ere my feverish steps could get
To the low porch, lo! Morning shone
On Moslem dome and minaret!
CONSTANTINOPLE
461
XLVI
Now Vesper brings the sunset hour,
And, where crusading Knighthood trod,
Muezzin from his minaret tower
Proclaims, ``There is no God but God!''
Male God who shares his godhead with
No Virgin Mother's sacred tear,
But finds on earth congenial kith
In wielders of the sword and spear:
Male God who on male lust bestows
The ruddy lip, the rounded limb,
And promises, at battle's close,
Houri, not saint nor seraphim.
Swift through the doubly-guarded stream,
Shoots the caïque 'neath oarsmen brisk,
While from its cushioned cradle gleam
The eyes of yashmaked odalisque.
Unchanged adown the changing years,
Here where the Judas blossoms blaze,
Against Sophia's marble piers
The scowling Muslim lean and gaze;
And still at sunset's solemn hour,
Where Christ's devout Crusader trod,
Defiant from the minaret's tower
Proclaim, ``There is no God but God!''
XLVII
Three rival Rituals. One revered
In that loved English hamlet where,
With flowers in Vicarage garden reared,
She decks the altar set for prayer:
Another, where majestic Rome,
With fearless Faith and flag unfurled
462
'Gainst Doubt's ephemeral wave and foam,
Demands obedience from the world.
The third, where now I stand, and where
Two hoary Continents have met,
And Islam guards from taint and tare
Monistic Creed of Mahomet.
Yet older than all three, but banned
To suffer still the exile's doom
From shrine where Turkish sentries stand,
And Christians wrangle round Christ's tomb.
Where then find Creed, divine or dead,
All may embrace, and none contemn?Remember Who it was that said,
``Not here, nor at Jerusalem!''
ATHENS
XLVIII
To Acrocorinth's brow I climb,
And, lulled in retrospective bliss,
Descry, as through the mists of time,
Faintly the far Acropolis.
Below me, rivers, mountains, vales,
Wide stretch of ancient Hellas lies:
Symbol of Song that never fails,
Parnassus communes with the skies.
I linger, dream-bound by the Past,
Till sundown joins time's deep abyss,
Then skirt, through shadows moonlight-cast,
Lone strand of sailless Salamis,
Until Eleusis gleams through dawn,
Where, though a suppliant soul I come,
The veil remains still unwithdrawn,
463
And all the Oracles are dumb.
So onward to the clear white Light,
Where, though the worshippers be gone,
Abides on unmysterious height
The calm unquestioning Parthenon.
Find I, now there I stand at last,
That naked Beauty, undraped Truth,
Can satisfy our yearnings vast,
The doubts of age, the dreams of youth;
That, while we ask, in futile strife,
From altar, tripod, fount, or well,
Form is the secret soul of life,
And Art the only Oracle;
That Hera and Athena, linked
With Aphrodite, hush distress,
And, in their several gifts distinct,
Withal are Triune Goddesses?
That mortal wiser then was He
Who gave the prize to Beauty's smile,
Divides his gifts among the Three,
And thuswise baffles Discord's guile?
But who is wise? The nobler twain,
Who the restraining girdle wear,
Contend too often all in vain
With sinuous curve and frolic hair.
Just as one sees in marble, still,
Pan o'er Apollo's shoulder lean,
Suggesting to the poet's quill
The sensual note, the hint obscene.
Doth then the pure white Light grow dim,
And must it be for ever thus?
Listen! I hear a far-off Hymn,
Veni, Creator, Spiritus!
464
XLIX
The harvest of Hymettus drips
As sweet as when the Attic bees
Swarmed round the honey-laden lips
Of heavenly-human Sophocles.
The olives are as green in grove
As in the days the poets bless,
When Pallas with Poseidon strove
To be the City's Patroness.
The wine-hued main, white marble frieze,
Dome of blue ether over all,
One still beholds, but nowhere sees
Panathenaic Festival.
O'erhead, no Zeus or frowns or nods,
Olympus none in air or skies;
Below, a sepulchre of Gods,
And tombs of dead Divinities.
Yet, are they dead? Still stricken blind,
Tiresiaslike, are they that see,
With bold uncompromising mind,
Wisdom in utter nudity;
Experiencing a kindred fate
With the First Parents of us all,
Jehovah thrust through Eden's Gate,
When Knowledge brought about their Fall.
Hath Aphrodite into foam,
Whence She first flowered, sunk back once more,
And doth She nowhere find a home,
Or worship, upon Christian shore?
Her shrine is in the human breast,
To find her none need soar or dive.
Goodness or Loveliness our quest,
The ever-helpful Gods survive.
465
Hellas retorts, when Hebrew gibes
At Gods of levity and lust,
``God of Judaea's wandering tribes
Was jealous, cruel, and unjust.''
Godhead, withal, remains the same,
And Art embalms its symbols still;
As Poets, when athirst for Fame,
Still dream of Aganippe's rill.
Why still pursue a bootless quest,
And wander heartsore farther East,
Because unanswered, south or west,
By Pagan seer or Christian priest?
Brahma and Buddha, what have they
To offer to my shoreless search?
``Let Contemplation be,'' they say,
``Your ritual, Nothingness your Church.
``Passion and purpose both forsake,
Echoes from non-existent wall;
We do but dream we are awake,
Ourselves the deepest dream of all.
``We dream we think, feel, touch, and see,
And what these are, still dreaming, guess,
Though there is no Reality
Behind their fleeting semblances.''
Thus the East answers my appeal,
Denies, and so illudes, my want.
Alas! Could I but cease to feel,
Brahma should be my Hierophant.
But, hampered by my Western mind,
I cannot set the Spirit free
From Matter, but Illusion find,
466
Of all, the most illusory.
DELPHI
LI
The morning mists that hid the bay
And curtained mountains fast asleep,
Begin to feel the touch of day,
And roll from off both wave and steep.
In floating folds they curve and rise,
Then slowly melt and merge in air,
Till high above me glow the skies,
And cloudless sunshine everywhere.
Parnassus wears nor veil nor frown,
Windless the eagle wings his way,
As I from Delphi gaze adown
On Salona and Amphissa.
It was the sovran Sun that drew
Aloft and scattered morning haze,
And now fills all the spacious blue
With its own glorifying rays.
And, no less sovran than the sun,
Imagination brings relief
Of morning light to shadows dun,
To heart's distress, and spirit's grief.
Parnassus boasts no loftier peak
Than Poet's heavenward song; which, though
Harbouring among the sad and weak,
Lifteth aloft man's griefs below.
Though sun-bronzed Phocian maidens lave
Their kerchiefs in Castalia's spring,
The Muses linger round its wave,
And aid the pilgrim sent to sing.
467
And, listening there, I seem to hear
The unseen Oracle say, ``Be strong:
Subdue the sigh, repress the tear,
And let not sorrow silence Song.
``You now have learnt enough from pain;
And, if worse anguish lurk behind,
Breathe in it some unselfish strain,
And with grief's wisdom aid your kind.
``Who but of his own suffering sings,
Is like an eagle, robbed, distressed,
That vainly shrieks and beats its wings,
Because it cannot find its nest.
``Let male Imagination wed
The orphan, Sorrow, to console
Its virgin loneness, whence are bred
Serenity and self-control.
``Hence let the classic breezes blow
You to your Land beyond the sea,
That you may make, for others' woe,
Your own a healing melody;
``To wintry woe no more a slave,
But, having dried your April tears,
Behold a helpful harvest wave
From ridges of the fallow years.''
LII
Rebuked thus by the stately Past,
Whose solemn choruses endure
Through voices new and visions vast,
And centuries of sepulture,
Because, serene, it never blinked
At sheen or shadow of the sun,
But Hades and Olympus linked
468
With Salamis and Marathon;
Which held despondency at bay
And, while revering Fate's decree,
Reconciled with majestic lay
Man to the Human Tragedy;
To Gods of every land I vowed,
Judaea, Hellas, Mecca, Rome,
No more to live by sorrow bowed,
But, wending backward to my home,
Thenceforth to muse on woe more wide
Than individual distress,
The loftier Muses for my guide,
Minerva for my monitress;
Nor yet to scorn the tender aid
Of Christian martyr, virgin, sage,
And, meekly pondering in the shade,
Proffer ripe counsel to my Age.
And, haply, since 'tis Song alone
Can baffle death, and conquer time,
Maiden unborn in days unknown,
Under the leaves of fragrant lime,
Scanning the verse that here is writ,
While cherishing some secret smart
Of love or loss, may glean from it
Some comfort for her weary heart;
And, gently warned, grave minds may own
The world hath more to bear than they,
And, while I dream 'neath mossy stone,
Repeat my name, and love my lay.
LIII
Scarce to the all-indwelling Power
That vow was uttered, ere there came
469
A messenger in boyhood's flower,
Winged with his search, his face aflame.
From Amphissa he straight had clomb,
Thridding that devious mountain land,
With letter from my far-off home,
And written by my Loved One's hand.
``Come to me where I drooping lie.
None yet have died of Love, they say:
Withal, I sometimes think that I
Have prayed and sighed my life away.
``I want your absolution, dear,
For whatso wrong I may have done;
My conscience waneth less severe,
In softness of the setting sun.
``'Twas I, 'twas I, far more than you,
That stood in need, as now I see,
Stooping, to enter meekly through
The Doorway of Humility.
``In vain I turn to Throne of Grace,
Where sorrows cease, and tears are dry;
I fain once more would see your face,
And hear your voice, before I die.''
ENGLAND
LIV
The oak logs smoulder on my hearth,
Though round them hums no household talk;
The roses in the garden-garth
Hang mournfully on curving stalk.
My wolf-hound round me leaps and bays,
That wailed lost footsteps when I went:
He little knows the grief that weighs
470
On my return from banishment.
Half Autumn now, half Summer yet,
For Nature hath a human heart,
It seems as though they, having met,
To take farewell, are loth to part.
The splendour of the Year's decline
Hath not yet come. One still can see
Late honeysuckle intertwine
With Maiden's-Bower and briony.
The bracken-fronds, fast yellowing, tower
From out sere needles of the pine;
Now hawkweed blooms where foxgloves flower,
And bramble where once eglantine.
And, as I wend with hurrying feet
Across the park, along the lane
That leads unto the hamlet street,
And cradle of my bliss and bane,
In cottage plots on either side,
O'er mignonette and fragrant stock
Soar tiger-lilies lithe and tall,
And homely-sheltered hollyhock.
And when I reach the low grey wall
That skirts God's-acre on the hill,
I see, awaiting my recall,
The Little Door stand open still.
A dip, a slight descent, and then
Into the Vicarage Walk I passed;
It seemed as though the tongues of men
Had left it since I saw it last.
Round garden-plot, in westering sun,
Her agëd parents slowly stepped:
Her Mother had the face of one
Who oft hath prayed, and oft hath wept.
471
She wore the silent plaintive grace
Of Autumn just before its close,
And on her slowly fading face
The pathos of November rose.
With pitying gaze and accents kind,
``Go in,'' she said, ``and mount the stair;
And you through open door will find
That Monica awaits you there.''
LV
I mounted. At half-open door
Pausing, I softly called her name,
As one would pause and halt before
Heaven's Gateway. But no answer came.
She lies, methought, in Sleep's caress,
So, passing in, I seemed to see,
So saintly white the vision, less
A chamber than a Sanctuary.
Vestured in white, on snow-white bed,
She lay, as dreaming something sweet,
Madonna lilies at her head,
Madonna lilies at her feet.
A thought, I did not dare to speak,``Is this the sleep of life or death?''
And, with my cheek against her cheek,
Listening, I seemed to hear her breath.
'Twas Love's last blindness not to see
Her sinless soul had taken wing
Unto the Land, if such there be,
Where saints adore, and Seraphs sing.
And yet I felt within my heart,
Though lids were closed and lips were dumb,
That, for Love's sake, her soul in part
Had lingered here, till I should come.
472
I kissed her irresponsive hand,
I laid my lips on her cold brow,
That She, like me, should understand
'Twas thus I sealed our nuptial vow.
And then I saw upon her breast
A something writ, she fain had said
Had I been near, to me addressed,
Which, kneeling down, I took and read.
LVI
``I prayed I might prolong my years
Till you could come and hush my sighs,
And dry my penitential tears;
But Heaven hath willed it otherwise:
``That I may expiate the wrong
By me inflicted on us both,
When, yet Love's novice, feebly strong,
I sinned against Love's sovran troth.
``Now Death, the mirror unto Life,
Shows me that nought should keep apart
Those who, though sore perplexed by strife
'Twixt Faith and Doubt, are one in heart.
``For Doubt is one with Faith when they,
Who doubt, for Truth's sake suffering live;
And Faith meanwhile should hope and pray,
Withholding not what Love can give.
``We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He,
``But natured only to rejoice
At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voice,
473
In patience through the darkness grope;
``Until our finer sense expands,
And we exchange for holier sight
The earthly help of voice and hands,
And in His light behold the Light.
``Had my poor Love but been more wise,
I should have ta'en you to my breast,
Striving to hush your plaintive cries,
And rock your Reason back to rest.
``But, though alone you now must tread
Where we together should have trod,
In loneliness you may be led,
Through faith in me, to Faith in God.
``With tranquil purpose, fervent mind,
Foster, while you abide on earth,
And humbly proffer to your kind,
The gift assigned to you at birth.
``As in the far-off boyish year
When did your singing voice awake,
Disinterestedly revere
And love it for its own great sake.
``And when life takes autumnal hues,
With fervent reminiscence woo
All the affections of the Muse,
And write the poem lived by you.
``And should, until your days shall end,
You still the lyric voice retain,
With its seductive music blend
A graver note, a loftier strain.
``While buoyant youth and manhood strong
Follow where Siren sounds entice,
The Deities of Love and Song,
Rapture and loveliness, suffice.
474
``But when decay, and pain, and loss,
Remind one of the Goal forgot,
And we in turn must bear the Cross,
The Pagan Gods can help us not.
``Nor need you then seek, far and near,
More sumptuous shrines on alien strand,
But with domestic mind revere
The Ritual of your native Land.
``The Little Door stands open wide,
And, if you meekly pass therethrough,
Though I no longer kneel inside,
I shall be hovering near to you.
``Farewell! till you shall learn the whole
Of what we here but see in part.
Now I to God commend my soul,
And unto you I leave my heart.''
LVII
I wended up the slope once more
To where the Church stands lone and still,
And passed beneath the Little Door,
My will the subject of Her will.
The sunset rays through pictured pane
Fell, fretted into weft and woof,
On transept, nave, and aisle, to wane
On column cold and vaulted roof.
Within the carven altar screen
Were lilies tall, and white, and fair,
So like to those I late had seen,
It seemed She must be sleeping there.
Mutely I knelt, with bended brow
And shaded eyes, but heart intent,
To learn, should any teach me now,
What Life, and Love, and Sorrow meant.
475
And there remained until the shroud
Of dusk foretold the coming night;
And then I rose, and prayed aloud,
``Let there be Light! Let there be Light!''
~ Alfred Austin,#NFDB
48 Poetry
46 Integral Yoga
28 Christianity
17 Occultism
13 Philosophy
8 Psychology
6 Yoga
4 Sufism
3 Hinduism
3 Fiction
3 Baha i Faith
2 Mysticism
1 Mythology
1 Cybernetics
1 Alchemy
49 Sri Aurobindo
22 Nolini Kanta Gupta
17 Saint Augustine of Hippo
10 Aldous Huxley
9 The Mother
8 Carl Jung
8 Anonymous
7 Saint Teresa of Avila
7 Aleister Crowley
5 William Wordsworth
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Namdev
4 James George Frazer
4 Guru Nanak
4 Al-Ghazali
3 Vyasa
3 Sri Ramakrishna
3 Saint John of Climacus
3 Ravidas
3 Kabir
3 Henry David Thoreau
3 Friedrich Nietzsche
3 Baha u llah
3 Baba Sheikh Farid
2 William Butler Yeats
2 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
2 Robert Browning
2 John Keats
2 Jayadeva
2 H P Lovecraft
18 The Synthesis Of Yoga
15 City of God
10 The Perennial Philosophy
9 The Bible
6 Talks
6 Mysterium Coniunctionis
5 Wordsworth - Poems
5 The Interior Castle or The Mansions
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
4 The Life Divine
4 The Golden Bough
4 The Alchemy of Happiness
4 Liber ABA
4 Essays On The Gita
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
3 Words Of Long Ago
3 Walden
3 Vishnu Purana
3 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
3 The Human Cycle
3 Magick Without Tears
3 Letters On Yoga II
3 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Dark Night of the Soul
2 Yeats - Poems
2 Twilight of the Idols
2 The Way of Perfection
2 The Secret Doctrine
2 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
2 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
2 The Book of Certitude
2 Some Answers From The Mother
2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
2 Lovecraft - Poems
2 Letters On Yoga IV
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Keats - Poems
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
2 Browning - Poems
2 Amrita Gita
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Keshab's sincerity was enough for Sri Ramakrishna. Henceforth the two saw each other frequently, either at Dakshineswar or at the temple of the Brahmo Samaj. Whenever the Master was in the temple at the time of divine service, Keshab would request him to speak to the congregation. And Keshab would visit the Saint, in his turn, with offerings of flowers and fruits.
--- OTHER BRAHMO LEADERS
--
Shivanath vehemently criticized the Master for his other-worldly attitude toward his wife. He writes: "Ramakrishna was practically separated from his wife, who lived in her village home. One day when I was complaining to some friends about the virtual widowhood of his wife, he drew me to one side and whispered in my ear: 'Why do you complain? It is no longer possible; it is all dead and gone.' Another day as I was inveighing against this part of his teaching, and also declaring that our program of work in the Brahmo Samaj includes women, that ours is a social and domestic religion, and that we want to give education and social liberty to women, the Saint became very much excited, as was his way when anything against his settled conviction was asserted — a trait we so much liked in him — and exclaimed, 'Go, thou fool, go and perish in the pit that your women will dig for you.' Then he glared at me and said: 'What does a gardener do with a young plant? Does he not surround it with a fence, to protect it from goats and cattle? And when the young plant has grown up into a tree and it can no longer be injured by cattle, does he not remove the fence and let the tree grow freely?' I replied, 'Yes, that is the custom with gardeners.' Then he remarked, 'Do the same in your spiritual life; become strong, be full-grown; then you may seek them.' To which I replied, 'I don't agree with you in thinking that women's work is like that of cattle, destructive; they are our associates and helpers in our spiritual struggles and social progress' — a view with which he could not agree, and he marked his dissent by shaking his head. Then referring to the lateness of the hour he jocularly remarked, 'It is time for you to depart; take care, do not be late; otherwise your woman will not admit you into her room.' This evoked hearty laughter."
Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, the right-hand man of Keshab and an accomplished Brahmo preacher in Europe and America, bitterly criticized Sri Ramakrishna's use of uncultured language and also his austere attitude toward his wife. But he could not escape the spell of the Master's personality. In the course of an article about Sri Ramakrishna, Pratap wrote in the "Theistic Quarterly Review": "What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centred, semi-sceptical, so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I, who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller, and a whole host of European scholars and divines? . . . And it is not I only, but dozens like me, who do the same. . . . He worships Siva, he worships Kali, he worships Rama, he worships Krishna, and is a confirmed advocate of Vedantic doctrines. . . . He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted meditator on the perfections of the One Formless, Absolute, Infinite Deity. . . . His religion is ecstasy, his worship means transcendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with a permanent fire and fever of a strange faith and feeling. . . . So long as he is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sublime precepts of purity, unworldliness, spirituality, and inebriation in the love of God. . . . He, by his childlike bhakti, by his strong conceptions of an ever-ready Motherhood, helped to unfold it [God as our Mother] in our minds wonderfully. . . . By associating with him we learnt to realize better the divine attributes as scattered over the three hundred and thirty millions of deities of mythological India, the gods of the Puranas."
--
The first of these young men to come to the Master was Latu. Born of obscure parents, in Behar, he came to Calcutta in search of work and was engaged by Ramchandra Dutta as house-boy. Learning of the Saintly Sri Ramakrishna, he visited the Master at Dakshineswar and was deeply touched by his cordiality. When he was about to leave, the Master asked him to take some money and return home in a boat or carriage. But Latu declared he had a few pennies and jingled the coins in his pocket. Sri Ramakrishna later requested Ram to allow Latu to stay with him permanently. Under Sri Ramakrishna's guidance Latu made great progress in meditation and was blessed with ecstatic visions, but all the efforts of the Master to give him a smattering of education failed. Latu was very fond of kirtan and other devotional songs but remained all his life illiterate.
--- RAKHAL
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But if it is often difficult for the mental life to accommodate itself to the dully resistant material activity, how much more difficult must it seem for the spiritual existence to live on in a world that appears full not of the Truth but of every lie and illusion, not of Love and Beauty but of an encompassing discord and ugliness, not of the Law of Truth but of victorious selfishness and sin? Therefore the spiritual life tends easily in the Saint and Sannyasin to withdraw from the material existence and reject it either wholly and physically or in the spirit. It sees this world as the kingdom of evil or of ignorance and the eternal and divine either in a far-off heaven or beyond where there is no world and no life. It separates itself inwardly, if not also physically, from the world's impurities; it asserts the spiritual reality in a spotless isolation. This withdrawal renders an invaluable service to the material life itself by forcing it to regard and even to bow down to something that is the direct negation of its own petty ideals, sordid cares and egoistic self-content.
But the work in the world of so supreme a power as spiritual force cannot be thus limited. The spiritual life also can return upon the material and use it as a means of its own greater fullness. Refusing to be blinded by the dualities, the appearances, it can seek in all appearances whatsoever the vision of the same Lord, the same eternal Truth, Beauty, Love, Delight. The
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
This 'fourth part' is the Dark Night. Of it the Saint writes in a passage which
follows that just quoted:
--
active and passive purgation, to which the Saint limits himself in these treatises,
although the subject of the stanzas which he is glossing is a much wider one,
--
The stanzas expounded by the Saint are taken from the same poem in the two
treatises. The commentary upon the second, however, is very different from that
--
abundance than before. the Saint here postulates a principle of dogmatic theology
that by himself, and with the ordinary aid of grace, man cannot attain to that
--
Before explaining the nature and effects of this Passive Night, the Saint touches, in
passing, upon certain imperfections found in those who are about to enter it and
--
body. the Saint is particularly effective here, and we may once more compare this
chapter with a similar one in the Ascent (II, xiii)that in which he fixes the point
--
In Chapter x, the Saint describes the discipline which the soul in this Dark
Night must impose upon itself; this, as might be logically deduced from the Ascent,
--
and brings to an end what the Saint desires to say with respect to the first Passive
Night.
--
which the Saint speaks in these words: 'The night which we have called that of
sense may and should be called a kind of correction and restraint of the desire
--
(Chapter ii). After a brief introduction (Chapter iii), the Saint describes with some
fullness the nature of this spiritual purgation or dark contemplation referred to in
--
that the Saint proposed to treat in his commentary on the five remaining stanzas.
As far as we know, this commentary was never written. We have only the briefest
--
effective metaphor of night, the Saint describes the excellent properties of the
spiritual night of infused contemplation, through which the soul journeys with no
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
of leadership, the Deva type and the Saint type (not in
the western sense), a war on all fronts, the mental, the
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man then, according to Pascal, is by nature a sinful thing. He can lay no claim to noble virtue as his own: all in him is vile, he is a lump of dirt and filth. Even the greatest has his full share of this taint. The greatest, the Saintliest, and the meanest, the most sinful, all meet, all are equal on this common platform; all have the same feet of clay. Man is as miserable a creature as a beast, as much a part and product of Nature as a plant. Only there is this difference that an animal or a tree is unconscious, while man knows that he is miserable. This knowledge or perception makes him more miserable, but that is his real and only greatness there is no other. His thought, his self-consciousness, and his sorrow and repentance and contrition for what he is that is the only good partMary's part that has been given to him. Here are Pascal's own words on the subject:
"The greatness of man is great in this that he knows he is miserable. A tree does not know that it is miserable.
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not a mere notion or superstition, it is an occult reality that gives sanctity to a particular place or region. the Saintly soul has always been also a pilgrim, physically, to holy places, even to one single holy place, if he so chooses. The puritan poet may say tauntingly:
Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek In Golgotha him dead who lives in heaven
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
are mentioned in nearly all the old legends of the Saints?
Tears and anguish indicate the presence of a weak and paltry
02.04 - The Right of Absolute Freedom, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A nation cannot claim the right, even in the name of freedom, to do as it pleases. An individual has not that right, the nation too has not. A nation is a member of humanity, there are other members and there is the common welfare of all. A nation by choosing a particular line of action, in asserting its absolute freedom, may go against other nations, or against the general good. Such freedom has to be curbed and controlled. Collective lifeif one does not propose to live the life of the solitary the animal or the Saintis nothing if not such a system of controls. "The whole of politics is an interference with personal liberty. Law is such an interference; protection is such an interference; the rule which makes the will of the majority prevail is such an interference. The right to prevent such use of personal liberty as will injure the interests of the race is the fundamental law of society. From this point of view the nation is only using its primary rights when it restrains the individual from buying or selling foreign goods." Thus spoke a great Nationalist leader in the days of Boycott and Swadeshi. What is said here of the individual can be said of the nation too in relation to the greater good of humanity. The ideal of a nation or state supreme all by itself, with rights that none can challenge, inevitably leads to the cult of the Super-state, the Master-race. If such a monster is not to be tolerated, the only way left is to limit the absolute value of nationhood, to view a nation only as a member in a comity of nations forming the humanity at large.
A nation not free, still in bondage, cannot likewise justify its claim to absolute freedom by all or any means, at all times, in all circumstances. There are times and circumstances when even an enslaved nation has to bide its time. Man, in order to assert his freedom and individuality, cannot sign a pact with Mephistopheles; if he does so he must be prepared for the consequences. The same truth holds with regard to the nation. A greater danger may attend a nation than the loss of freedom the life and soul of humanity itself may be in imminent peril. Such a cataclysmic danger mankind has just passed through or is still passing through. All nations, however circumstanced in the old world, who have stood and fought on the side of humanity, by that very gesture, have acquired the rightand the might too,to gain freedom and greatness and all good things which would not be possible otherwise.
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It goes without saying that in the East too there is no lack of such sympathy or fellow-feeling either in the Saint or in the man of the world. Still there is a difference. And the critics have felt it, if not understood it rightly. The Indian bhutadaya and Christian charity do not spring from the same source I do not speak of the actual popular thing but of the idealeven when their manner of expression is similar or the same, the spirit and the significance are different. In the East the liberated man or the man aiming at liberation may work for the good and welfare of the world or he may not; and when he does work, the spirit is not that of benevolence or philanthropy.
The Indian sage is not and cannot be human in the human way. For the end of his whole spiritual effort is to transcend the human way and establish himself in the divine way, in the way of the Spirit. The feeling he has towards his fellow beingsmen and animals, the sentient or the insentient, the entire creation in factis one of identity in the One Self. And therefore he does not need to embrace physically his brother, like the Christian saint, to express or justify the perfect inner union or unity. The basis of his relation with the world and its objects is not the human heart, however purified and widened, but something behind it and hidden by it, the secret soul and self. It was Vivekananda who very often stressed the point that the distinctive characteristic of the Vedantist was that he did not look upon created beings as his brethren but as himself, as the one and the same self. The profound teaching of the Upanishadic Rishi iswhat may appear very egoistic and inadmissible to the Christian saint that one loves the wife or the I son or anybody or anything in the world not for the sake of the wife or the son or that body or thing but for the sake of the self, for the sake of oneself that is in the object which one seems to love.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It goes without saying that, in the East too, there is no lack of such sympathy or fellow-feeling either in the Saint or in the ordinary man of the world. Still there is a difference. And the critics have felt it, if not understood it rightly. Indian bhta day and Christian charity do not spring from the same source I do not speak of the actual popular thing, but of the ideal and ideology; even when the manner of expression is similar or the same in both, the spirit and the significance are different. In the East the liberated man, or the man aiming at liberation, may work for the good and welfare of the world, but also he may not; and, what is more important, when he does so work, the spirit is not that of benevolence or philanthropy, nor is there the ethical sense of duty.
The Indian sage is not and cannot be human in the human way. For the end of his whole spiritual effort is to transcend the human way and establish himself in the divine way, in the way of the Spirit. The feeling he has towards his fellow-beingsmen and animals, the sentient and the insentient, the entire creation, in factis one of identity in the One Self. And, therefore, he does not need to embrace physically his brother, like the Christian saint, to express or justify the perfect inner union or unity. The basis of his relation with the world and its objects is not the human heart, however purified and widened, but something behind it and hidden by it, the secret soul and self. It was Vivekananda who very often stressed the point that the distinctive characteristic of the Vedantin was that he did not look upon created beings as his brethren, but as himself, as the one and the same self. The profound teaching of the Upanishadic Rishi iswhat may appear very egoistic and inadmissible to the Christian saint that one loves the wife or the son or anybody or anything in the world, not for the sake of the wife or the son or that body or that thing, but for the sake of the self, for the sake of one's own self that is in the object which one seems to love.
03.06 - The Pact and its Sanction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole difficulty centres upon the question: who rouses whom, and what is the principle that is meant to rouse. There is a slogan that incited the Red Terror of the French Revolution; there is the other one which inspired the Nazis; there is still another one rampant that had the seal and sanction of Stalin and his politburo. These have spread their dark wings and covered the saviour light. On the other hand, the voice of the Vedic Rishi that hymned the community of faith and speech and act, the kindly light that Buddha carried to suffering humanity, the love and sacrifice of Christ showing and embleming the way of redemption, the Saints and sages in our own epoch who have visioned the ideal of human unity in a divine humanity, even secular leaders who labour for "one world", "a brave new world"all point to the other line of growth and development that man can follow and must and shall follow. The choice has to be made and the right direction given. In India today, there are these two voices put against each other and clear in their call: one asks for unity and harmony, wideness and truth, the other its contrary working for separativeness, disintegration, narrowness, and make-believe and falsehood. One must have the courage and the sagacity to fix one's loyalty and adhesion.
A true covenant there can be only between parties that work for the light, are inspired by the same divine purpose. Otherwise if there is a fundamental difference in the motive, in the soul-impulse, then it is no longer a pact between comrades, but a patchwork of irreconcilable elements. I have spoken of the threefold sanction of the covenant. The sanction from the top initiates, plans and supports, the sanction from the bottom establishes and furnishes the field, but it is the sanction from the mid-region that inspires, executes, makes a living reality of what is no more than an idea, a possibility. On one side are the Elders, the seasoned statesmen, the wise ones; on the other, the general body of mankind waiting to be moved and guided; in between is the army of young enthusiasts, enlightened or illumined (not necessarily young in age) who form the pra, the vital sheath of the body politic. Allby far the largest part of itdepends upon the dreams that the Prana has been initiated and trained to dream.
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Viewed as a progressive growth of consciousness and transformation of nature, man's advance has been marked out in a few very definite stages. The first was the purely animal manPasuwhen man lived merely as a physical being, concerned solely about his body. Then came the Pisacha, the man of vital urges in their crudest form, the man of ignorant passions and dark instincts who has been imaged in the popular mind as the ghoul. At the next stage, with a further release of the consciousness, when the larger vital impulses come into play man becomes the Rakshasa, the demon. Egoistic hunger for possession, enjoyment, enlarged and increased appetite are his characteristics. Next came the Asura, the Titan, the egoistic mental man in his earlier avatar seeking to emerge out of the purely vital nature. Ambition and pride are his guiding spirit. Prometheus is his prototype. There are still two higher types which have been established in the human consciousness and in the world atmosphere as dynamic ideals, if not as common concrete facts of the material world. The first is the ethical man, who seeks to govern his life according to some principles of light and purity, such, for example, as unselfishness, altruism, chivalry, self-abnegation, rectitude, truthfulness etc. He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is also a still higher category, where consciousness endeavours to go beyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we have the spiritual man, the Saint and the sage. Beyond lie the supra-mental domains formed of the consciousness of the gods.
Man, individually and collectively, has passed and is passing through these steps of evolution. The last one is his goal at the present stage. To be a saint, seer or sage is not enough for man. He must be a god. Indeed when he has succeeded to be a god then only would it be possible for him to become what a saint or a seer or sage has to be in order to fulfil himself totally and integrally. The human race as a whole is progressing along the same line towards the same consummation. That is the secret purpose and end of Nature, to evolve a growing developing material form housing, embodying higher and wider ranges of consciousness, integrating all elements into a more and more intimate and inviolable unity and harmony.
05.04 - Of Beauty and Ananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Brahman is there equally in the Saint and the sinner, in the knowledge and in the ignorance,-it is the static Brahman.
But the Saint and the knowledge manifest and embody the dynamic Brahman.
The stress of Life is to reveal and incarnate more and more of the dynamic Divine, the creative Ananda of consciousness in its self-nature.
05.21 - Being or Becoming and Having, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Again, in this ceaseless continuity of progression it is indeed not necessary at all to stop a while or somewhere and become something for one's perfection or fulfilment. The normal ideal that is placed before man or which he himself seeks is that he should become something, a definite pattern of some particular achievement, and possess something in the sense of an acquisition. An ordinary man must have an occupation and even an extraordinary man, the Saint or the sage, must embody, that is to say, enchain himself in the name and form of a particular realisationa siddhnta or a siddhi. A man has to be -a soldier, a merchant, a politician or a poet, a philosopher: even so he has to be a bhaktaor a jni, a maunior a vksiddha. Each human being should have a ticket and a roll number, an identity card. Now, for the soul of man none of these or other adjuncts are necessary: its progress and its growth are independent of such auxiliaries or correlates. A soul can be and even express itself perfectly at the highest point of its being without formulating itself, binding itself in a scheme of some external achievement or functioning. The soul need not possess any of the gloriesaiwaryasto realise itself, in order to be the abode of the Divine. Its very existence is full to the brim of the substance of the truth and its simple living marks the law or rhythm of that Truth.
A soulful man, whatever he says, thinks, feels or acts, always embodies wholly the Divine. Not that because he says, acts, thinks or feels in a certain manner that he has attained perfection or is in dynamic union with the summit a d integral consciousness. As the Mother brings out the distinction, although in a somewhat different context, the perfect soul-existence .cannot be judged by the forms it takes, the forms themselves have to be judged by the soul-existence.
06.07 - Total Transformation Demands Total Rejection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Indeed, the experience of joy in the very process of suffering is a common experience with the Saint and the martyr. We know of innumerable instances where the fierce torture of the flesh was drowned, overwhelmed in the ecstasy of the inner aspiration; the vital enthusiasm drawn from the inner flame suffuses, courses through the nerves and tissues with such energy and impetus that it effectively blocks out the invading reaction of pain. It is a discipline that has its value even for the sadhak of the sunlit path.
***
06.24 - When Imperfection is Greater Than Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A perfected consciousness is attained in the highest status of being, when it is full of light and delight, peace and purity, one with the Divine Consciousness. Such a Consciousness, when it comes down upon earth in its original unmixed clarity, lives as a foreign element and has no real contact with the world; it can have only a very indirect influence upon men and things. If the perfect, the Divine Consciousness has to be truly effective, has to change human and world nature, it must put on partially at least that nature; it must share in the imperfection of ignorance so that it can show how that imperfection can be dealt with and transformed. The Divine has to become human, even the ordinary human, in a sense, in the outward instrumental aspect, to a greater or lesser degree as needed, so that He may come in living contact with the obscure lower consciousness and put His light into it and gradually purify and illumine it. If, however, the consciousness retains its fullness of power and light makes its appearance as such, it may dazzle and overwhelm, as a meteor miracle, but leave nothing substantial behind. This is what has happened in the past of man's history. the Saints and sages, the greatest and the most genuine among them, mostly dwelt apart from humanity in consciousness and even away from human contact; the earth could not profit wholly by their example.
Therefore the Mother says in her Prayers and Meditations that having gone beyond all desires still she had to live in the midst of desires; she had no choice of her own, no preference, no attachment, no need of anything, yet she was put in the conditions of very ordinary life, the normal human life; she had to deal with the common man, handle the small insignificant objects of material existence. In one part of her being she had to identify herself with ignorance and obscurity, so much so that even the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness the conscient and the inconscientwas for a time obliterated. Naturally, the inmost being in its inner self remained always calm, luminous, inviolable, but it put around itself this body of ordinary nature to meet its ordinary reactions and through them gradually to uplift and train it to manifest and incarnate the inmost divine.
07.01 - Realisation, Past and Future, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole material and physical world, the whole earth I mention earth, because we are concerned directly and much more with it than other regionshas been till now governed by forces of consciousness that come from what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind. Even the thing man has named God is a force, a power in the Overmind. The entire universe has been, so to say, under the domination of this status of consciousness. Even then, you have to pass through many intermediary grades, or levels to arrive at the Overmind and when you reach there the first impression is that of a dazzling light that almost blinds you. But one can and has to press on and go beyond. Sri Aurobindo says, the rule of the Overmind is precisely coming to its end and the rule of the Supermind will replace it. All the past spiritual experiences were concerned with the Overmind: so it is a thing known to all who have found the Divine and are identified with Him. What Sri Aurobindo says is this that there is something more than the Overmind, something that lies a step higher and that it is now the turn of this higher status to come down and reign. We need not talk much of Overmind, because all the Saints and seers, all religions and spiritual disciplines, scriptures and philosophies have spoken about it at length. All the gods known and familiar to men are there in its Pantheon. What we want, what is needed at present is a new revelation, a manifestation in a new manner of which very few were conscious in the past. We are not here merely to repeat the past.
But it is so difficult. It is difficult for people to come out of experiences they have had, of what they have heard and read about always and everywhere. It is difficult for them not to think of the Supermind in terms of the Overmind, not to confuse the Supermind with the Overmind. They are unable to conceive of anything beyond or different. Sri Aurobindo used to say always that his Yoga Began where all the past Yogas ended: in order to realise his Yoga one must have already arrived at the extreme limit of what the ancients realised. In other words, one must have had already the perception of the Divine, the union and identification with the Divine. This divinity, Sri Aurobindo says, is the Divine of the Overmind which is itself something quite unthinkable for the human consciousness, and even to reach there one has to rise through many planes of consciousness and, as I said, one gets dazzled and dazed even at this level.
07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And the glad resignation of the Saint
And courage indifferent to the wounds of Time
07.40 - Service Human and Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Has it, I ask? You have tried to help a few people here and there. But what does it amount to compared to what needs to be done? The proverbial drop in the ocean or less than that even. You remember the story of St. Vincent de Paul? He began giving alms to the poor. On the first day there were ten, on the second some twenty, on the third more than fifty and the number went on swelling in more than geometrical progression. And then? Colbert, the King's Minister, remarked seeing the plight of the Saint: Our brother seems to be giving birth endlessly to his poor people.
I do not think that the spirit of charity has in any way improved human conditions. I do not see that men have become either more or less subject to disease and indigence than before. Charity was always there and misery has coexisted with it ever. I do not think the ratio between the two has diminished in any way. You remember the ironical but pertinent remark of someone who said in view of science's attempts to cure and remove misery: Poor philanthropists would be in a sad plight, their occupation will go! The true reason why one wishes to do charity is elsewhere, it is to please oneself, it is for self-satisfaction. It amuses you to do the thing: it gives you the sense that you are doing something, that you are a valuable member of humanity, not like the others, that you are somebody. What else all that is except that you are vain, full of self-importance, full of yourself? That is what I meant when I said that it is ambition or egoism that makes you humanitarian. Of course, if it pleases you to do the work, if you feel happy in doing it, you are at perfect liberty to do the work and continue. But do not imagine that you are doing any real or effective service to humanity; particularly do not imagine that by that you are serving God, leading a spiritual life or doing Yoga.
1.01 - BOOK THE FIRST, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The pavement kiss'd; and thus the Saint implor'd.
O righteous Themis, if the Pow'rs above
1.01 - Description of the Castle, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
4.: Let us imagine, as I said, that there are many rooms in this castle, of which some are above, some below, others at the side; in the centre, in the very midst of them all, is the principal chamber in which God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse.7' Think over this comparison very carefully; God grant it may enlighten you about the different kinds of graces He is pleased to bestow upon the soul. No one can know all about them, much less a person so ignorant as I am. The knowledge that such things are possible will console you greatly should our Lord ever grant you any of these favours; people themselves deprived of them can then at least praise Him for His great goodness in bestowing them on others. The thought of heaven and the happiness of the Saints does us no harm, but cheers and urges us to win this joy for ourselves, nor will it injure us to know that during this exile God can communicate Himself to us loathsome worms; it will rather make us love Him for such immense goodness and infinite mercy.
5.: I feel sure that vexation at thinking that during our life on earth God can bestow these graces on the souls of others shows a want of humility and charity for one's neighbour, for why should we not feel glad at a brother's receiving divine favours which do not deprive us of our own share? Should we not rather rejoice at His Majesty's thus manifesting His greatness wherever He chooses?8' Sometimes our Lord acts thus solely for the sake of showing His power, as He declared when the Apostles questioned whether the blind man whom He cured had been suffering for his own or his parents' sins.9' God does not bestow soul speaks of that sovereign grace of God in taking it into the house of His love, which is the union or transformation of love in God . . . The cellar is the highest degree of love to which the soul can attain in this life, and is therefore said to be the inner. It follows from this that there are other cellars not so interior; that is, the degrees of love by which souls reach to this, the last. These cellars are seven in number, and the soul has entered them all when it has in perfection the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, so far as it is possible for it. . . . Many souls reach and enter the first cellar, each according to the perfection of its love, but the last and inmost cellar is entered by few in this world, because therein is wrought the perfect union with God, the union of the spiritual marriage.' A Spiritual Canticle, stanza xxvi. 1-3. Concept. ch. vi. (Minor Works of St. Teresa.) these favours on certain souls because they are more holy than others who do not receive them, but to manifest His greatness, as in the case of St. Paul and St. Mary Magdalen, and that we may glorify Him in His creatures.
1.01 - Economy, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race, some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay out doors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not remember the interest with which when young he looked at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning of that portion of our most primitive ancestor which still survived in us. From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At last, we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth to the field is a great distance. It would be well perhaps if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the Saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.
However, if one designs to construct a dwelling house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was once made here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they are green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best English houses. He adds, that they were commonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.
--
Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the Saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.
I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that
1.01 - On knowledge of the soul, and how knowledge of the soul is the key to the knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
To whomsoever this revelation has been vouchsafed, if it directs him to reform the world, to invite the nations to turn to God, and to a peculiar way of life, that person is called a prophet, and his way of life is called a law; and that influence which proceeds from him, which transcends what is ordinary, is called a miracle. If he has not been appointed to invite the nations, but worships in accordance with the law of another, he is called a saint, and that which [27] proceeds from him, which transcends what is ordinary, is called a manifestation of grace. The miracle performed by a saint is accounted a miracle of that prophet whose law he follows. He who has received, by whatever meaus, a revelation of the invisible world, is capable of being ordained to the office of a prophet. And if he is not appointed by God, the reason will be either, that at the time the existing law had been newly revealed, and that there was no occasion for a prophet, or else that there may be a peculiarity in prophets which is not found in the Saints. It follows that it is our duty not to deny either the Saintship or the miracles of the Saints, but to acknowledge them as real.
You should be aware, however, that this alchemy of happiness, that is, the knowledge of God, which is the occasion of the revelation of truth, cannot be acquired without spiritual self-denial and effort. Unless a man has reached perfection and the rank of Superior, nothing will be revealed to him, except in cases of special divine grace and merciful providence, and this occurs very rarely. Nor, except by divine condescension, is revelation obtained even by all who by effort reach the rank of Superior. And whosoever would attain holiness can only reach it by the path of difficulty.
--
The heart has dominion and control through three channels. One is through visions, by which revelations are made to all men. But the kind of mysteries generally revealed to people in visions, are revealed to prophets and saints in the outward world. The second kind is through the dominion which the heart exercises over its own body, a quality, which is possessed by all men in general, though prophets and saints for the good of the community, possess the same power over other bodies than their own. The third source of dominiou of the heart is through knowledge. The mass of men obtain it by instruction and learning, but it is bestowed by God upon prophets and saints directly, without the mediums of learning and instruction. It is possible also for persons of pure minds to acquire a knowledge of some arts and sciences without instruction, and it is also possible that some persons should have all things opened up to them by the will of God. This kind of knowledge is called "infused and illuminated," as God says in his word : "we have illuminated him with our knowledge."1 These three specialities are all of them found in certain measure in some men, in others two of them are found, and in others, only one is found: but whenever the three are found in the same person, he belongs to the rank of prophets or of the greatest of the Saints. In our Lord the prophet Mohammed Mustafa, these three specialities [30] existed in perfection. The Lord in bestowing these three properties upon certain individuals, designates them to exhort the nations and to be prophets of the people. To every man there is given a certain portion of each one of these peculiarities, to serve as a pattern.
Man cannot comprehend states of being which transcend his own nature. Hence none but the great God himself can comprehend God, as we have shown in our Commentary upon the "Names of God." So also the prophets cannot be comprehended by any but the prophets themselves. No person, in short, can understand any individual who belongs to a scale of rank above him. It is possible that there is a peculiarity in prophets, of which no pattern or model is found in other persons, and therefore, we are incapable of understanding them. If we knew not what a vision is, and an individual should say to us, that a man, at a moment when he can neither move, see or hear, can perceive events which are to occur at a future period, and yet might not be able to perceive the same while walking, listening or looking, we should not in any wise be able to persuade ourselves of the truth of it, as God says in his Holy word: "They treat as a lie that which they cannot comprehend with their knowledge."1 And you, do you not see that he who comes blind into the world, does not understand the pleasure which is derived from seeing? Let us not regard, therefore, as impossible all those states ascribed to the prophets which we cannot understand: for they are the accepted and praiseworthy servants of God.
1.01 - THAT ARE THOU, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
That this insight into the nature of things and the origin of good and evil is not confined exclusively to the Saint, but is recognized obscurely by every human being, is proved by the very structure of our language. For language, as Richard Trench pointed out long ago, is often wiser, not merely than the vulgar, but even than the wisest of those who speak it. Sometimes it locks up truths which were once well known, but have been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs of truths which, though they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers caught a glimpse of in a happy moment of divination. For example, how significant it is that in the Indo-European languages, as Darmsteter has pointed out, the root meaning two should connote badness. The Greek prefix dys- (as in dyspepsia) and the Latin dis- (as in dishonorable) are both derived from duo. The cognate bis- gives a pejorative sense to such modern French words as bvue (blunder, literally two-sight). Traces of that second which leads you astray can be found in dubious, doubt and Zweifel for to doubt is to be double-minded. Bunyan has his Mr. Facing-both-ways, and modern American slang its two-timers. Obscurely and unconsciously wise, our language confirms the findings of the mystics and proclaims the essential badness of divisiona word, incidentally, in which our old enemy two makes another decisive appearance.
Here it may be remarked that the cult of unity on the political level is only an idolatrous ersatz for the genuine religion of unity on the personal and spiritual levels. Totalitarian regimes justify their existence by means of a philosophy of political monism, according to which the state is God on earth, unification under the heel of the divine state is salvation, and all means to such unification, however intrinsically wicked, are right and may be used without scruple. This political monism leads in practice to excessive privilege and power for the few and oppression for the many, to discontent at home and war abroad. But excessive privilege and power are standing temptations to pride, greed, vanity and cruelty; oppression results in fear and envy; war breeds hatred, misery and despair. All such negative emotions are fatal to the spiritual life. Only the pure in heart and poor in spirit can come to the unitive knowledge of God. Hence, the attempt to impose more unity upon societies than their individual members are ready for makes it psychologically almost impossible for those individuals to realize their unity with the divine Ground and with one another.
--
Two of the recorded anecdotes about this Sufi saint deserve to be quoted here. When Bayazid was asked how old he was, he replied, Four years. They said, How can that be? He answered, I have been veiled from God by the world for seventy years, but I have seen Him during the last four years. The period during which one is veiled does not belong to ones life. On another occasion someone knocked at the Saints door and cried, Is Bayazid here? Bayazid answered, Is anybody here except God?
To gauge the soul we must gauge it with God, for the Ground of God and the Ground of the Soul are one and the same.
1.01 - The Cycle of Society, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For always the form prevails and the spirit recedes and diminishes. It attempts indeed to return, to revive the form, to modify it, anyhow to survive and even to make the form survive; but the time-tendency is too strong. This is visible in the history of religion; the efforts of the Saints and religious reformers become progressively more scattered, brief and superficial in their actual effects, however strong and vital the impulse. We see this recession in the growing darkness and weakness of India in her last millennium; the constant effort of the most powerful spiritual personalities kept the soul of the people alive but failed to resuscitate the ancient free force and truth and vigour or permanently revivify a conventionalised and stagnating society; in a generation or two the iron grip of that conventionalism has always fallen on the new movement and annexed the names of its founders. We see it in Europe in the repeated moral tragedy of ecclesiasticism and Catholic monasticism. Then there arrives a period when the gulf between the convention and the truth becomes intolerable and the men of intellectual power arise, the great swallowers of formulas, who, rejecting robustly or fiercely or with the calm light of reason symbol and type and convention, strike at the walls of the prison-house and seek by the individual reason, moral sense or emotional desire the Truth that society has lost or buried in its whited sepulchres. It is then that the individualistic age of religion and thought and society is created; the Age of Protestantism has begun, the Age of Reason, the Age of Revolt, Progress, Freedom. A partial and external freedom, still betrayed by the conventional age that preceded it into the idea that the Truth can be found in outsides, dreaming vainly that perfection can be determined by machinery, but still a necessary passage to the subjective period of humanity through which man has to circle back towards the recovery of his deeper self and a new upward line or a new revolving cycle of civilisation.
It is at least doubtful. The Brahmin class at first seem to have exercised all sorts of economic functions and not to have confined themselves to those of the priesthood.
1.01 - The King of the Wood, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
hardly doubt that the Saint Hippolytus of the Roman calendar, who
was dragged by horses to death on the thirteenth of August, Diana's
1.02 - Karma Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
6. Share what you have with others. Serve the Saints and sages.
7. Serve the sick. Serve the poor. Serve your parents. Serve your motherland. Serve humanity in general.
1.02 - On the Knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
The Lord invites the servants whom he loves to the contemplation of his glory, at one time by sending misfortune and affliction, and at another by melancholy and sickness: and he says to them, "my servants, what you regard as misfortune and affliction, is but the bridle of my love, by which I draw those whom I love to a spirit of holy submission, and to my Paradise." It is also found in a tradition that "misfortune is first of all the lot of the prophets, then of the Saints and then of those who are like them in successive lower degrees. Look not then upon these things as maladies, for they are my favored servants."
O seeker after the divine secrets, now that you have learned that within the body of man, there is a sovereign who possesses and controls it, it is time that you should learn the meaning of the sentences, "Glory to God," "God be praised," "There is no God but God," and "God is the greatest." These sentences are very current on the tongues of men, but they do not know the signification of them. [54] Although these four sentences are in appearance very short, yet there are no others that embrace so much of the knowledge of God. Since from the consideration of the freedom and independence of your own spirit, you have learned the freedom and independence of God, you have in consequence learned the meaning and import of the sentence, "Glory to God." Seeing that from the sovereignty which you exercise over your own spirit, you have learned the sovereignty which God exercises, and know that all causes and instruments are subject to his power, and that all outward and inward mercies, which are incalculable and innumerable, are from him, you therefore know the meaning and import of the phrase, "God be praised." As you know also that all things are of his creation, that his government extends over all things, and that without his will no motion or change can affect any thing, you see the meaning of the words, "There is no God but God. " Listen now to the explanation of the sentence, "God is the greatest."
1.02 - On the Service of the Soul, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Zen
I have had to recognize that I must submit to what I fear; yes, even more, that I must even love what horrifies me. We must learn such from that saint who was disgusted by the plague infections; she drank the pus of plague boils and became aware that it smelled like roses. The acts of the Saint were not in vain. 69 In everything regarding your salvation and the attainment of mercy, you are dependent on your soul. Thus no sacrifice can be too great for you.
If your virtues hinder you from salvation, discard them, since they have become evil to you. The slave to virtue finds the way as little as the slave to vices. 70 If you believe that you are the master of your soul, then become her servant. If you were her servant, make yourself her master, since she needs to be ruled. These should be your first steps.
1.02 - The Human Soul, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
14.: Those conscious of being in this state must as often as possible have recourse to His Majesty, taking His Blessed Mother and the Saints for their advocates to do battle for them, because we creatures possess little strength for self-defence. Indeed in every state of life all our help must come from God; may He in His mercy grant it us, Amen! What a miserable life we lead! As I have spoken more fully in other writings27' on the ill that results from ignoring the need of humility and self-knowledge, I will treat no more about it here, my daughters, although it is of the first importance. God grant that what I have said may be useful to you.
15 :You must notice that the light which comes from the King's palace hardly shines at all in these first mansions; although not as gloomy and black as the soul in mortal sin, yet they are in semi-darkness, and their inhabitants see scarcely anything. I cannot explain myself; I do not mean that this is the fault of the mansions themselves, but that the number of snakes, vipers, and venomous reptiles from outside the castle prevent souls entering them from seeing the light. They resemble a person entering a chamber full of brilliant sunshine, with eyes clogged and half closed with dust. Though the room itself is light, he cannot see because of his self-imposed impediment. In the same way, these fierce and wild beasts blind the eyes of the beginner, so that he sees nothing but them.
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
One of the greatest favours bestowed on the soul transiently in this life is to enable it to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all. These souls are herein somewhat like the Saints in heaven, where they who know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is infinitely incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so clearly as do these others how greatly He transcends their vision.
St. John of the Cross
--
The holy light of faith is so pure that, compared with it, particular lights are but impurities; and even ideas of the Saints, of the Blessed Virgin, and the sight of Jesus Christ in his humanity are impediments in the way of the sight of God in His purity.
J.J. Olier
1.02 - THE QUATERNIO AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MERCURIUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of two, so making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the Saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you are also built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. [RSV]50
[11] In elucidating the alchemical parallel we should note that the author of the scholia to the Tractatus aureus Hermetis prefaces his account of the union of opposites with the following remark:
--
Mercurius is conceived as spiritual blood,52 on the analogy of the blood of Christ. In Ephesians those who are separated are brought near in the blood of Christ. He makes the two one and has broken down the dividing wall in his flesh. Caro (flesh)53 is a synonym for the prima materia and hence for Mercurius. The one is a new man. He reconciles the two in one body,54 an idea which is figuratively represented in alchemy as the two-headed hermaphrodite. The two have one spirit, in alchemy they have one soul. Further, the lapis is frequently compared to Christ as the lapis angularis (cornerstone).55 As we know, the temple built upon the foundation of the Saints inspired in the Shepherd of Hermas a vision of the great building into which human beings, streaming from the four quarters, inserted themselves as living stones, melting into it without seam.56 The Church is built upon the rock that gave Peter his name (Matthew 16 : 18).
[12] In addition, we learn from the scholia that the circle and the Hermetic vessel are one and the same, with the result that the mandala, which we find so often in the drawings of our patients, corresponds to the vessel of transformation. Consequently, the usual quaternary structure of the mandala57 would coincide with the alchemists quaternio of opposites. Lastly, there is the interesting statement that an Ecclesia spiritualis above all creeds and owing allegiance solely to Christ, the Anthropos, is the real aim of the alchemists endeavours. Whereas the treatise of Hermes is, comparatively speaking, very old, and in place of the Christian Anthropos mystery58 contains a peculiar paraphrase of it, or rather, its antique parallel,59 the scholia cannot be dated earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth century.60 The author seems to have been a Paracelsist physician. Mercurius corresponds to the Holy Ghost as well as to the Anthropos; he is, as Gerhard Dorn says, the true hermaphroditic Adam and Microcosm:
1.02 - Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. As for _work_, we havent any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire,or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes a half hours nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, Whats the news? as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a nights sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. Pray tell me any thing new that has happened to a man any where on this globe, and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life I wrote this some years ago that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest.
1.03 - Measure of time, Moments of Kashthas, etc., #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Seven Ṛṣis, certain (secondary) divinities, Indra, Manu, and the kings his sons, are created and perish at one period[5]; and the interval, called a Manvantara, is equal to seventy-one times the number of years contained in the four Yugas, with some additional years: this is the duration of the Manu, the (attendant) divinities, and the rest, which is equal to 852.000 divine years, or to 306.720.000 years of mortals, independent of the additional period[6]. Fourteen times this period constitutes a Brāhma day, that is, a day of Brahmā; the term (Brāhma) being the derivative form. At the end of this day a dissolution of the universe occurs, when all the three worlds, earth, and the regions of space, are consumed with fire. The dwellers of Maharloka (the region inhabited by the Saints who survive the world), distressed by the heat, repair then to Janaloka (the region of holy men after their decease). When the-three worlds are but one mighty ocean, Brahmā, who is one with Nārāyaṇa, satiate with the demolition of the universe, sleeps upon his serpent-bed-contemplated, the lotus born, by the ascetic inhabitants of the Janaloka-for a night of equal duration with his day; at the close of which he creates anew. Of such days and nights is a year of Brahmā composed; and a hundred such years constitute his whole life[7]. One Parārddha[8], or half his existence, has expired, terminating with the Mahā Kalpa[9] called Pādma. The Kalpa (or day of Brahmā) termed Vārāha is the first of the second period of Brahmā's existence.
this page consists entire of footnotes
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
the Saint is one who knows that every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis; for at every moment we are called upon to make an all-important decisionto choose between the way that leads to death and spiritual darkness and the way that leads towards light and life; between interests exclusively temporal and the eternal order; between our personal will, or the will of some projection of our personality, and the will of God. In order to fit himself to deal with the emergencies of his way of life, the Saint undertakes appropriate training of mind and body, just as the solther does. But whereas the objectives of military training are limited and very simple, namely, to make men courageous, cool-headed and co-operatively efficient in the business of killing other men, with whom, personally, they have no quarrel, the objectives of spiritual training are much less narrowly specialized. Here the aim is primarily to bring human beings to a state in which, because there are no longer any God-eclipsing obstacles between themselves and Reality, they are able to be aware continuously of the divine Ground of their own and all other beings; secondarily, as a means to this end, to meet all, even the most trivial circumstances of daily living without malice, greed, self-assertion or voluntary ignorance, but consistently with love and understanding. Because its objectives are not limited, because, for the lover of God, every moment is a moment of crisis, spiritual training is incomparably more difficult and searching than military training. There are many good solthers, few saints.
We have seen that, in critical emergencies, solthers specifically trained to cope with that kind of thing tend to forget the inborn and acquired idiosyncrasies with which they normally identify their being and, transcending selfness, to behave in the same, one-pointed, better-than-personal way. What is true of solthers is also true of saints, but with this important difference that the aim of spiritual training is to make people become selfless in every circumstance of life, while the aim of military training is to make them selfless only in certain very special circumstances and in relation to only certain classes of human beings. This could not be otherwise; for all that we are and will and do depends, in the last analysis, upon what we believe the Nature of Things to be. The philosophy that rationalizes power politics and justifies war and military training is always (whatever the official religion of the politicians and war makers) some wildly unrealistic doctrine of national, racial or ideological idolatry, having, as its inevitable corollaries, the notions of Herrenvolk and the lesser breeds without the Law.
The biographies of the Saints testify unequivocally to the fact that spiritual training leads to a transcendence of personality, not merely in the special circumstances of battle, but in all circumstances and in relation to all creatures, so that the Saint loves his enemies or, if he is a Buddhist, does not even recognize the existence of enemies, but treats all sentient beings, sub-human as well as human, with the same compassion and disinterested good will. Those who win through to the unitive knowledge of God set out upon their course from the most diverse starting points. One is a man, another a woman; one a born active, another a born contemplative. No two of them inherit the same temperament and physical constitution, and their lives are passed in material, moral and intellectual environments that are profoundly dissimilar. Nevertheless, insofar as they are saints, insofar as they possess the unitive knowledge that makes them perfect as their Father which is in heaven is perfect, they are all astonishingly alike. Their actions are uniformly selfless and they are constantly recollected, so that at every moment they know who they are and what is their true relation to the universe and its spiritual Ground. Of even plain average people it may be said that their name is Legionmuch more so of exceptionally complex personalities, who identify themselves with a wide diversity of moods, cravings and opinions. Saints, on the contrary, are neither double-minded nor half-hearted, but single and, however great their intellectual gifts, profoundly simple. The multiplicity of Legion has given place to one-pointedness not to any of those evil one-pointednesses of ambition or covetousness, or lust for power and fame, not even to any of the nobler, but still all too human one-pointednesses of art, scholarship and science, regarded as ends in themselves, but to the supreme, more than human one-pointedness that is the very being of those souls who consciously and consistently pursue mans final end, the knowledge of eternal Reality. In one of the Pali scriptures there is a significant anecdote about the Brahman Drona who, seeing the Blessed One sitting at the foot of a tree, asked him, Are you a deva? And the Exalted One answered, I am not. Are you a gandharva? I am not, Are you a yaksha? I am not. Are you a man? I am not a man. On the Brahman asking what he might be, the Blessed One replied, Those evil influences, those cravings, whose non-destruction would have individualized me as a deva, a gandharva, a yaksha (three types of supernatural being), or a man, I have completely annihilated. Know therefore that I am Buddha.
Here we may remark in passing that it is only the one-pointed, who are truly capable of worshipping one God. Monotheism as a theory can be entertained even by a person whose name is Legion. But when it comes to passing from theory to practice, from discursive knowledge about to immediate acquaintance with the one God, there cannot be monotheism except where there is singleness of heart. Knowledge is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. Where the knower is poly-psychic the universe he knows by immediate experience is polytheistic. The Buddha declined to make any statement in regard to the ultimate divine Reality. All he would talk about was Nirvana, which is the name of the experience that comes to the totally selfless and one-pointed. To this same experience others have given the name of union with Brahman, with Al Haqq, with the immanent and transcendent Godhead. Maintaining, in this matter, the attitude of a strict operationalist, the Buddha would speak only of the spiritual experience, not of the metaphysical entity presumed by the theologians of other religions, as also of later Buddhism, to be the object and (since in contemplation the knower, the known and the knowledge are all one) at the same time the subject and substance of that experience.
--
Among the cultivated and mentally active, hagiography is now a very unpopular form of literature. The fact is not at all surprising. The cultivated and the mentally active have an insatiable appetite for novelty, diversity and distraction. But the Saints, however commanding their talents and whatever the nature of their professional activities, are all incessantly preoccupied with only one subjectspiritual Reality and the means by which they and their fellows can come to the unitive knowledge of that Reality. And as for their actions these are as monotonously uniform as their thoughts; for in all circumstances they behave selflessly, patiently and with indefatigable charity. No wonder, then, if the biographies of such men and women remain unread. For one well educated person who knows anything about William Law there are two or three hundred who have read Boswells life of his younger contemporary. Why? Because, until he actually lay dying, Johnson indulged himself in the most fascinating of multiple personalities; whereas Law, for all the superiority of his talents was almost absurdly simple and single-minded. Legion prefers to read about Legion. It is for this reason that, in the whole repertory of epic, drama and the novel there are hardly any representations of true theocentric saints.
O Friend, hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live? for in life deliverance abides.
--
It is in virtue of his absorption in God and just because he has not identified his being with the inborn and acquired elements of his private personality, that the Saint is able to exercise his entirely non-coercive and therefore entirely beneficent influence on individuals and even on whole societies. Or, to be more accurate, it is because he has purged himself of selfness that divine Reality is able to use him as a channel of grace and power. I live, yet not I, but Christ the eternal Logosliveth in me. True of the Saint, this must a fortiori be true of the Avatar, or incarnation of God. If, insofar as he was a saint, St. Paul was not I, then certainly Christ was not I; and to talk, as so many liberal churchmen now do, of worshipping the personality of Jesus, is an absurdity. For, obviously, had Jesus remained content merely to have a personality, like the rest of us, he would never have exercised the kind of influence which in fact he did exercise, and it would never have occurred to anyone to regard him as a divine incarnation and to identify him with the Logos. That he came to be thought of as the Christ was due to the fact that he had passed beyond selfness and had become the bodily and mental conduit through which a more than personal, supernatural life flowed down into the world.
Souls which have come to the unitive knowledge of God, are, in Benet of Canfields phrase, almost nothing in themselves and all in God. This vanishing residue of selfness persists because, in some slight measure, they still identify their being with some innate psycho-physical idiosyncrasy, some acquired habit of thought or feeling, some convention or unanalyzed prejudice current in the social environment. Jesus was almost wholly absorbed in the esential will of God; but in spite of this, he may have retained some elements of selfness. To what extent there was any I associated with the more-than-personal, divine Not-I, it is very difficult, on the basis of the existing evidence, to judge. For example, did Jesus interpret his experience of divine Reality and his own spontaneous inferences from that experience in terms of those fascinating apocalyptic notions current in contemporary Jewish circles? Some eminent scholars have argued that the doctrine of the worlds imminent dissolution was the central core of his teaching. Others, equally learned, have held that it was attributed to him by the authors of the Synoptic Gospels, and that Jesus himself did not identify his experience and his theological thinking with locally popular opinions. Which party is right? Goodness knows. On this subject, as on so many others, the existing evidence does not permit of a certain and unambiguous answer.
1.03 - Self-Surrender in Works - The Way of The Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the ordinary human existence an outgoing action is obviously three-fourths or even more of our life. It is only the exceptions, the Saint and the seer, the rare thinker, poet and artist who can live more within themselves; these indeed, at least in the most intimate parts of their nature, shape themselves more in inner thought and feeling than in the surface act. But it is not either of these sides separated from the other, but rather a harmony of the inner and the outer life made one in fullness and transfigured into a play of something that is beyond them which will create the form of a perfect living. A Yoga of works, a union with the Divine in our will and acts - and not only in knowledge and feeling - is then an indispensable, an inexpressibly important element of an integral Yoga. The conversion of our thought and feeling without a corresponding conversion of the spirit and body of our works would be a maimed achievement.
But if this total conversion is to be done, there must be a consecration of our actions and outer movements as much as of our mind and heart to the Divine. There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible. A hidden Power is the true Lord and overruling Observer of our acts and only he knows through all the ignorance and perversion and deformation brought in by the ego their entire sense and ultimate purpose. There must be effected a complete transformation of our limited and distorted egoistic life and works into the large and direct outpouring of a greater divine Life, Will and Energy that now secretly supports us. This greater Will and Energy must be made conscious in us and master; no longer must it remain, as now, only a superconscious, upholding and permitting Force. There must be achieved an undistorted transmission through us of the all-wise purpose and process of a now hidden omniscient Power and omnipotent Knowledge which will turn into its pure, unobstructed, happily consenting and participating channel all our transmuted nature.
1.04 - GOD IN THE WORLD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
That Nirvana and Samsara are one is a fact about the nature of the universe; but it is a fact which cannot be fully realized or directly experienced, except by souls far advanced in spirituality. For ordinary, nice, unregenerate people to accept this truth by hearsay, and to act upon it in practice, is merely to court disaster. All the dismal story of antinomianism is there to warn us of what happens when men and women make practical applications of a merely intellectual and unrealized theory that all is God and God is all. And hardly less depressing than the spectacle of antinomianism is that of the earnestly respectable well-rounded life of good citizens who do their best to live sacramentally, but dont in fact have any direct acquaintance with that for which the sacramental activity really stands. Dr. Oman, in his The Natural and the Supernatural, writes at length on the theme that reconciliation to the evanescent is revelation of the eternal; and in a recent volume, Science, Religion and the Future, Canon Raven applauds Dr. Oman for having stated the principles of a theology, in which there could be no ultimate antithesis between nature and grace, science and religion, in which, indeed, the worlds of the scientist and the theologian are seen to be one and the same. All this is in full accord with Taoism and Zen Buddhism and with such Christian teachings as St. Augustines Ama et fac quod vis and Father Lallemants advice to theocentric contemplatives to go out and act in the world, since their actions are the only ones capable of doing any real good to the world. But what neither Dr. Oman nor Canon Raven makes sufficiently clear is that nature and grace, Samsara and Nirvana, perpetual perishing and eternity, are really and experientially one only to persons who have fulfilled certain conditions. Fac quod vis in the temporal world but only when you have learnt the infinitely difficult art of loving God with all your mind and heart and your neighbor as yourself. If you havent learnt this lesson, you will either be an antinomian eccentric or criminal or else a respectable well-rounded-lifer, who has left himself no time to understand either nature or grace. The Gospels are perfectly clear about the process by which, and by which alone, a man may gain the right to live in the world as though he were at home in it: he must make a total denial of selfhood, submit to a complete and absolute mortification. At one period of his career, Jesus himself seems to have undertaken austerities, not merely of the mind, but of the body. There is the record of his forty days fast and his statement, evidently drawn from personal experience, that some demons cannot be cast out except by those who have fasted much as well as prayed. (The Cur dArs, whose knowledge of miracles and corporal penance was based on personal experience, insists on the close correlation between severe bodily austerities and the power to get petitionary prayer answered in ways that are sometimes supernormal.) The Pharisees reproached Jesus because he came eating and drinking, and associated with publicans and sinners; they ignored, or were unaware of, the fact that this apparently worldly prophet had at one time rivalled the physical austerities of John the Baptist and was practising the spiritual mortifications which he consistently preached. The pattern of Jesus life is essentially similar to that of the ideal sage, whose career is traced in the Oxherding Pictures, so popular among Zen Buddhists. The wild ox, symbolizing the unregenerate self, is caught, made to change its direction, then tamed and gradually transformed from black to white. Regeneration goes so far that for a time the ox is completely lost, so that nothing remains to be pictured but the full-orbed moon, symbolizing Mind, Suchness, the Ground. But this is not the final stage. In the end, the herdsman comes back to the world of men, riding on the back of his ox. Because he now loves, loves to the extent of being identified with the divine object of his love, he can do what he likes; for what he likes is what the Nature of Things likes. He is found in company with wine-bibbers and butchers; he and they are all converted into Buddhas. For him, there is complete reconciliation to the evanescent and, through that reconciliation, revelation of the eternal. But for nice ordinary unregenerate people the only reconciliation to the evanescent is that of indulged passions, of distractions submitted to and enjoyed. To tell such persons that evanescence and eternity are the same, and not immediately to qualify the statement, is positively fatalfor, in practice, they are not the same except to the Saint; and there is no record that anybody ever came to sanctity, who did not, at the outset of his or her career, behave as if evanescence and eternity, nature and grace, were profoundly different and in many respects incompatible. As always, the path of spirituality is a knife-edge between abysses. On one side is the danger of mere rejection and escape, on the other the danger of mere acceptance and the enjoyment of things which should only be used as instruments or symbols. The versified caption which accompanies the last of the Oxherding Pictures runs as follows.
Even beyond the ultimate limits there extends a passageway,
1.04 - Narayana appearance, in the beginning of the Kalpa, as the Varaha (boar), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
The auspicious supporter of the world, being thus hymned by the earth, emitted a low murmuring sound, like the chanting of the Sāma veda; and the mighty boar, whose eyes were like the lotus, and whose body, vast as the Nīla mountain, was of the dark colour of the lotus leaves[6], uplifted upon his ample tusks the earth from the lowest regions. As he reared up his head, the waters shed from his brow purified the great sages, Sanandana and others, residing in the sphere of the Saints. Through the indentations made by his hoofs, the waters rushed into the lower worlds with a thundering noise. Before his breath, the pious denizens of Janaloka were scattered, and the Munis sought for shelter amongst the bristles upon the scriptural body of the boar, trembling as he rose up, supporting the earth, and dripping with moisture. Then the great sages, Sanandana and the rest, residing continually in the sphere of saints, were inspired with delight, and bowing lowly they praised the stern-eyed upholder of the earth.
The Yogis.-Triumph, lord of lords supreme; Keśava, sovereign of the earth, the wielder of the mace, the shell, the discus, and the sword: cause of production, destruction, and existence. THOU ART, oh god: there is no other supreme condition, but thou. Thou, lord, art the person of sacrifice: for thy feet are the Vedas; thy tusks are the stake to which the victim is bound; in thy teeth are the offerings; thy mouth is the altar; thy tongue is the fire; and the hairs of thy body are the sacrificial grass. Thine eyes, oh omnipotent, are day and night; thy head is the seat of all, the place of Brahma; thy mane is all the hymns of the Vedas; thy nostrils are all oblations: oh thou, whose snout is the ladle of oblation; whose deep voice is the chanting of the Sāma veda; whose body is the hall of sacrifice; whose joints are the different ceremonies; and whose ears have the properties of both voluntary and obligatory rites[7]: do thou, who art eternal, who art in size a mountain, be propitious. We acknowledge thee, who hast traversed the world, oh universal form, to be the beginning, the continuance, and the destruction of all things: thou art the supreme god. Have pity on us, oh lord of conscious and unconscious beings. The orb of the earth is seen seated on the tip of thy tusks, as if thou hadst been sporting amidst a lake where the lotus floats, and hadst borne away the leaves covered with soil. The space between heaven and earth is occupied by thy body, oh thou of unequalled glory, resplendent with the power of pervading the universe, oh lord, for the benefit of all. Thou art the aim of all: there is none other than thee, sovereign of the world: this is thy might, by which all things, fixed or movable, are pervaded. This form, which is now beheld, is thy form, as one essentially with wisdom. Those who have not practised devotion, conceive erroneously of the nature of the world. The ignorant, who do not perceive that this universe is of the nature of wisdom, and judge of it as an object of perception only, are lost in the ocean of spiritual ignorance. But they who know true wisdom, and whose minds are pure, behold this whole world as one with divine knowledge, as one with thee, oh god. Be favourable, oh universal spirit: raise up this earth, for the habitation of created beings. Inscrutable deity, whose eyes are like lotuses, give us felicity. Oh lord, thou art endowed with the quality of goodness: raise up, Govinda, this earth, for the general good. Grant us happiness, oh lotus-eyed. May this, thy activity in creation, be beneficial to the earth. Salutation to thee. Grant us happiness, oh lotus-eyed. arāśara said:-
1.04 - Of other imperfections which these beginners are apt to have with respect to the third sin, which is luxury., #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
31 [The agnusdei was a wax medal with a representation of the lamb stamped upon it, often blessed by the Pope; at the time of the Saint such medals were greatly sought after, as we know from various references in St. Teresa's letters.]
32 [The word nmina, translated 'token,' and normally meaning list, or 'roll,' refers to a relic on which were written the names of saints. In modern Spanish it can denote a medal or amulet used superstitiously.]
--
though in reality there is little that needs to be added to the Saint's clear and apt exposition. It will be remembered that St. Teresa once wrote to her brother Lorenzo, who suffered in this way: 'As to those stirrings of sense. . . . I am quite clear they are of no account, so the best thing is to make no account of them' (LL. 168). The most effective means of calming souls tormented by these favours is to commend them to a discreet and wise director whose counsel they may safely follow. The Illuminists committed the grossest errors in dealing with this matter.]
8. When the soul enters the dark night, it brings these kinds of love under control. It streng thens and purifies the one, namely that which is according to God; and the other it removes and brings to an end; and in the beginning it causes both to be lost sight of, as we shall say hereafter.
1.04 - On blessed and ever-memorable obedience, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
Once as we were sitting together in the refectory, this great superior put his holy mouth to my ear and said: Do you want me to show you divine prudence in extreme old age? And when I begged him to do so, the righteous man called from the second table one named Laurence, who had been about forty-eight years in the community and was second priest in the monastery. He came and made a prostration to the abbot, and took his blessing. But when he stood up, the abbot said nothing whatever to him, but left him standing by the table without eating. Breakfast had only just begun, and so he was standing for a good hour, or even two. I was ashamed to look this toiler in the face, for his hair was quite white and he was eighty years old. And when we got up, the Saint sent him to the great Isidore whom we mentioned above to recite to him the beginning of the 39th Psalm.2
And I, like a most worthless person, did not miss the chance of tempting the old man. And when I asked him what he was thinking of when he was standing by the table, he said: I thought of the shepherd as the image of Christ, and I considered that I had not received the comm and from him at all, but from God. And so I stood praying, Father John, not as before a table of men, but as before the altar of God; and because of my faith and love for the shepherd, no evil thought of him entered my mind, for Love does not resent an injury.3 But know this, Father, that if anyone surrenders himself to simplicity and voluntary innocence, then he no longer gives the devil either time or place to attack him.
--
I should be quite unjust to all enthusiasts for perfection if I were to bury in the tomb of silence the achievement and reward of Macedonius, the first of the deacons there. This man, so consecrated to the Lord, just before the feast of the Holy Theophany,1 actually two days before it, once asked the pastor for permission to go to Alexandria for a certain personal need of his, promising to return from the city as soon as possible for the approaching festival and the preparation for it. But the devil, the hater of good, hindered the archdeacon, and though released by the abbot, he did not return to the monastery for the holy feast at the time appointed by the superior. On his returning a day late, the pastor deposed him from the diaconate and put him in the rank of the lowest novices. But that good deacon of patience and archdeacon of endurance accepted the fathers decision as calmly as if another had been punished and not himself. And when he had spent forty days in that state, the wise pastor raised him again to his own rank. But scarcely a day had passed before the archdeacon begged the pastor to leave him in his former discipline and dishonour, saying: I committed an unforgivable sin in the city. But knowing that Macedonius was telling him an untruth and that he sought punishment only for the sake of humility, the Saint yielded to the good wish of the ascetic. Then what a sight there was! An honoured elder with white hair spending his days as a novice and sincerely begging everyone to pray for him. For, said he, I fell into the fornication of disobedience. But this great Macedonius in secret told me, lowly though I am, why he voluntarily pursued such a humiliating course of life. Never, he assured me, have I felt in myself such relief from every conflict and such sweetness of divine light as now. It is the property of angels, he continued, not to fall, and even, as some say, it is quite impossible for them to fall. It is the property of men to fall, and to rise again as often as this may happen. But it is the property of devils, and devils alone, not to rise once they have fallen.
1 I.e. the feast of the Baptism of Christ, corresponding to some extent to the Western Epiphany.
--
As the Lord did not wish to deprive me of the prayer of a holy father in the same monastery, a week before my departure He took to Himself a wonderful man called Menas who occupied the second place after the superior, and had lived fifty-nine years in the community fulfilling all the various offices. On the third day after the falling asleep of this holy man, when we had performed the customary rites over him, suddenly the whole place where the Saint was resting was filled with
fragrance. Then the great man allowed us to uncover the coffin in which he had been placed, and when this was done we all saw that fragrant myrrh was flowing like two fountains from his precious feet. Then that teacher said to all: Look! The sweat of his toils and labours have been offered as myrrh to God and truly accepted.
--
To admire the labours of the Saints is good; to emulate them wins salvation; but to wish suddenly to imitate their life in every point is unreasonable and impossible.
When we are bitten by remorse, let us remember our sins until the Lord, seeing the force of our efforts (the efforts of those who do violence to themselves for His sake), wipes out our sins and transforms the sorrow that is gnawing our heart into joy. For it is said: According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy consolations have gladdened my soul.5 At the right time let us not forget
1.04 - On Knowledge of the Future World., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
The view which man obtains of things in the visible world is through matter, as in the contemplation of a prospect on land. But in the fourth stage, which is that of the reason, man's view is entirely through the medium of pure spirit, as when a man looks into water. But the view he takes, and the intercourse he enjoys in the world of speculation, is as if he was looking at an object from a ship. There is, besides, in the sphere of reason a still higher degree of sight and vision, which is enjoyed by the [98] prophets, the Saints, and the most devout, which may be compared to a prospect in the clearest weather. Hence, when some one observed to the apostle of God, that Jesus (upon whom be peace !) walked upon the waters, he replied, that "if his faith had been greater, he would have walked in the air."
The view that can be taken by the heart of man, embraces all things that lie in the world of perception and understanding. Its sphere of action and exercise is the whole world. The ascent of man from the rank of beasts to that of angels, is an ascent where he is always exposed to danger and to destruction. He may, with the guidance of the divine guide, mount up to the highest heaven, or may descend through the deceits of Satan to the lowest hell. And the prophet has warned us of this danger in these words: "We have proposed to the heavens, to the earth and to the mountains to accept the deposit of the faith: they trembled to receive it. Man accepted the charge, but he became stupid and a wanderer in darkness."1
--
If these foolish persons have one jot of sense, it will be easy to convince them with a single word. One hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets more or less, the whole multitude of the Saints and all the learned doctors of the law have faithfully followed the Holy Law, have been diligent in their devotions, and with prudent anxiety and dread about the future state, they have endured much pain and suffering. And how does it happen that you, who are so ignorant and stupid, have found out that they were mistaken and in error ? What should lead you to prefer your baseless and corrupt fancies to their knowledge and science, and to say that the spirit has no real existence and that it does not continue to live after death ? Perhaps you do not even admit that there is any material punishment. Truly the health of your moral being is so corrupted and depraved, that there is no cure for you; you belong to that class of whom God says in his holy word : "Even when thou shalt call them into the right path, they will never follow in it."1
If one of these men should, however, reply: "Indeed I do not" know for a certainty, but why should I on account of an uncertainty, pass my precious life in devotional austerities, and forbid myself the delights and pleasures of the world ?" We observe in return. According to your principles, the probabilities are balanced as to whether the events spoken of as belonging to the future world will or will not happen. It follows then as a most rational conclusion, that you ought to act in the same way you would do, if you wished to preserve yourself from a great risk and danger. For, if these events should take place, you may thereby be saved from intense torment and obtain eternal felicity; whereas, if they should not occur, you will have suffered no injury from your precautions. We [101] have, besides, the inspired word which declares that all these things will take place; and all the prophets (upon whom be peace!) and all the Saints and teachers of religion (upon whom may God have mercy !) have testified to the truth of them.
Do you not see that if you were desirous to partake of food and were just stretching forth your hand to take it, and some one should say, "Beware, and do not eat of that food, for it is deadly poison," or "a serpent has vomited upon it," that although there was a doubt in your mind whether what he said was true or false, still you would believe him and refrain from eating the food ? You would say to yourself: "If I do not eat it, I have nothing to suffer but to remain hungry for a while longer, but if I eat it, I may kill myself. It is prudent, therefore, for me to refrain from it."
1.04 - Sounds, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
English, French, or American prints, ginghams, muslins, &c., gathered from all quarters both of fashion and poverty, going to become paper of one color or a few shades only, on which forsooth will be written tales of real life, high and low, and founded on fact! This closed car smells of salt fish, the strong New England and commercial scent, reminding me of the Grand Banks and the fisheries. Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly cured for this world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the perseverance of the Saints to the blush? with which you may sweep or pave the streets, and split your kindlings, and the teamster shelter himself and his lading against sun wind and rain behind it,and the trader, as a Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a sign when he commences business, until at last his oldest customer cannot tell surely whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a snowflake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled, will come out an excellent dun fish for a Saturdays dinner.
Next Spanish hides, with the tails still preserving their twist and the angle of elevation they had when the oxen that wore them were careering over the pampas of the Spanish main,a type of all obstinacy, and evincing how almost hopeless and incurable are all constitutional vices. I confess, that practically speaking, when I have learned a mans real disposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse in this state of existence. As the Orientals say, A curs tail may be warmed, and pressed, and bound round with ligatures, and after a twelve years labor bestowed upon it, still it will retain its natural form. The only effectual cure for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is to make glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done with them, and then they will stay put and stick. Here is a hogshead of molasses or of brandy directed to John Smith,
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Here is another small instance, gathered from the private diary of a young sadhika, to show how the Mother in the midst of her crammed activities found time to push individuals or groups on the path of their soul's aspiration. She used to see ten or twelve young girls in the evening at about 8 p.m. before she came down for meditation. But many a day they had to wait for hours, even up to 10 p.m. They would feel hungry or sleepy and had to go without their dinner, for the meditation followed immediately after their meeting. One day one of them lost patience and went away, leaving her flowers in a dish for the Mother. Just then, the Mother came. The girls were very much struck by this coincidence. What a test, they thought! As soon as one girl approached the Mother, the Mother asked, "Who has left this dish of flowers here? Oh, is it X? You really surprise me! You can't wait even a little while for me, you get so impatient? Do you know how the gods and goddesses yearn to have my darshan, and the Saints and sages consider themselves most blessed when they see me in their meditation even for a minute?"
"But, Mother," replied the girl, "we look upon you as our friend. When we stand under the shelter of a tree, do we think of it giving us a cool shade?" That sweet answer disarmed the Mother completely and she immediately took her into her arms.
1.04 - The Fork in the Road, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But perhaps the summit is not located up above. Perhaps it is everywhere here, at ground level, simply covered up by the Machine and all our successive evolutionary layers, like the diamond in its matrix. If the path of ascent is the only way out, then we all had better get out once and for all. And if the Saint really is the triumph of the ape, one may doubt that evolution will ever reach its satisfying, and blessed, goal, and that the entire earth will become hallowed. What then of the others, those who balk at saintliness? We do not believe that evolution's ultimate design is a moralistic sorting out of the elect and the damned. Evolution is not moralistic; it just is, and it grows its entire tree so all its flowers can produce blossoms. Evolution is not ascetic; it embraces everything sumptuously and opulently. Evolution has not deserted the earth, or it would never have started on earth. Nature is not incoherent; she is wiser than our mental coherence, wiser even than our saintliness.
But she is slow. That is her shortcoming.
1.05 - Bhakti Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
12. Evil company is an enemy of devotion. Give up evil company. Take recourse to Satsanga or company of the Saints.
13. Pray to the Lord thus; O Adorable Lord of Compassion and Love! Give me faith and devotion.
1.05 - MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
superior desires of life and takes God as the enemy of life. the Saint
in whom God is well pleased, is the ideal eunuch. Life terminates where
1.05 - On the Love of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
The reason Bayazid indicated this method of cure for want of relish in devotion was that his friend was an ambitious seeker after place and honour. Ambition and pride are diseases which can only be cured in some such way. God said unto Jesus, "O Jesus! when I see in My servants' hearts pure love for Myself unmixed with any selfish desire concerning this world or the next, I act as guardian over that love." Again, when people asked Jesus "What is the highest work of all?" he answered, "To love God and to be resigned to His will." the Saint Rabia was once asked whether she loved
{p. 130}
--
The second test of sincerity is that a man should be willing to sacrifice his will to God's, should cleave to what brings him nearer to God, and should shun what places him at a distance from God. The fact of a man's sinning is no proof that he does not love God at all, but it proves that he does not love Him with his whole heart. the Saint Fudhail said to a certain man, "If any one asks you whether you love God, keep silent; for if you say, 'I do not love Him,' you are an infidel; and if you say, 'I do,' your deeds contradict you."
The third test is that the remembrance of God should always remain fresh in a man's heart without effort, for what a man loves he constantly remembers, and if his love is perfect he never forgets it. It is possible, however, that, while the love of God does not take the first place in a man's heart, the love of the love of God may, for love is one thing and the love of love another.
--
began to pray under that tree, in order to have the pleasure of listening to the bird. God told David to go and say to him, "Thou hast mingled the love of a melodious bird with the love of Me; thy rank among the Saints is lowered." On the other hand, some have loved God with such intensity that, while they were engaged in devotion, their houses have caught fire and they have not noticed it.
A sixth test is that worship becomes easy. A certain saint said, "During one space of thirty years I performed my night-devotions with great difficulty, but during a second space of thirty years they became a delight." When love to God is complete no joy is equal to the joy of worship.
1.05 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice - The Psychic Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
As in the works of knowledge, so in dealing with the workings of the heart, we are obliged to make a preliminary distinction between two categories of movements, those that are either moved by the true soul or aid towards its liberation and rule in the nature and those that are turned to the satisfaction of the unpurified vital nature. But the distinctions ordinarily laid down in this sense are of little use for the deep or spiritual purpose of Yoga. Thus a division can be made between religious emotions and mundane feelings and it can be laid down as a rule of spiritual life that the religious emotions alone should be cultivated and all worldly feelings and passions must be rejected and fall away from our existence. This in practice would mean the religious life of the Saint or devotee, alone with the Divine or linked only to others in a common God-love or at the most pouring out the fountains of a sacred, religious or pietistic love on the world outside. But religious emotion itself is too constantly invaded by the turmoil and obscurity of the vital movements and it is often either crude or narrow or fanatical or mixed with movements that are not signs of the spirit's perfection. It is evident besides that even at the best an intense figure of sainthood clamped in rigid hieratic lines is quite other than the wide ideal of an integral Yoga. A larger psychic and emotional relation with God and the world, more deep and plastic in its essence, more wide and embracing in its movements, more capable of taking up in its sweep the whole of life, is imperative.
A wider formula has been provided by the secular mind of mall of which the basis is the ethical sense; for it distinguishes between the emotions sanctioned by the ethical sense and those that are egoistic and selfishly common and mundane. It is the works of altruism, philanthropy, compassion, benevolence, humanitarianism, service, labour for the well-being of man and all creatures that are to be our Ideal; to shuffle off the coil of egoism and grow into a soul of self-abnegation that lives only or mainly for others or for humanity as a whole is the way of man's inner evolution according to this doctrine. Or if this is too secular and mental to satisfy the whole of our being, since there is a deeper religious and spiritual note there that is left out of account by the humanitarian formula, a religio-ethical foundation can be provided for it -and such was indeed its original basis. To the inner worship of the Divine or the Supreme by the devotion of the heart or to the pursuit of the Ineffable by the seeking of a highest knowledge can be added a worship through altruistic works or a preparation through acts of love, of benevolence, of service to mankind or to those around us. It is indeed by the religio-ethical sense that the law of universal goodwill or universal compassion or of love and service to the neighbour, the Vedantic, the Buddhistic, the Christian ideal, was created; only by a sort of secular refrigeration extinguishing the fervour of the religious element in it could the humanitarian ideal disengage itself and become the highest plane of a secular system of mental and moral ethics. For in the religious system this law of works is a means that ceases when its object is accomplished or a side issue; it is a part of the cult by which one adores and seeks the Divinity or it is a penultimate step of the excision of self in the passage to Nirvana. In the secular ideal it is promoted into an object in itself; it becomes a sign of the moral perfection of the human being, or else it is a condition for a happier state of man upon earth, a better society, a more united life of the race. But none of these things satisfy the demand of the soul that is placed before us by the integral Yoga.
1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
grass, and herbs, which is supposed to represent the Saint. In
Kursk, a province of Southern Russia, when rain is much wanted, the
--
lose patience. Most of the Saints were banished. At Palermo they
dumped St. Joseph in a garden to see the state of things for
--
image of the Saint that stands in a sort of niche from which the
fountain flows. At Collobrires and Carpentras a similar practice
--
image of the Saint in procession to the river, where they thrice
invited him to reconsider his resolution and to grant their prayers;
1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
kṣipya is not 'repandant,' but 'restraining;' and Tiṣṭhatah being in the dual number, relates of course to only two of the series. The correct rendering is, 'These seven (Prajāpatis) created progeny, and so did Rudra; but Skanda and Sanatkumāra, restraining their power, abstained (from creation).' So the commentator: ###. These sages, however, live as long as Brahmā, and they are only created by him in the first Kalpa, although their generation is very commonly, but inconsistently, introduced in the Vārāha or Pādma Kalpas. This creation, says the text, is both primary (Prākrita) and secondary (Vaikrita). It is the latter, according to the commentator, as regards the origin of these saints from Brahmā: it is the former as affects Rudra, who, though proceeding from Brahmā, in a certain form was in essence equally an immediate production of the first principle. These notions, the birth of Rudra and the Saints, seem to have been borrowed from the Saivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaiṣṇava system. Sanatkumāra and his brethren are always described in the Saiva Purāṇas as Yogis: as the Kūrma, after enumerating them, adds, 'These five, oh Brahmans, were Yogis, p. 39 who acquired entire exemption from passion:' and the Hari Vaṃśa, although rather Vaiṣṇava than Saiva, observes, that the Yogis celebrate these six, along with Kapila, in Yoga works. The idea seems to have been amplified also in the Saiva works; for the Li
ga P. describes the repeated birth of Śiva, or Vāmadeva, as a Kumāra, or boy, from Brahmā, in each Kalpa, who again becomes four. Thus in the twenty-ninth Kalpa Swetalohita is the Kumāra, and he becomes Sananda, Nandana, Viswananda, Upanandana; all of a white complexion: in the thirtieth the Kumāra becomes Virajas, Vivāhu, Visoka, Vīswabhāvana; all of a red colour: in the thirty-first he becomes four youths of a yellow colour: and in the thirty-second the four Kumāras were black. All these are, no doubt, comparatively recent additions to the original notion of the birth of Rudra and the Kumāras; itself obviously a sectarial innovation upon the primitive doctrine of the birth of the Prajāpatis, or will-born sons of Brahmā.
1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is possible, as in a certain high exaggeration of the path of knowledge, to cut here also the knot of the problem, escape the difficulty of uniting the spirit of love with the crudities of the world-action by avoiding it; it is open to us, withdrawing from outward life and action altogether, to live alone with our adoration of the Divine in the heart's silence. It is possible too to admit only those acts that are either in themselves an expression of love for the Divine, prayer, praise, symbolic acts of worship or subordinate activities that may be attached to these things and partake of their spirit, and to leave aside all else; the soul turns away to satisfy its inner longing in the absorbed or the God-centred life of the Saint and devotee. It is possible, again, to open the doors of life more largely and to spend one's love of the Divine in acts of service to those around us and to the race; one can do the works of philanthropy, benevolence and beneficence, charity and succour to man and beast and every creature, transfigure them by a kind of spiritual passion, at least bring into their merely ethical appearance the greater power of a spiritual motive. This is indeed the solution most commonly favoured by the religious mind of today and we see it confidently advanced on all sides as the proper field of action of the Godseeker or of the man whose life is founded on divine love and knowledge. But the integral Yoga pushed towards a complete union of the Divine with the earth-life cannot stop short in this narrow province or limit this union within the lesser dimensions of an ethical rule of philanthropy and beneficence. All action must be made in it part of the God-life, our acts of knowledge, our acts of power and production and creation, our acts of joy and beauty and the soul's pleasure, our acts of will and endeavour and struggle and not our acts only of love and beneficent service. Its way to do these things will be not outward and mental, but inward and spiritual, and to that end it will bring into all activities, whatever they are, the spirit of divine love, the spirit of adoration and worship, the spirit of happiness in the Divine and in the beauty of the Divine so as to make all life a sacrifice of the works of the soul's love to the Divine, its cult of the Master of its existence.
It is possible so to turn life into an act of adoration to the Supreme by the spirit in one's works; for, says the Gita, "He who gives to me with a heart of adoration a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a cup of water, I take and enjoy that offering of his devotion"; and it is not only any dedicated external gift that can be so offered with love and devotion, but all our thoughts, all our feelings and sensations, all our outward activities and their forms and objects can be such gifts to the Eternal. It is true that the special act or form of action has its importance, even a great importance, but it is the spirit in the act that is the essential factor; the spirit of which it is the symbol or materialised expression gives it its whole value and justifying significance. Or it may be said that a complete act of divine love and worship has in it three parts that are the expressions of a single whole, - a practical worship of the Divine in the act, a symbol of worship in the form of the act expressing some vision and seeking or some relation with the Divine, an inner adoration and longing for oneness or feeling of oneness in the heart and soul and spirit. It is so that life can be changed into worship, - by putting behind it the spirit of a transcendent and universal love, the seeking of oneness, the sense of oneness; by making each act a symbol, an expression of Godward emotion or a relation with the Divine; by turning all we do into an act of worship, an act of the soul's communion, the mind's understanding, the life's obedience, the heart's surrender.
--
aware of in himself and finds all around him and has to struggle and combat incessantly to be rid of their grip and dislodge the long-entrenched mastery they have exercised over his own being as over the environing human existence. The difficulty is great; for their hold is so strong, so apparently invincible that it justifies the disdainful dictum which compares human nature to a dog's tail, - for, straighten it never so much by force of ethics, religion, reason or any other redemptive effort, it returns in the end always to the crooked curl of Nature. And so great is the vim, the clutch of that more agitated Life-Will, so immense the peril of its passions and errors, so subtly insistent or persistently invasive, so obstinate up to the very gates of Heaven the fury of its attack or the tedious obstruction of its obstacles that even the Saint and the Yogin cannot be sure of their liberated purity or their trained self-mastery against its intrigue or its violence. All labour to straighten out this native crookedness strikes the struggling will as a futility; a flight, a withdrawal to happy Heaven or peaceful dissolution easily finds credit as the only wisdom and to find a way not to be born again gets established as the only remedy for the dull bondage or the poor shoddy delirium or the blinded and precarious happiness and achievement of earthly existence.
A remedy yet there should be and is, a way of redress and a chance of transformation for this troubled vital nature; but for that the cause of deviation must be found and remedied at the heart of Life itself and in its very principle, since Life too is a power of the Divine and not a creation of some malignant
1.07 - Of imperfections with respect to spiritual envy and sloth., #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
541 Corinthians xiii, 6. the Saint here cites the sense, not the
letter, of the epistle.
1.08 - Information, Language, and Society, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
for the scholar and the Saint: they are also the home of the Great
Educator and the Bishop. The book that does not earn money
1.096 - Powers that Accrue in the Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There is an anecdote which is not mentioned in the Yoga Sutras. Aurangzeb heard that Tulsidas had great powers, that he was a siddha. He wanted to see what powers Tulsidas had, so he ordered Tulsidas to come to his court. By some means they brought the Saint to the court of Aurangzeb, and the emperor said, I want to see your powers. They say you are a person endowed with great occult forces. the Saint said, I dont know what you are talking about. I have no powers. I myself have not seen any, and from where do these powers come? No, no, no, Aurangzeb said, I am not going to leave you like that. You must show me your powers. Tulsidas said, I do not have any powers. I have not exhibited any. Nor am I aware that I have any powers. So where comes this question of demonstrating before you? I myself do not know anything about them. Aurangzeb said, No! That is no good. I will not leave you. You must show them. If you are not going to show your powers, I will imprison you! And Aurangzeb put Tulsidas behind bars. Well, that is all; Tulsidas was in the prison of Aurangzeb. Then and there a miracle took place. They say huge, giant-like monkeys hundreds and thousands in number started demolishing the entire city of Aurangzeb. They threatened everybody, and they destroyed many. It was a ravaging experience. They started attacking the palace of Aurangzeb himself. The guards ran away; it was all confusion, and they did not know what had happened. Nobody could come out of the house. Everywhere were giant-like monkeys, showing their teeth and attacking.
Aurangzeb did not know what was happening. People were crying and complaining about the ravage that had been effected in the whole city by unknown monsters coming as huge monkeys. Then someone told him, We have made a mistake in imprisoning Tulsidas. Release him. He is a devotee of Rama, and so Ramas army must have come. Then Aurangzeb said, Let him off. Let him off! Go, ask him to leave. What this anecdote shows is, when we oppose a man of power, his power is seen. Otherwise, we cannot see the power. Even a lions power cannot be seen unless we oppose it. The lion will be sitting or lying down, crouching on the ground as if it has no strength at all. If we want to see the strength of a lion, we must attack it, and then its power will be seen immediately. Similarly, often the powers of a yogin are not known, as they are hidden.
1.09 - Equality and the Annihilation of Ego, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4:The renunciation of attachment to the work and its fruit is the beginning of a wide movement towards an absolute equality in the mind and soul which must become all-enveloping if we are to be perfect in the spirit. For the worship of the Master of works demands a clear recognition and glad acknowledgment of him in ourselves, in all things and in all happenings. Equality is the sign of this adoration; it is the soul's ground on which true sacrifice and worship can be done. The Lord is there equally in all beings, we have to make no essential distinctions between ourselves and others, the wise and the ignorant, friend and enemy, man and animal, the Saint and the sinner. We must hate none, despise none, be repelled by none; for in all we have to see the One disguised or manifested at his pleasure. He is a little revealed in one or more revealed in another or concealed and wholly distorted in others according to his will and his knowledge of what is best for that which he intends to become in form in them and to do in works in their nature. All is ourself, one self that has taken many shapes. Hatred and disliking and scorn and repulsion, clinging and attachment and preference are natural, necessary, inevitable at a certain stage: they attend upon or they help to make and maintain Nature's choice in us. But to the Karmayogin they are a survival, a stumbling-block, a process of the Ignorance and, as he progresses, they fall away from his nature. The child-soul needs them for its growth; but they drop from an adult in the divine culture. In the God-nature to which we have to rise there can be an adamantine, even a destructive severity but not hatred, a divine irony but not scorn, a calm, clear-seeing and forceful rejection but not repulsion and dislike. Even what we have to destroy, we must not abhor or fail to recognise as a disguised and temporary movement of the Eternal.
5:And since all things are the one Self in its manifestation, we shall have equality of soul towards the ugly and the beautiful, the maimed and the perfect, the noble and the vulgar, the pleasant and the unpleasant, the good and the evil. Here also there will be no hatred, scorn and repulsion, but instead the equal eye that sees all things in their real character and their appointed place. For we shall know that all things express or disguise, develop or distort, as best they can or with whatever defect they must, under the circumstances intended for them, in the way possible to the immediate status or function or evolution of their nature, some truth or fact, some energy or potential of the Divine necessary by its presence in the progressive manifestation both to the whole of the present sum of things and for the perfection of the ultimate result. That truth is what we must seek and discover behind the transitory expression; undeterred by appearances, by the deficiencies or the disfigurements of the expression, we can then worship the Divine for ever unsullied, pure, beautiful and perfect behind his masks. All indeed has to be changed, not ugliness accepted but divine beauty, not imperfection taken as our resting-place but perfection striven after, the supreme good made the universal aim and not evil. But what we do has to be done with a spiritual understanding and knowledge, and it is a divine good, beauty, perfection, pleasure that has to be followed after, not the human standards of these things. If we have not equality, it is a sign that we are still pursued by the Ignorance, we shall truly understand nothing and it is more than likely that we shall destroy the old imperfection only to create another: for we are substituting the appreciations of our human mind and desire-soul for the divine values.
1.09 - SELF-KNOWLEDGE, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The importance, the indispensable necessity, of self-knowledge has been stressed by the Saints and doctors of every one of the great religious traditions. To us in the West, the most familiar voice is that of Socrates. More systematically than Socrates the Indian exponents of the Perennial Philosophy harped on the same theme. There is, for example, the Buddha, whose discourse on The Setting-Up of Mindfulness expounds (with that positively inexorable exhaustiveness characteristic of the Pali scriptures) the whole art of self-knowledge in all its branchesknowledge of ones body, ones senses, ones feelings, ones thoughts. This art of self-knowledge is practised with two aims in view. The proximate aim is that a brother, as to the body, continues so to look upon the body, that he remains ardent, self-possessed and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and dejection common in the world. And in the same way as to feelings, thoughts and ideas, he so looks upon each that he remains ardent, self-possessed and mindful, without hankering or dejection. Beyond and through this desirable psychological condition lies the final end of man, knowledge of that which underlies the individualized self. In their own vocabulary, Christian writers express the same ideas.
A man has many skins in himself, covering the depths of his heart. Man knows so many things; he does not know himself. Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, just like an oxs or a bears, so thick and hard, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
11.03 - Cosmonautics, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Modern science, modern applied science, has brought about and is bringing about more and more a big change in the earth atmosphere. It is not merely the dust and smoke, gases and fumes thrown out by the modern machineries from the earth into the sky that have been increasing ominously in volume, but the less patent vibrations that have been released by advanced scientific projects and experiments and that have been encircling the earth more and more in a tight embrace. A quiet and clean air was such a treasure for human beings; men have always longed for it as a necessity and also as a diversion, and it was so readily available. the Saints and sages went up to mountain-tops and into deep forests and far away into open meadows for a full-breath draught of that heavenly element.
But now physically, materially, we know that the radio waves and innumerable other cosmic waves have been constantly, ceaselessly hammering, churning the earth-atmosphere all around us. Human bodies are immersed in a real turmoil. They are bathed in a whirlwind constantly. The nerves and tissues are being shaken from within to their very roots throughout one's life, day and night. There is no peace, no tranquillity upon earth; physical and material repose has altogether disappeared. The high hill-tops or mountain-sides do not help any more nor the ocean depths nor any African jungle nor even the Sahara desert.
1.1.04 - Philosophy, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He treads down his emotions, because emotion distorts reason and replaces it by passions, desires, preferences, prejudices, prejudgments. He avoids life, because life awakes all his sensational being and puts his reason at the mercy of egoism, of sensational reactions of anger, fear, hope, hunger, ambition, instead of allowing it to act justly and do disinterested work. It becomes merely the paid pleader of a party, a cause, a creed, a dogma, an intellectual faction. Passion and eagerness, even intellectual eagerness, so disfigure the greatest minds that even Shankara becomes a sophist and a word-twister, and even Buddha argues in a circle. The philosopher wishes above all to preserve his intellectual righteousness; he is or should be as careful of his mental rectitude as the Saint of his moral stainlessness. Therefore he avoids, as far as the world will let him, the conditions which disturb. But in this way he cuts himself off from experience and only the gods can know without experience. Sieyes said that politics was a subject of which he had made a science.
He had, but the pity was that though he knew the science of politics perfectly, he did not know politics itself in the least and when he did enter political life, he had formed too rigidly the logical habit to replace it in any degree by the practical. If he had reversed the order or at least coordinated experiment with his theories before they were formed, he might have succeeded better. His readymade Constitutions are monuments of logical perfection and practical ineffectiveness. They have the weakness
1.10 - GRACE AND FREE WILL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
To think of God as mere Power, and not also, at the same time as Power, Love and Wisdom, comes quite naturally to the ordinary, unregenerate human mind. Only the totally selfless are in a position to know experimentally that, in spite of everything, all will be well and, in some way, already is well. The philosopher who denies divine providence, says Rumi, is a stranger to the perception of the Saints. Only those who have the perception of the Saints can know all the time and by immediate experience that divine Reality manifests itself as a Power that is loving, compassionate and wise. The rest of us are not yet in a spiritual position to do more than accept their findings on faith. If it were not for the records they have left behind, we should be more inclined to agree with Job and the primitives.
Inspirations prevent us, and even before they are thought of make themselves felt; but after we have felt them it is ours either to consent to them, so as to second and follow their attractions, or else to dissent and repulse them. They make themselves felt without us, but they do not make us consent without us.
1.10 - The Three Modes of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
influences, often a conflict, a wrestling of forces, a struggle to dominate each other. All have in great or in small extent or degree, even if sometimes in a hardly appreciable minimum, their sattwic states and clear tracts or inchoate tendencies of light, clarity and happiness, fine adaptation and sympathy with the environment, intelligence, poise, right mind, right will and feeling, right impulse, virtue, order. All have their rajasic moods and impulses and turbid parts of desire and passion and struggle, perversion and falsehood and error, unbalanced joy and sorrow, aggressive push to work and eager creation and strong or bold or fiery or fierce reactions to the pressure of the environment and to life's assaults and offers. All have their tamasic states and constant obscure parts, their moments or points of unconsciousness, their long habit or their temporary velleities of weak resignation or dull acceptance, their constitutional feeblenesses or movements of fatigue, negligence and indolence and their lapses into ignorance and incapacity, depression and fear and cowardly recoil or submission to the environment and to the pressure of men and events and forces. Each one of us is sattwic in some directions of his energy of Nature or in some parts of his mind or character, in others rajasic, tamasic in others. According as one or other of the modes usually dominates his general temperament and type of mind and turn of action, it is said of him that he is the sattwic, the rajasic or the tamasic man; but few are always of one kind and none is entire in his kind. The wise are not always or wholly wise, the intelligent are intelligent only in patches; the Saint suppresses in himself many unsaintly movements and the evil are not entirely evil: the dullest has his unexpressed or unused and undeveloped capacities, the most timorous his moments or his way of courage, the helpless and the weakling a latent part of strength in his nature. The dominant gunas are not the essential soul-type of the embodied being but only the index of the formation he has made for this life or during his present existence and at a given moment of his evolution in Time.
* *
--
to be nothing better than a device and the sustaining knot of their interaction and, perceiving it, he is delivered from the illusion of the lower egoistic Nature. He escapes from the sattwic egoism of the altruist and the Saint and the thinker; he shakes off from its control on his life-impulses the rajasic egoism of the self-seeker and ceases to be the laborious caterer of self-interest and the pampered prisoner or toiling galley-slave of passion and desire; he slays with the light of knowledge the tamasic egoism of the ignorant or passive being, dull, unintelligent, attached to the common round of human life. Thus convinced and conscious of the essential vice of the ego-sense in all our personal action, he seeks no longer to find a means of self-correction and self-liberation in the rajasic or sattwic ego but looks above, beyond the instruments and the working of Nature, to the Master of works alone and his supreme Shakti, the supreme Prakriti. There alone all the being is pure and free and the rule of a divine Truth possible.
In this progression the first step is a certain detached superiority to the three modes of Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and free from the lower Prakriti, not involved in its coils, indifferent and glad above it. Nature continues to act in the triple round of her ancient habits, - desire, grief and joy attack the heart, the instruments fall into inaction and obscurity and weariness, light and peace come back into the heart and mind and body; but the soul stands unchanged and untouched by these changes. Observing and unmoved by the grief and desire of the lower members, smiling at their joys and their strainings, regarding and unoverpowered by the failing and the darknesses of the thought and the wildness or the weaknesses of the heart and nerves, uncompelled and unattached to the mind's illuminations and its relief and sense of ease or of power in the return of light and gladness, it throws itself into none of these things, but waits unmoved for the intimations of a higher Will and the intuitions of a greater luminous knowledge. Thus doing always, it becomes eventually free even in its nature parts from the strife of the three modes and their insufficient values and imprisoning limits. For now this lower Prakriti feels progressively a compulsion from a higher Shakti. The old habits to which it
1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
then Vedanta at its best is a gospel for the Saint, the ascetic, the
monk, the solitary, but it has not a message which the widening
1.12 - The Left-Hand Path - The Black Brothers, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
And this is the meaning of the Supper of the Passover, the spilling of the blood of the Lamb being a ritual of the Dark Brothers, for they have sealed up the Pylon with blood, lest the Angel of Death should enter therein. Thus do they shut themselves off from the company of the Saints. Thus do they keep themselves from compassion and from understanding. Accursed are they, for they shut up their blood in their heart.
They keep themselves from the kisses of my Mother Babylon, and in their lonely fortresses they pray to the false moon. And they bind themselves together with an oath, and with a great curse. And of their malice they conspire together, and they have power, and mastery, and in their cauldrons do they brew the harsh wine of delusion, mingled with the poison of their selfishness.
1.12 - TIME AND ETERNITY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Another practical corollary of the great historical eternity-philosophies, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, is a morality inculcating kindness to animals. Judaism and orthodox Christianity taught that animals might be used as things, for the realization of mans temporal ends. Even St. Francis attitude towards the brute creation was not entirely unequivocal. True, he converted a wolf and preached sermons to birds; but when Brother Juniper hacked the feet off a living pig in order to satisfy a sick mans craving for fried trotters, the Saint merely blamed his disciples intemperate zeal in damaging a valuable piece of private property. It was not until the nineteenth century, when orthodox Christianity had lost much of its power over European minds, that the idea that it might be a good thing to behave humanely towards animals began to make headway. This new morality was correlated with the new interest in Nature, which had been stimulated by the romantic poets and the men of science. Because it was not founded upon an eternity-philosophy, a doctrine of divinity dwelling in all living creatures, the modern movement in favour of kindness to animals was and is perfectly compatible with intolerance, persecution and systematic cruelty towards human beings. Young Nazis are taught to be gentle with dogs and cats, ruthless with Jews. That is because Nazism is a typical time-philosophy, which regards the ultimate good as existing, not in eternity, but in the future. Jews are, ex hypothesi, obstacles in the way of the realization of the supreme good; dogs and cats are not. The rest follows logically.
Selfishness and partiality are very inhuman and base qualities even in the things of this world; but in the doctrines of religion they are of a baser nature. Now, this is the greatest evil that the division of the church has brought forth; it raises in every communion a selfish, partial orthodoxy, which consists in courageously defending all that it has, and condemning all that it has not. And thus every champion is trained up in defense of their own truth, their own learning and their own church, and he has the most merit, the most honour, who likes everything, defends everything, among themselves, and leaves nothing uncensored in those that are of a different communion. Now, how can truth and goodness and union and religion be more struck at than by such defenders of it? If you ask why the great Bishop of Meaux wrote so many learned books against all parts of the Reformation, it is because he was born in France and bred up in the bosom of Mother Church. Had he been born in England, had Oxford or Cambridge been his Alma Mater, he might have rivalled our great Bishop Stillingfleet, and would have wrote as many learned folios against the Church of Rome as he has done. And yet I will venture to say that if each Church could produce but one man apiece that had the piety of an apostle and the impartial love of the first Christians in the first Church at Jerusalem, that a Protestant and a Papist of this stamp would not want half a sheet of paper to hold their articles of union, nor be half an hour before they were of one religion. If, therefore, it should be said that churches are divided, estranged and made unfriendly to one another by a learning, a logic, a history, a criticism in the hands of partiality, it would be saying that which each particular church too much proves to be true. Ask why even the best amongst the Catholics are very shy of owning the validity of the orders of our Church; it is because they are afraid of removing any odium from the Reformation. Ask why no Protestants anywhere touch upon the benefit or necessity of celibacy in those who are separated from worldly business to preach the gospel; it is because that would be seeming to lessen the Roman error of not suffering marriage in her clergy. Ask why even the most worthy and pious among the clergy of the Established Church are afraid to assert the sufficiency of the Divine Light, the necessity of seeking only the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; it is because the Quakers, who have broke off from the church, have made this doctrine their corner-stone. If we loved truth as such, if we sought for it for its own sake, if we loved our neighbour as ourselves, if we desired nothing by our religion but to be acceptable to God, if we equally desired the salvation of all men, if we were afraid of error only because of its harmful nature to us and our fellow-creatures, then nothing of this spirit could have any place in us.
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Providence, he is able to restore this connecting link in order to make a dead person live again, similar to the Saints, who, as we know from history, have been able to do the same. I have already dealt with this matter in detail in "Initiation into Hermetics".
If the magician has experienced his physical death, there is no reason why he should return to the physical world, and he is not desirous of restoring the band between the material and astral worlds. Of course, there are also magicians and sorcerers of lower degree, who consciously try, from the astral world, to build again the link between their astral and their physical bodies. But because they lack the necessary perfection enabling them to condense the light sufficiently, their success must remain a partial one. Usually such beings, clinging to their physical shape, try to evade the pre-conditions for such a realisation and vampirise the electro-magnetic fluid (vital energy) from living bodies in order to accumulate it in their abandoned physical bodies, assuming that in the course of time they will be able to revive them. The physical body laid aside by such a being in the manner indicated may be saved from decay for centuries. History gives us many examples of the conservation of deceased persons, and science cannot yet give any satisfactory explanation for this. Such vampires are, from the hermetic point of view, to be pitied, and the religious belief of those days did well in destroying such bodies which did not decay. Usually only by this destruction, such a body was usually pierced with a wooden spear or its head cut off and the body itself burned, was the spirit of such a body freed from its bondage. The sagas of the werewolves, too, can be explained from the hermetic point of view. The procedure was the same, only that at the moment of vampirizing, the astral body took on the shape of an animal in order to evade recognition by the possibly sensitive person who was vampirized.
1.15 - SILENCE, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
My dear Mother, heed well the precepts of the Saints, who have all warned those who would become holy to speak little of themselves and their own affairs.
St. Franois de Sales (in a letter to St. Jeanne de Chantal)
--
The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desirewe hold historys record for all of them. And no wonder; for all the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence. That most popular and influential of all recent inventions, the radio, is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into our homes. And this din goes far deeper, of course, than the ear-drums. It penetrates the mind, filling it with a babel of distractionsnews items, mutually irrelevant bits of information, blasts of corybantic or sentimental music, continually repeated doses of drama that bring no catharsis, but merely create a craving for daily or even hourly emotional enemas. And where, as in most countries, the broadcasting stations support themselves by selling time to advertisers, the noise is carried from the ears, through the realms of phantasy, knowledge and feeling to the egos central core of wish and desire. Spoken or printed, broadcast over the ether or on wood-pulp, all advertising copy has but one purposeto prevent the will from ever achieving silence. Desirelessness is the condition of deliverance and illumination. The condition of an expanding and technologically progressive system of mass production is universal craving. Advertising is the organized effort to extend and intensify cravingto extend and intensify, that is to say, the workings of that force, which (as all the Saints and teachers of all the higher religions have always taught) is the principal cause of suffering and wrong-doing and the greatest obstacle between the human soul and its divine Ground.
next chapter: 1.16 - PRAYER
1.16 - PRAYER, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
"What God is in Himself, God and his mysteries as they are in themselves the phrases have a Kantian ring. But if Kant was right and the Thing in itself is unknowable, Bourgoing, De Condren and all the other masters of the spiritual life were engaged in a wild goose chase. But Kant was right only as regards minds that have not yet come to enlightenment and deliverance. To such minds Reality, whether material, psychic or spiritual, presents itself as it is darkened, tinged and refracted by the medium of their own individual natures. But in those who are pure in heart and poor in spirit there is no distortion of Reality, because there is no separate selfhood to obscure or refract, no painted lantern slide of intellectual beliefs and hallowed imagery to give a personal and historical colouring to the white radiance of Eternity. For such minds, as Olier says, even ideas of the Saints, of the Blessed Virgin, and the sight of Jesus Christ in his humanity are impediments in the way of the sight of God in his purity. The Thing in itself can he perceived but only by one who, in himself, is no-thing.
By prayer I do not understand petition or supplication which, according to the doctrines of the schools, is exercised principally by the understanding, being a signification of what the person desires to receive from God. But prayer here specially meant is an offering and giving to God whatsoever He may justly require from us.
1.16 - The Suprarational Ultimate of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But all this seems to be something above our normal and usual being; it is something into which we strive to grow, but it does not seem to be the normal stuff, the natural being or atmosphere of the individual and the society in their ordinary consciousness and their daily life. That life is practical and not idealistic; it is concerned not with good, beauty, spiritual experience, the higher truth, but with interests, physical needs, desires, vital necessities. This is real to it, all the rest is a little shadowy; this belongs to its ordinary labour, all the rest to its leisure; this to the stuff of which it is made, all the rest to its parts of ornament and dispensable improvement. To all that rest society gives a place, but its heart is not there. It accepts ethics as a bond and an influence, but it does not live for ethical good; its real gods are vital need and utility and the desires of the body. If it governs its life partly by ethical laws because otherwise vital need, desire, utility in seeking their own satisfaction through many egoistic individuals would clash among themselves and destroy their own aims, it does not feel called upon to make its life entirely ethical. It concerns itself still less with beauty; even if it admits things beautiful as an embellishment and an amusement, a satisfaction and pastime of the eye and ear and mind, nothing moves it imperatively to make its life a thing of beauty. It allows religion a fixed place and portion, on holy days, in the church or temple, at the end of life when age and the approach of death call the attention forcibly away from this life to other life, at fixed times in the week or the day when it thinks it right for a moment to pause in the affairs of the world and remember God: but to make the whole of life a religion, a remembering of God and a seeking after him, is a thing that is not really done even in societies which like the Indian erect spirituality as their aim and principle. It admits philosophy in a still more remote fashion; and if nowadays it eagerly seeks after science, that is because science helps prodigiously the satisfaction of its vital desires, needs and interests: but it does not turn to seek after an entirely scientific life any more than after an entirely ethical life. A more complete effort in any one of these directions it leaves to the individual, to the few, and to individuals of a special type, the Saint, the ethical man, the artist, the thinker, the man of religion; it gives them a place, does some homage to them, assigns some room to the things they represent, but for itself it is content to follow mainly after its own inherent principle of vital satisfaction, vital necessity and utility, vital efficiency.
The reason is that here we get to another power of our being which is different from the ethical, aesthetic, rational and religious,one which, even if we recognise it as lower in the scale, still insists on its own reality and has not only the right to exist but the right to satisfy itself and be fulfilled. It is indeed the primary power, it is the base of our existence upon earth, it is that which the others take as their starting-point and their foundation. This is the life-power in us, the vitalistic, the dynamic nature. Its whole principle and aim is to be, to assert its existence, to increase, to expand, to possess and to enjoy: its native terms are growth of being, pleasure and power. Life itself here is Being at labour in Matter to express itself in terms of conscious force; human life is the human being at labour to impress himself on the material world with the greatest possible force and intensity and extension. His primary insistent aim must be to live and make for himself a place in the world, for himself and his species, secondly, having made it to possess, produce and enjoy with an ever-widening scope, and finally to spread himself over all the earth-life and dominate it; this is and must be his first practical business. That is what the Darwinians have tried to express by their notion of the struggle for life. But the struggle is not merely to last and live, but to increase, enjoy and possess: its method includes and uses not only a principle and instinct of egoism, but a concomitant principle and instinct of association. Human life is moved by two equally powerful impulses, one of individualistic self-assertion, the other of collective self-assertion; it works by strife, but also by mutual assistance and united effort: it uses two diverse convergent forms of action, two motives which seem to be contradictory but are in fact always coexistent, competitive endeavour and cooperative endeavour. It is from this character of the dynamism of life that the whole structure of human society has come into being, and it is upon the sustained and vigorous action of this dynamism that the continuance, energy and growth of all human societies depends. If this life-force in them fails and these motive-powers lose in vigour, then all begins to languish, stagnate and finally move towards disintegration.
1.17 - SUFFERING, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The idea of vicarious suffering has too often been formulated in crudely juridical and commercial terms. A has committed an offence for which the law decrees a certain punishment; B voluntarily undergoes the punishment; justice and the lawgivers honour are satisfied; consequently A may go free. Or else it is all a matter of debts and repayments. A owes C a sum which he cannot pay; B steps in with the cash and so prevents C from foreclosing on the mortgage. Applied to the facts of mans suffering and his relations to the divine Ground, these conceptions are neither enlightening nor edifying. The orthodox doctrine of the Atonement attributes to God characteristics that would be discreditable even to a human potentate, and its model of the universe is not the product of spiritual insight rationalized by philosophic reflection, but rather the projection of a lawyers phantasy. But in spite of these deplorable crudities in their formulation, the idea of vicarious suffering and the other, closely related idea of the transferability of merit are based upon genuine facts of experience. The selfless and God-filled person can and does act as a channel through which grace is able to pass into the unfortunate being who has made himself impervious to the divine by the habitual craving for intensifications of his own separateness and selfhood. It is because of this that the Saints are able to exercise authority, all the greater for being entirely non-compulsive, over their fellow beings. They transfer merit to those who are in need of it; but that which converts the victims of self-will and puts them on the path of liberation is not the merit of the Saintly individuala merit that consists in his having made himself capable of eternal Reality, as a pipe, by being cleaned out, is made capable of water; it is rather the divine charge he carries, the eternal Reality for which he has become the conduit. And similarly, in vicarious suffering, it is not the actual pains experienced by the Saint which are redemptive for to believe that God is angry at sin and that His anger cannot be propitiated except by the offer of a certain sum of pain is to blaspheme against the divine Nature. No, what saves is the gift from beyond the temporal order, brought to those imprisoned in selfhood by these selfless and God-filled persons, who have been ready to accept suffering, in order to help their fellows. The Bodhisattvas vow is a promise to forgo the immediate fruits of enlightenment and to accept rebirth and its inevitable concomitants, pain and death, again and again, until such time as, thanks to his labours and the graces of which, being selfless, he is the channel, all sentient beings shall have come to final and complete deliverance.
I saw a mass of matter of a dull gloomy colour between the North and the East, and was informed that this mass was human beings, in as great misery as they could be, and live; and that I was mixed up with them and henceforth I must not consider myself as a distinct or separate being.
1.18 - The Divine Worker, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For in all he sees two things, the Divine inhabiting every being equally, the varying manifestation unequal only in its temporary circumstances. In the animal and man, in the dog, the unclean outcaste and the learned and virtuous Brahmin, in the Saint and the sinner, in the indifferent and the friendly and the hostile, in those who love him and benefit and those who hate him and afflict, he sees himself, he sees God and has at heart for all the same equal kindliness, the same divine affection.
Circumstances may determine the outward clasp or the outward
1.19 - Equality, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Even by the pretensions of learning and purity and virtue and the claims to superiority which men base upon these things, he is not led away. He is equal-souled to all men, to the sinner and the Saint, to the virtuous, learned and cultured Brahmin and the fallen outcaste. All these are the Gita's descriptions of the sattwic equality, and they sum up well enough what is familiar to the world as the calm philosophic equality of the sage.
Where then is the difference between this and the larger equality taught by the Gita? It lies in the difference between the intellectual and philosophic discernment and the spiritual, the Vedantic knowledge of unity on which the Gita founds its teaching. The philosopher maintains his equality by the power of the buddhi, the discerning mind; but even that by itself is a doubtful foundation. For, though master of himself on the whole by a constant attention or an acquired habit of mind, in reality he is not free from his lower nature, and it does actually assert itself in many ways and may at any moment take a violent revenge for its rejection and suppression. For, always, the play of the lower nature is a triple play, and the rajasic and tamasic qualities are ever lying in wait for the sattwic man. "Even the mind of the
1.2.08 - Faith, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I am rather surprised at Krishnaprem's surprise about my statement of faith. I thought he had said once you should not hanker after experiences. As for experience being necessary for faith and no faith possible without it, that contradicts human psychology altogether. Thousands of people have faith before they have experience and it is the faith that helps them to the experience. The doctrine "No belief without proof" applies to physical science, it would be disastrous in the field of spirituality - or for that matter in the field of human action. the Saints or bhaktas have the faith in God long before they get the experience of God - the man of action has the faith in his cause long before his cause is crowned with success - otherwise they would not have been able to struggle persistently towards their end in spite of defeat,
Faith
1.20 - Equality and Knowledge, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
vanity of the world's differences and distinctions, the superiority of the inner calm, peace, light, self-dependence. It is an equality of philosophic indifference; it brings a high calm, but not the greater spiritual joy; it is an isolated freedom, a wisdom like that of the Lucretian sage high in his superiority upon the cliff-top whence he looks down on men tossed still upon the tempestuous waters from which he has escaped, - in the end something after all aloof and ineffective. The Gita admits the philosophic motive of indifference as a preliminary movement; but the indifference to which it finally arrives, if indeed that inadequate word can be at all applied, has nothing in it of the philosophic aloofness. It is indeed a position as of one seated above, udasnavat, but as the Divine is seated above, having no need at all in the world, yet he does works always and is present everywhere supporting, helping, guiding the labour of creatures. This equality is founded upon oneness with all beings. It brings in what is wanting to the philosophic equality; for its soul is the soul of peace, but also it is the soul of love. It sees all beings without exception in the Divine, it is one self with the Self of all existences and therefore it is in supreme sympathy with all of them. Without exception, ases.en.a, not only with all that is good and fair and pleases; nothing and no one, however vile, fallen, criminal, repellent in appearance, can be excluded from this universal, this whole-souled sympathy and spiritual oneness. Here there is no room, not merely for hatred or anger or uncharitableness, but for aloofness, disdain or any petty pride of superiority. A divine compassion for the ignorance of the struggling mind, a divine will to pour forth on it all light and power and happiness there will be, indeed, for the apparent man; but for the divine Soul within him there will be more, there will be adoration and love. For from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from the Saint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, "This is I." "He who loves Me in all beings," - what greater word of power for the utmost intensities and profundities of divine and universal love, has been uttered by any philosophy or any religion?
Resignation is the basis of a kind of religious equality, submission to the divine will, a patient bearing of the cross, a
1.22 - On the many forms of vainglory., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
He who is without this sickness is near to salvation, but he who is not free from it is far from the glory of the Saints.
1 St. Luke xiv, 11.
1.23 - Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A spiritualised society would treat in its sociology the individual, from the Saint to the criminal, not as units of a social problem to be passed through some skilfully devised machinery and either flattened into the social mould or crushed out of it, but as souls suffering and entangled in a net and to be rescued, souls growing and to be encouraged to grow, souls grown and from whom help and power can be drawn by the lesser spirits who are not yet adult. The aim of its economics would be not to create a huge engine of production, whether of the competitive or the cooperative kind, but to give to mennot only to some but to all men each in his highest possible measure the joy of work according to their own nature and free leisure to grow inwardly, as well as a simply rich and beautiful life for all. In its politics it would not regard the nations within the scope of their own internal life as enormous State machines regulated and armoured with man living for the sake of the machine and worshipping it as his God and his larger self, content at the first call to kill others upon its altar and to bleed there himself so that the machine may remain intact and powerful and be made ever larger, more complex, more cumbrous, more mechanically efficient and entire. Neither would it be content to maintain these nations or States in their mutual relations as noxious engines meant to discharge poisonous gas upon each other in peace and to rush in times of clash upon each others armed hosts and unarmed millions, full of belching shot and men missioned to murder like war-planes or hostile tanks in a modern battlefield. It would regard the peoples as group-souls, the Divinity concealed and to be self-discovered in its human collectivities, group-souls meant like the individual to grow according to their own nature and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the one common work of humanity. And that work would be to find the divine Self in the individual and the collectivity and to realise spiritually, mentally, vitally, materially its greatest, largest, richest and deepest possibilities in the inner life of all and their outer action and nature.
For it is into the Divine within them that men and mankind have to grow; it is not an external idea or rule that has to be imposed on them from without. Therefore the law of a growing inner freedom is that which will be most honoured in the spiritual age of mankind. True it is that so long as man has not come within measurable distance of self-knowledge and has not set his face towards it, he cannot escape from the law of external compulsion and all his efforts to do so must be vain. He is and always must be, so long as that lasts, the slave of others, the slave of his family, his caste, his clan, his Church, his society, his nation; and he cannot but be that and they too cannot help throwing their crude and mechanical compulsion on him, because he and they are the slaves of their own ego, of their own lower nature. We must feel and obey the compulsion of the Spirit if we would establish our inner right to escape other compulsion: we must make our lower nature the willing slave, the conscious and illumined instrument or the ennobled but still self-subjected portion, consort or partner of the divine Being within us, for it is that subjection which is the condition of our freedom, since spiritual freedom is not the egoistic assertion of our separate mind and life but obedience to the Divine Truth in ourself and our members and in all around us. But we have, even so, to remark that God respects the freedom of the natural members of our being and that he gives them room to grow in their own nature so that by natural growth and not by self-extinction they may find the Divine in themselves. The subjection which they finally accept, complete and absolute, must be a willing subjection of recognition and aspiration to their own source of light and power and their highest being. Therefore even in the unregenerated state we find that the healthiest, the truest, the most living growth and action is that which arises in the largest possible freedom and that all excess of compulsion is either the law of a gradual atrophy or a tyranny varied or cured by outbreaks of rabid disorder. And as soon as man comes to know his spiritual self, he does by that discovery, often even by the very seeking for it, as ancient thought and religion saw, escape from the outer law and enter into the law of freedom.
1.23 - The Double Soul in Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
10:The true soul secret in us - subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, - this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine. Not the unborn Self or Atman, for the Self even in presiding over the existence of the individual is aware always of its universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, caitya purus.a, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience. These other person-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in their true entity, but they put forward temporary personalities which compose our outer individuality and whose combined superficial action and appearance of status we call ourselves: this inmost entity also, taking form in us as the psychic Person, puts forward a psychic personality which changes, grows, develops from life to life; for this is the traveller between birth and death and between death and birth, our nature parts are only its manifold and changing vesture. The psychic being can at first exercise only a concealed and partial and indirect action through the mind, the life and the body, since it is these parts of Nature that have to be developed as its instruments of self-expression, and it is long confined by their evolution. Missioned to lead man in the Ignorance towards the light of the Divine Consciousness, it takes the essence of all experience in the Ignorance to form a nucleus of soul-growth in the nature; the rest it turns into material for the future growth of the instruments which it has to use until they are ready to be a luminous instrumentation of the Divine. It is this secret psychic entity which is the true original Conscience in us deeper than the constructed and conventional conscience of the moralist, for it is this which points always towards Truth and Right and Beauty, towards Love and Harmony and all that is a divine possibility in us, and persists till these things become the major need of our nature. It is the psychic personality in us that flowers as the Saint, the sage, the seer; when it reaches its full strength, it turns the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the supreme Beauty, Love and Bliss, the divine heights and largenesses, and opens us to the touch of spiritual sympathy, universality, oneness. On the contrary, where the psychic personality is weak, crude or ill-developed, the finer parts and movements in us are lacking or poor in character and power, even though the mind may be forceful and brilliant, the heart of vital emotions hard and strong and masterful, the life-force dominant and successful, the bodily existence rich and fortunate and an apparent lord and victor. It is then the outer desire-soul, the pseudo-psychic entity, that reigns and we mistake its misinterpretations of psychic suggestion and aspiration, its ideas and ideals, its desires and yearnings for true soul-stuff and wealth of spiritual experience.7 If the secret psychic Person can come forward into the front and, replacing the desire-soul, govern overtly and entirely and not only partially and from behind the veil this outer nature of mind, life and body, then these can be cast into soul images of what is true, right and beautiful and in the end the whole nature can be turned towards the real aim of life, the supreme victory, the ascent into spiritual existence.
11:But it might seem then that by bringing this psychic entity, this true soul in us, into the front and giving it there the lead and rule we shall gain all the fulfilment of our natural being that we can seek for and open also the gates of the kingdom of the Spirit. And it might well be reasoned that there is no need for any intervention of a superior Truth-Consciousness or principle of Supermind to help us to attain to the divine status or the divine perfection. Yet, although the psychic transformation is one necessary condition of the total transformation of our existence, it is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual change. In the first place, since this is the individual soul in Nature, it can open to the hidden diviner ranges of our being and receive and reflect their light and power and experience, but another, a spiritual transformation from above is needed for us to possess our self in its universality and transcendence. By itself the psychic being at a certain stage might be content to create a formation of truth, good and beauty and make that its station; at a farther stage it might become passively subject to the worldself, a mirror of the universal existence, consciousness, power, delight, but not their full participant or possessor. Although more nearly and thrillingly united to the cosmic consciousness in knowledge, emotion and even appreciation through the senses, it might become purely recipient and passive, remote from mastery and action in the world; or, one with the static self behind the cosmos, but separate inwardly from the world-movement, losing its individuality in its Source, it might return to that Source and have neither the will nor the power any further for that which was its ultimate mission here, to lead the nature also towards its divine realisation. For the psychic being came into Nature from the Self, the Divine, and it can turn back from Nature to the silent Divine through the silence of the Self and a supreme spiritual immobility. Again, an eternal portion of the Divine,8 this part is by the law of the Infinite inseparable from its Divine Whole, this part is indeed itself that Whole, except in its frontal appearance, its frontal separative self-experience; it may awaken to that reality and plunge into it to the apparent extinction or at least the merging of the individual existence. A small nucleus here in the mass of our ignorant Nature, so that it is described in the Upanishad as no bigger than a man's thumb, it can by the spiritual influx enlarge itself and embrace the whole world with the heart and mind in an intimate communion or oneness. Or it may become aware of its eternal Companion and elect to live for ever in His presence, in an imperishable union and oneness as the eternal lover with the eternal Beloved, which of all spiritual experiences is the most intense in beauty and rapture. All these are great and splendid achievements of our spiritual self-finding, but they are not necessarily the last end and entire consummation; more is possible.
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Heart; and yet there is the remembrance which enables the Saint to sing of God later.
240
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Heart; and yet there is the remembrance which enables the Saint to sing of God later.
Then the experience of a young disciple was mentioned. The young man, educated and in good circumstances, in good health and sober mind, was once facing Sri Bhagavans picture in his home and meditating on the figure. The figure suddenly appeared animated with life, which threw the young man into a spasm of fear. He called out for his mother. His mother came and asked him what the matter was. He was surrounded by his relatives who were perplexed by his appearance. He was aware of their presence, but was still overpowered by a mysterious force which he tried to resist. He became unconscious for a short time. Fear seized him as he regained consciousness. The people became anxious and tried to bring him round with medicines.
--
On one occasion the Saints had assembled together, among whom was one Jnandev of well-established fame and eminence. Jnandev asked
Gora Kumbhar (a potter-saint) to use his proficiency in testing the soundness of baked pots and find out which of the assembled saints was properly baked clay. So Gora Kumbhar took his stick and gently struck each ones head in joke as if to test. When he came to Namdev the latter protested in a huff; all laughed and hooted. Namdev was enraged and he sought Vithoba in the temple. Vithoba said that the Saints knew best; this unexpected reply upset Namdev all the more.
He said: You are God. I converse and play with you. Can there be anything more to be gained by man?
Vithoba persisted: the Saints know.
Namdev: Tell me if there is anything more real than you.
--
Namdev wondered how this could be a saint. the Saint, on the other hand, smiled on Namdev and asked, Did Vithoba send you here? This was a great surprise to Namdev who was now more inclined to believe the man to be great.
So Namdev asked him: You are said to be a saint, why do you desecrate the linga? the Saint replied. Indeed I am too old and weak to do the right thing. Please lift my feet and place them where there is no linga. Namdev accordingly lifted the Saints feet and placed them elsewhere. But there was again a linga below them.
Wherever the feet were placed then and there appeared a linga underneath. Namdev finally placed the feet on himself and he turned into a linga. Then Namdev understood that God was immanent and learnt the truth and departed. He went home and did not go to the temple for several days. Vithoba now sought him out in his home and asked why Namdev would not go to the temple to see God.
--
M.: The jnanis mind is known only to the Jnani. One must be a Jnani oneself in order to understand another Jnani. However the peace of mind which permeates the Saints atmosphere is the only means by which the seeker understands the greatness of the Saint.
His words or actions or appearance are no indications of his greatness, for they are ordinarily beyond the comprehension of common people.
1.25 - DUNGEON, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
O let us kneel, and call the Saints to hide us!
Under the steps beside us,
1.25 - Fascinations, Invisibility, Levitation, Transmutations, Kinks in Time, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Age before honesty! Let Father Poulain S.J. speak first! He is obliged to admit the phenomenon, because the Church has done so. But precisely similar accounts of the levitation of pagans and heretics must be according to him, lies, or Works of the Devil. As for the method, "God employs the angels to raise the Saint, so as to avoid the necessity of intervening Himself." Lazy old parishioner!
Now for a douche of common sense. Hatha-Yoga is quite clear and simple, even logical, about it. The method is plain Pranayama. Didn't I tell you onetime of the Four Stages of Success? 1. Perspiration of a very special kind. 2. Sukshma-Khumbakam: automatic rigidity. One stiffens like a dog in a bell-jar when you pump in Carbon Dioxide (is it?) 3. The Bhuchari-Siddhi, "jumping about like a frog." One is wafted, without one's Asana being disturbed, about the floor, rather as fragments of paper, or dry leaves, might be in a slight draught under the door. 4. If one is quite perfectly balanced one cannot be moved sideways; so one rises. And there you are!
1.26 - On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
The man who despairs of himself when he hears of the supernatural virtues of the Saints is most unreasonable. On the contrary, they teach you supremely one of two things: either they rouse you to emulation by their holy courage, or they lead you by way of thrice-holy humility to deep self-contempt and realization of your inherent weakness.
Amongst the impure evil demons, there are some more evil than others. They suggest to us that we should not commit sin alone, but they counsel us to have others as companions in evil in order to make our punishment more severe. I have seen one learning a bad habit from another, and although he who taught came to his senses and began to repent and gave up doing wrong, his repentance was ineffectual on account of the influence of his pupil.
--
There exist certain dispositions of wicked and envious spirits which voluntarily leave the Saints so as to deprive those who battle of any chance of obtaining crowns for victory over them.
Blessed are the peacemakers.6 No one will deny this. But I have also seen enemy-makers who are blessed. A certain two developed impure affection for one another. But one of the discerning fathers, a most experienced man, was the means whereby they came to hate each other, by setting one against the other, telling each that he was being slandered by the other. And this wise man by human roguery succeeded in parrying the devils malice and in producing hatred by which the impure affection was dissolved.
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
On one occasion the Saints had assembled together, among whom was one Jnandev of well-established fame and eminence. Jnandev asked
Gora Kumbhar (a potter-saint) to use his proficiency in testing the soundness of baked pots and find out which of the assembled saints was properly baked clay. So Gora Kumbhar took his stick and gently struck each one's head in joke as if to test. When he came to Namdev the latter protested in a huff; all laughed and hooted. Namdev was enraged and he sought Vithoba in the temple. Vithoba said that the Saints knew best; this unexpected reply upset Namdev all the more.
He said: You are God. I converse and play with you. Can there be anything more to be gained by man?
Vithoba persisted: the Saints know.
Namdev: Tell me if there is anything more real than you.
--
Namdev wondered how this could be a saint. the Saint, on the other hand, smiled on Namdev and asked, "Did Vithoba send you here?" This was a great surprise to Namdev who was now more inclined to believe the man to be great.
So Namdev asked him: "You are said to be a saint, why do you desecrate the linga?" the Saint replied. "Indeed I am too old and weak to do the right thing. Please lift my feet and place them where there is no linga." Namdev accordingly lifted the Saint's feet and placed them elsewhere. But there was again a linga below them.
Wherever the feet were placed then and there appeared a linga underneath. Namdev finally placed the feet on himself and he turned into a linga. Then Namdev understood that God was immanent and learnt the truth and departed. He went home and did not go to the temple for several days. Vithoba now sought him out in his home and asked why Namdev would not go to the temple to see God.
1.36 - Treats of these words in the Paternoster Dimitte nobis debita nostra., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
already. You see now why the Saints rejoiced in insults and persecutions: it was because these gave
them something to present to the Lord when they prayed to Him. What can a poor creature like
1.400 - 1.450 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: The jnani's mind is known only to the Jnani. One must be a Jnani oneself in order to understand another Jnani. However the peace of mind which permeates the Saint's atmosphere is the only means by which the seeker understands the greatness of the Saint.
His words or actions or appearance are no indications of his greatness, for they are ordinarily beyond the comprehension of common people.
--
III. The all-pervading nature of the Name can only be understood when one recognises his 'I'. When one's own name is not recognised, it is impossible to get the all-pervading Name. When one knows oneself, then one finds the Name everywhere. To see the Name as different from the Named creates illusion. Namdev says, "Ask the Saints."
IV. None can realise the Name by practice of knowledge, meditation or austerity. Surrender yourself first at the feet of the Guru and learn to know that 'I' myself is that Name. After finding the source of that 'I', merge your individuality in that one-ness, which is Self-existent and devoid of all duality. That which pervades beyond dwaita and dwaitatita, that Name has come into the three worlds. The Name is Para Brahman itself, where there is no action arising out of duality.
--
The first challenged her to prove his mind. She accepted. The second desired to be left alone with only a shred of garment in which to clo the herself. The first sister returned home, leaving the other alone with flimsy clothing. As the latter continued to remain under the tree, she appeared penitent and humble. the Saint noticed her and approached her after some time. He asked what had happened to her that she
435
--
One rainy night this woman was found standing under the eaves of the thatched shed in which the Saint was. Her clothes were dripping and she was shivering with cold. The master asked why she was in such a pitiable state. She said that her place was exposed to the rains and so she sought shelter under the eaves and that she would retire as soon as the rain ceased. He asked her to move into the hut and later told her to change her wet clothes. She did not have dry cloth to put on. So he offered her one of his own clothes. She wore it, still later she begged permission to massage his feet. He consented. Eventually they embraced.
The next day she returned home, had good food and wore fine clothes.
--
Sometimes she used to remain long in her home. Then this man began to visit her there until he finally lived with her. Nevertheless he did not neglect the garden nor the daily garlands for God. There was public scandal regarding his change of life. God then resolved to restore him to his old ways and so assumed the shape of the Saintly devotee himself. He appeared to the dasi and secretly offered her a rich present, an anklet of God.
She was very pleased with it and hid it under her pillow. He then disappeared. All these were secretly observed by a maid servant in the house.
--
Accordingly the king announced a public dancing performance by that dasi and invited the people to it. They gathered there and she also appeared, but not before she had given a dose of physic to the child and left it in charge of the Saint at home.
The dance was at its height here; the child was crying at home for the mother. The father took the babe in his arms and went to the dancing performance. She was dancing hilariously. He could not approach her with the child. She noticed the man and the babe. She contrived to kick her legs in the dance so as to unloose one of her anklets just as she approached the place where the Saint was. She gently lifted her foot and he tied the anklet. The public shouted and laughed. But he remained unaffected. Yet to prove his worth, he sang a Tamil song meaning:
"For victory, let go my anger! I release my mind when it rushes away. If it is true that I sleep day and night quite aware of my Self, may this stone burst into twain and become the wide expanse!"
1.41 - Isis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the refined, the Saintly form which, spiritualised by ages of
religious evolution, she presented to her worshippers of after days
1.42 - Treats of these last words of the Paternoster Sed libera nos a malo. Amen. But deliver us from evil. Amen., #The Way of Perfection, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
in God's service. I am referring, not to the Saints, who, as Saint Paul said, can do all things in
Christ142but to sinners like myself. When I find myself trammelled by weakness, lukewarmness, lack
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
III. The all-pervading nature of the Name can only be understood when one recognises his I. When ones own name is not recognised, it is impossible to get the all-pervading Name. When one knows oneself, then one finds the Name everywhere. To see the Name as different from the Named creates illusion. Namdev says, Ask the Saints.
IV. None can realise the Name by practice of knowledge, meditation or austerity. Surrender yourself first at the feet of the Guru and learn to know that I myself is that Name. After finding the source of that I, merge your individuality in that one-ness, which is Self-existent and devoid of all duality. That which pervades beyond dwaita and dwaitatita, that Name has come into the three worlds. The Name is Para Brahman itself, where there is no action arising out of duality.
--
The first challenged her to prove his mind. She accepted. The second desired to be left alone with only a shred of garment in which to clo the herself. The first sister returned home, leaving the other alone with flimsy clothing. As the latter continued to remain under the tree, she appeared penitent and humble. the Saint noticed her and approached her after some time. He asked what had happened to her that she
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi looked so lowly. She pleaded penitence for her past life, desired to lead a purer and nobler life and finished with a prayer to him to accept her humble services in the garden or attendance on himself. He advised her to return home and lead a normal life. But she protested. So he detained her for watering the tulasi plants. She accepted the function with delight and began to work in the garden.
One rainy night this woman was found standing under the eaves of the thatched shed in which the Saint was. Her clothes were dripping and she was shivering with cold. The master asked why she was in such a pitiable state. She said that her place was exposed to the rains and so she sought shelter under the eaves and that she would retire as soon as the rain ceased. He asked her to move into the hut and later told her to change her wet clothes. She did not have dry cloth to put on. So he offered her one of his own clothes. She wore it, still later she begged permission to massage his feet. He consented. Eventually they embraced.
The next day she returned home, had good food and wore fine clothes.
--
Sometimes she used to remain long in her home. Then this man began to visit her there until he finally lived with her. Nevertheless he did not neglect the garden nor the daily garlands for God. There was public scandal regarding his change of life. God then resolved to restore him to his old ways and so assumed the shape of the Saintly devotee himself. He appeared to the dasi and secretly offered her a rich present, an anklet of God.
She was very pleased with it and hid it under her pillow. He then disappeared. All these were secretly observed by a maid servant in the house.
--
Accordingly the king announced a public dancing performance by that dasi and invited the people to it. They gathered there and she also appeared, but not before she had given a dose of physic to the child and left it in charge of the Saint at home.
The dance was at its height here; the child was crying at home for the mother. The father took the babe in his arms and went to the dancing performance. She was dancing hilariously. He could not approach her with the child. She noticed the man and the babe. She contrived to kick her legs in the dance so as to unloose one of her anklets just as she approached the place where the Saint was. She gently lifted her foot and he tied the anklet. The public shouted and laughed. But he remained unaffected. Yet to prove his worth, he sang a Tamil song meaning:
For victory, let go my anger! I release my mind when it rushes away. If it is true that I sleep day and night quite aware of my Self, may this stone burst into twain and become the wide expanse!
--
potential in the child, whereas it is totally destroyed in the Saint.
D.: Yes, I see, I understand it now.
--
showed Himself to the Saint in the dancing posture and also re-enacted
the wedding of Gauri Sankar.
1.55 - The Transference of Evil, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
altar of duty, the Saint is introduced into the chamber of death,
and closely embraces the dying Rajah, saying to him, "O King, I
1.63 - Fear, a Bad Astral Vision, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
It was shortly after leaving his friend's house after a short visit to Baghdad that he met Death. "Good morning," said the Saint. "I do hope you're not going to Isaak's, he is a very dear friend of mine." "No!" said Death, "not just now; but since you mention it, I shall be with him at moonrise on the thirteenth of next month. Sorry he's a friend of yours; but no one knows better than you do that these things can't be helped."
Mohammed set off sadly for Bassorah. Indeed, as the days passed, the incident preyed upon his mind, until at last he resolved to risk the breach of professional confidence and warn his friend. He sent accordingly a letter of condolence and farewell.
19.04 - The Flowers, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The fragrance of a flower does not move against the wind, neither the fragrance of sandal, nor of incense nor of jasmine. But the fragrance of the Saint travels against the wind; like the wind the holy man spreads himself everywhere.
[12]
19.19 - Of the Just, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One who does not follow the Path, who speaks untruth, who is full of desire and greed cannot be the Saint-mendicant by merely shaving his head.
[10]
He is the Saint-mendicant who has eradicated all impurities, great or small, because of this eradication of impurities.
[11]
1929-04-21 - Visions, seeing and interpretation - Dreams and dreaml and - Dreamless sleep - Visions and formulation - Surrender, passive and of the will - Meditation and progress - Entering the spiritual life, a plunge into the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Jeanne dArc was evidently in relation with some entities belonging to what we call the world of the Gods (or as the Catholics say, the world of the Saints, though it is not quite the same). The beings she saw she called archangels. These beings belong to the intermediate world between the higher mind and the supramental, the world that Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind. It is the world of the creators, the Formateurs.
The two beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne dArc would, if seen by an Indian, have a quite different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of ones mind. To what you see you give the form of that which you expect to see. If the same being appeared simultaneously in a group where there were Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, it would be named by absolutely different names. Each would say, in reference to the appearance of the being, that he was like this or like that, all differing and yet it would be one and the same manifestation. You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother, the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, and others would give other names. It is the same Force, the same Power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths.
1953-11-04, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Provided the atmosphere is not within oneself! For if so, it is difficult. And yet! We have had frequent instances of people who used to lead a more than doubtful life and who had revelations. There is the instance of a drunkard who, in his drunkenness, suddenly had a contact with the Divinewhich, moreover, changed his life and, I must tell you, prevented him from drinking in future. But still, at the time he had the revelation of the divine Presence, he was in an intoxicated state. I dont thinkhere again we fall back into the same things I dont think the Divine is a moralist. It is man who is a moralist, not the Divine. If it happens that, just then, at that moment, there is a concurrence of events and perhaps an opening in the being, the Divine, who is always present, manifests himself. On the other hand, for the sage or the Saint who is quite infatuated with his own importance and his own worth, and full of pride and vanity, there is not much chance that the Divine will manifest in him, for there is no place for the expression of the Divine! There is no place except for the important personality of the wise man and his moral worth.
Naturally, there is a state in which one may be perfectly pure, perfectly wise, and be in contact with the Divine! But then, that means that one has reached a certain degree of perfection and lost the sense of ones personal importance and personal worth. I believe thats most important. The greatest obstacle to the contact with the Divine is pride and the sense of ones personal worth, ones personal capacities, personal power theperson becomes very big, so big that there is no place for the Divine.
1956-09-05 - Material life, seeing in the right way - Effect of the Supermind on the earth - Emergence of the Supermind - Falling back into the same mistaken ways, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A principle of dark and dull inertia is at its [lifes] base; all are tied down by the body and its needs and desires to a trivial mind, petty desires and emotions, an insignificant repetition of small worthless functionings, needs, cares, occupations, pains, pleasures that lead to nothing beyond themselves and bear the stamp of an ignorance that knows not its own why and whither. This physical mind of inertia believes in no divinity other than its small earth-gods; it aspires perhaps to a greater fort, order, pleasure, but asks for no uplifting and no spiritual deliverance. At the centre we meet a stronger Will of life with a greater gusto, but it is a blinded Daemon, a perverted spirit and exults in the very elements that make of life a striving turmoil and an unhappy imbroglio. It is a soul of human or Titanic desire clinging to the garish colour, disordered poetry, violent tragedy or stirring melodrama of the mixed flux of good and evil, joy and sorrow, light and darkness, heady rapture and bitter torture. It loves these things and would have more and more of them or, even when it suffers and cries out against them, can accept or joy in nothing else; it hates and revolts against higher things and in its fury would trample, tear or crucify any diviner Power that has the presumption to offer to make life pure, luminous and happy and snatch from its lips the fiery brew of that exciting mixture. Another Will-in-Life there is that is ready to follow the ameliorating ideal Mind and is allured by its offer to extract some harmony, beauty, light, nobler order out of life, but this is a smaller part of the vital nature and can be easily overpowered by its more violent or darker duller yoke-comrades; nor does it readily lend itself to a call higher than that of the Mind unless that call defeats itself, as Religion usually does, by lowering its demand to conditions more intelligible to our obscure vital nature. All these forces the spiritual seeker grows aware of in himself and finds all around him and has to struggle and combat incessantly to be rid of their grip and dislodge the long-entrenched mastery they have exercised over his own being as over the environing human existence. The difficulty is great; for their hold is so strong, so apparently invincible that it justifies the disdainful dictum which pares human nature to a dogs tail,for, straighten it never so much by force of ethics, religion, reason or any other redemptive effort, it returns in the end always to the crooked curl of Nature. And so great is the vim, the clutch of that more agitated Life-Will, so immense the peril of its passions and errors, so subtly insistent or persistently invasive, so obstinate up to the very gates of Heaven the fury of its attack or the tedious obstruction of its obstacles that even the Saint and the Yogin cannot be sure of their liberated purity or their trained self-mastery against its intrigue or its violence.
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 20, pp. 160-61
1957-01-09 - God is essentially Delight - God and Nature play at hide-and-seek - Why, and when, are you grave?, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In fact, this would amount to saying that when one plays one is much more divine than when one is serious! (Laughing) But its not always good to say this. Perhaps there is more divinity in the spontaneous play of children than in the erudition of the scholar or the asceticism of the Saint. Thats what I have always thought. Only (smiling) it is a divinity which is quite unconscious of itself.
As for me, I must confess to you that I feel much more essentially myself when I am joyful and when I playin my own waythan when I am very grave and very seriousmuch more. Grave and serious that always gives me the impression that I am dragging the weight of all this creation, so heavy and so obscure, whereas when I playwhen I play, when I can laugh, can enjoy myselfit gives me the feeling of a fine powder of delight falling from above and tinting this creation, this world with a very special colour and bringing it much closer to what it should essentially be.
1970 02 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
324Vedanta realised is the only practicable basis for a communistic society. It is the kingdom of the Saints dreamed of by Christianity, Islam and Puranic Hinduism.
As Sri Aurobindo tells us so well, individualism is a kind of self-justified jealousy, the reign of each one for himself.
1970 04 03, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
440My Lover took His crown and royal necklace from His head and neck and clothed me with them; but the disciples of the Saints and the prophets abused me and said, He is hunting after Siddhis.1
441I did my Lovers commands in the world and the will of my Captor; but they cried, Who is this corruptor of youth, this disturber of morals?
1.at - And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge (from The Holy Grail), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Original Language English And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge, And every bridge as quickly as he crost Sprang into fire and vanish'd, tho' I yearn'd To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens Open'd and blazed with thunder such as seem'd Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first At once I saw him far on the great Sea, In silver-shining armour starry-clear; And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, If boat it were -- I saw not whence it came. And when the heavens open'd and blazed again Roaring, I saw him like a silver star -- And had he set the sail, or had the boat Become a living creature clad with wings? And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung Redder than any rose, a joy to me, For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. Then in a moment when they blazed again Opening, I saw the least of little stars Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star I saw the spiritual city and all her spires And gateways in a glory like one pearl -- No larger, tho' the goal of all the Saints -- Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, Which never eyes on earth again shall see. [2490.jpg] -- from The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, Edited by D. H. S. Nicholson / Edited by A. H. E. Lee <
1.bni - Raga Ramkali, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Original Language Hindi The ira-vein, the pingala-vein, the sukhmana-vein -- these three converge at one spot. Where the three rivers meet, there is found holy Prayag -- and it is there that the heart bathes and becomes clean. O you saints, it is there that you find the faultless Ram. Only the fortunate few who follow the guru's path understand this truth: the eternal Ram is forever blended therein. What are the manifestations of Deva's abode? There, resounds the Word unspoken. There, neither moon nor sun, air nor water exist. Those who follow the guru's words know all this already. Divine wisdom awakens and hard-heartedness melts away; sweet ambrosia soaks and wets the inner sky. Those who know the secret of this discipline will surely meet the primal Gurudeva. Beyond the Tenth Door is the abode of the inaccessible, the unfathomable Primal Being. Above the body, upon the body is an alcove. Within this alcove is His abode. Be vigilant; do not fall asleep. Attain that stage wherein the three qualities and the three worlds count for nothing. Place the seed-mantra within your heart. Turn back your mind and fix it upon Silence. Be vigilant; do not dwell in falsehood. Restrain and hold back the five senses. Place the guru's teaching in your thoughts, and lay your body and your soul as an offering to Krishna's love. Deem your hands and fingers as branches of a tree: do not lose your life as in a gambling match. Well up the spring that feeds the stream of evil deeds; drive the sun away from the west. Restrain what cannot be restrained, and let the spring gush forth: thus converse with Jaganath. A lamp with four wicks illumines the Tenth Door: countless petals surround the flower's cup. Therein dwells the Lord Himself, holding all His power: a ruby hidden by another precious ruby. In the brain is the lotus encircled by diamonds. Therein is Niranjan, the Holder of the three worlds. All the five types of instruments play sweetly on; the fan sways; the conch forever resounds. The guru's enlightenment tramples all demons underfoot: Beni begs for Your name. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.bsf - Do not speak a hurtful word, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Punjabi Do not speak a hurtful word, for in everyone lives the true Lord. Do not break anyone's heart, for each heart is a priceless pearl. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.bsf - Raga Asa, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Punjabi 1. True lovers are those who love with all their hearts. Those who think of another, speak of another are called false lovers. Those steeped in the color of God's love abide in His care. Those who forget His name are a burden upon earth. Those whom He gathers become dervishes at His door. Exalted are the mothers of such men who gave them birth, blessed is their coming into the world. You are caring, infinite, boundless, endless. Those who have discerned this truth, their feet, their mouths I kiss. You are my protection O Lord, my salvation. Grant to Sheikh Farid the blessing of Your adoration. 2. Sheikh Farid speaks: dear friend, turn to Allah. This body shall become dust in the miserable, dark house of the grave. Today is the day of union, O Sheikh Farid, so tame these wild cranes of desire that inflame and incite the heart. We all know that we shall die and never again return. Then why do we love this false world and sell ourselves? We must ever speak of the true path; let us not speak lies. Let us walk the guru's course like humble disciples. Seeing strong, handsome youths swim across to the other side, a weak woman takes heart. Those who pursue only gold should be sawn in half. O Sheikh, no one in this world can stay alive forever. The place upon which I now sit, many have sat before and gone on their way. Cranes come to Katak, forest fires in Chet, lightning in Savan. In winter, fair arms of women adorn lovers' necks. All ephemeral things pass on. Think of this, O heart. That which takes six months to form is destroyed in an instant. The earth asks the sky, O Farid: how many boatmen have come and gone? The body merely rots in the grave, but it is the soul that must suffer the consequences. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.bsf - Wear whatever clothes you must, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Punjabi O Farid, rent your silken veil and put on a rough, woolen mantle; wear whatever clothes you must to meet the Beloved. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.dd - As many as are the waves of the sea, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by K. N. Upadhyaya As many as are the waves of the sea, so many are the desires of the mind. Stilling them all, one sits with contentment holding the thought of the One in his self. As in the presence of a magnet the iron is drawn, So do thou attach thy senses, mind and dispositions to the One alone. When one discovers the true seat of the mind, then all regions come to his sight. When he brings back all five senses to that one point, then the secrets of the holy scriptures are revealed to him. The fickle mind wanders in the four directions. Bind it with the instructions of the Master, And bring it into the company of the Saint, then will it be united with the Supreme Lord, O Dadu. Making millions of efforts, many were consumed by death, but the mind continued to run in all ten directions. Only with God's Name as the barrier will it stop; no other way is there. Let the mind be the horse, the vigilant aspirant the rider, and one-pointed attention the bridle; Using the Word as a whip, some wise, holy aspirant will reach the goal. Vanquish the mind by means of the Name; discipline it through the teachings of the Saints. Remove whatever duality is there, then will there be bliss within, O Dadu. Once the mind is attached to God, how can it go anywhere else? Like salt dissolves in water, it enters into the Lord, O Dadu. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Dadu: The Compassionate Mystic, Translated by K. N. Upadhyaya
1f.lovecraft - Ibid, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
So for generations did the Sainted skull of Caius Anicius Magnus Furius
Camillus milianus Cornelius Valerius Pompeius Julius Ibidus, consul of
1f.lovecraft - The Haunter of the Dark, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
saints, or the Saints of their native villages in Italy. In any event
he shrieked aloud, dropped frantically from the ladder, and stumbled
1.gnk - Japji 15 - If you ponder it, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Punjabi If you ponder it, there is mindfulness, wisdom of mind; If you ponder it, the whole of the universe is known; If you ponder it, you will never face harm; If you ponder it, you will never walk the way of death. That name-- so immaculately clear-- only the mind that ponders it can truly be aware. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.gnk - Japji 38 - Discipline is the workshop, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Punjabi Discipline is the workshop; patience, the goldsmith; the anvil, one's thinking; wisdom, the hammer; Fear, the bellows; austerities, the fire; and feeling, the vessel where the deathless liquid is poured. In such a true mint is forged the Word, and those on whom He looks do their rightful deeds. Nanak says: the One who sees, sees. He observes. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.gnk - Japji 8 - From listening, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Punjabi From listening, Siddhas, Pirs, Gods, Naths-- the spiritually adept; From listening, the earth, its white foundation, and the sky; From listening, continents, worlds, hells; From listening, death cannot approach. Nanak says, those who hear flower forever. From listening, sin and sorrow disappear. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.gnk - Siri ragu 9.3 - The guru is the stepping stone, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Punjabi The guru is the stepping stone, The guru is the boat, the guru is the raft of Hari's name. The guru is the lake, the sea, The guru is the ship, the guru is the place to ford the stream. Would you like to glisten in the lake that's made of truth? Go then and bathe in that name. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.jda - Raga Gujri, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Sanskrit Primal, All-pervasive, Unrivaled, Unchanging, First Mover, Hoard of virtue, All-powerful, Beyond creation, Incomprehensible, Forever present. Only Ram's name can entice the heart. Repeat this always: His name is ambrosia, it is the true reality. Remember His name and suffering shall vanish. Remember His name and birth, old age, death shall not touch you. If you wish to defeat Yama and his hordes, seek honor, peace and goodness. The present, the past, the future are all transitory and fleeting -- only He is everlasting and infinite. Forsake all lusts; do not look longingly upon what others posses and hold -- it is not fitting. Abandon all evil deeds and all evil thoughts. Go and seek the refuge of Chakradhar. Experience for yourself Hari's love through holiness, through right deeds, through right words. What use is yoga? What good is the world? What good is giving alms, what good penance? Adore Gobind, Gobind, O mortal, for He is the source of all spiritual power. Openly, without hesitation, Jayadeva comes seeking His refuge -- for He existed in the past, He exists today. He abides in all things. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.jda - Raga Maru, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Sanskrit I drew up breath through my left nostril, fixed it at the bridge of my nose, and then forced out that breath through the right nostril, while repeating "Om" sixteen times. I broke the strength of my weak heart, steadied my inconstant spirit, and gave form to my inchoate mind -- thus did I drink ambrosia. O my heart, sing the praises of God the primal -- thus shall you lessen the difference between you and Him. I worshipped the Worshipful, and trusted the Trustworthy -- like water can easily blend with water. Jayadeva says, I praised the victorious Deva, and found that Brahma who Himself has no desires, who is lost forever in the vastness of His own self. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.jk - Otho The Great - Act I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Than that same quick-eyed pagan's. By the Saints,
This coming night of banquets must not light
--
Ethelbert. the Saints will bless you for this pious care.
Otho. Daughter, your hand; Ludolph's would fit it best.
1.jk - Otho The Great - Act V, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Erminia. Would I were with the Saints to pray for you!
Otho. Why will ye keep me from my darling child?
1.kbr - Hey brother, why do you want me to talk?, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Hindi Hey brother, why do you want me to talk? Talk and talk and the real things get lost. Talk and talk and things get out of hand. Why not stop talking and think? If you meet someone good, listen a little, speak; If you meet someone bad, clench up like a fist. Talking with a wise man is a great reward. Talking with a fool? A waste. Kabir says: A pot makes noise if it's half full, But fill it to the brim -- no sound. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.kbr - The impossible pass, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Hindi The pundits have taken A highway that takes them away, and they're gone. Kabir has climbed to The impossible pass of Ram and stayed. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.kbr - When I found the boundless knowledge, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
English version by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer Original Language Hindi Kabir: My mind was soothed When I found the boundless knowledge, And the fires that scorch the world To me are water cool. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.khc - Idle Wandering, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Jerome P. Seaton Original Language Chinese go where my mind will sit when my heart's still drink when I'm thirsty and sing when I'm drunk when hard times come I find a pile of grass and sleep the days and months are long the world is vast and idleness is happiness toss off the vintage wine use up the raw laugh beside the earthen pot ha, ha, ha, hum harmonies together with this rude old mountain bonz he has a pair of chickens I've brought along a duck and idleness is happiness I've reined mind's horses locked up my monkey heart leapt up from red dust and evil-mannered wind who woke me from my shady dreams of Empire? I've left the field of honor and wormed into a nest of joys where idleness is happiness he's ploughed the southern field and slept among the eastern hills I've been the way the world goes, often vainly measured bygones in my mind he's the Saint and I'm the fool who'd argue that? [2276.jpg] -- from Wine of Endless Life: Taoist Drinking Songs from the Yuan Dynasty, Edited by Jerome P. Seaton
1.lb - Chiang Chin Chiu, #Li Bai - Poems, #Li Bai, #Poetry
to get drunk and never again be sober? the Saints and Sages of old times are all stock and still, Only the might drinkers of wine
have left a name behind. When the prince of Ch'en gave a feast in the Palace of P'ing-lo With twenty thousand gallons of wine
1.mb - The Heat of Midnight Tears, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Robert Bly Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening, Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night. If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water, I would have asked to be born a fish in this life. If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts, Then surely the Saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb! If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves, Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us! If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way, I would have adored a granite mountain years ago. Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God. [2226.jpg] -- from The Winged Energy of Delight, Translated by Robert Bly <
1.nmdv - He is the One in many, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Hindi He is the One in many, countless are His shapes and forms. He pervades all that exists; wherever I look, He is there. But very few perceive this reality, for Maya ever enchants us with her multiple reflections of color and alluring beauty. Everything is Gobind, Gobind is everything. Nothing that exists is without Gobind: the one thread strings innumerable beads -- Prabhu Himself is the thread, the threader, the threaded. River and waves, foam and bubbles have all their being within water itself. This play of things is the sport of Parbhama. The One cannot be thought different from the other. Hope is a lie and desire a mere dream -- yet both are construed as actual reality. But when my guru gave me his holy wisdom, I awoke from my dream and my heart yielded. Namdeva says, Behold Hari's creation; ponder upon it with all your heart, and you will see that in every pore, in every living thing, there is only the one Murari. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.nmdv - The drum with no drumhead beats, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Hindi The drum with no drumhead beats; clouds thunder without the monsoon; rain falls without clouds. Can anyone guess this riddle? I have met Ram the beautiful, and I too have become beautiful. The philosopher's stone turns lead into gold; costly rubies I string with my words and thoughts. I discovered real love; doubts, fears have left me. I found comfort in what my guru taught me. A pitcher will fill when plunged in water, so Ram is the One in all. The guru's heart and the disciple's heart are one. Thus has the slave Namdeva perceived Truth. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.nmdv - The thundering resonance of the Word, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by J.R. Puri Original Language Hindi The thundering resonance of the Word has liberated me while living; Such is the service, O Lord, rendered by Thy minister, the Saint. How can I ever repay Thee, O my Benefactor? Thou art my mother, Thou art my father, Thou art my munificent Lord. Thou hast blessed me with Thy overflowing love within. Through Thee have I experienced the glory of freedom. <
1.nmdv - When I see His ways, I sing, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Hindi When I see His ways, I sing. Thus I find peace, O brothers. O brothers, lose yourself in the Word; the true guru shall lead you to Deva. Where light shimmers, there resounds the unsounded Word. Light blends with light: this I perceived by the guru's grace. There were rubies bright as lightning in my own lotus-room. He is near, not far. He fills my very breath. Where shines the eternal Sun, there a lamp also dimly burns. I finally understood by the guru's grace. Now the slave Namdeva is blended with the Eternal. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.okym - 25 - Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussd, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
object:1.okym - 25 - Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussd
author class:Omar Khayyam
--
English version by Edward FitzGerald Original Language Persian/Farsi Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth; their Works to Scorn Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam / Translated by Edward FitzGerald <
1.pbs - The Cenci - A Tragedy In Five Acts, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
That the Apostle Peter and the Saints
Will grant for their sake that I long enjoy
1.poe - The Raven, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Zen
In there stepped a stately raven of the Saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed
1.pp - Raga Dhanashri, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Santbhasha The body is God, the body is the temple, the body is the worshiper, the body is the sacred shrine. The body is the incense, the lamp, the sacred offerings; it is the body I worship with broken petals. After searching all the world, it was in the body I found all the treasure of the world. Nothing is born, nothing dies -- such is Ram's light. What is contained in the universe is also contained in the body: whatever you seek, you shall find. Pipa says, He is Primal Matter; the true guru will show this. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
No friend have I among the Saints at peace,
To judge by any good their prayers effect.
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Fifth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
"He bids me leave his children to the Saints:
"As for a certain project, he acquaints
1.rmd - Raga Basant, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Original Language Hindi O my brother, where shall I go, why should I wander? The pleasure I seek is in my very own home. My mind will not stray, for my heart is now steadfast. One day, a yearning arose in my heart, and I went with sandal shavings and essence and so many perfumes, so I could worship Brahma in the temple. But then the guru told me that the Brahma I sought dwelt in my very own heart. Wherever I went I met only water and stone -- but You remain all-pervasive and forever unchanging. I read and searched all the Vedas and the Puranas; I go to them if I do not find Him here. O my true guru, I am your handmaid, your living sacrifice, for you have cut away all my hardened doubts, all my great fears. Ramananda's lord is the all-pervasive Brahma -- a guru's word can destroy a million sins. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass
1.rmr - The Unicorn, #Rilke - Poems, #Rainer Maria Rilke, #Poetry
His eyes looked far beyond the Saint's enclosure,
reflecting vistas and events long vanished,
1.rvd - If You are a mountain, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass If You are a mountain, then I am a peacock. If You are the moon, then I am a partridge. O Madho, if You break from me, then I shall break with You. And if I break from You, to whom shall I then go? If You are the lamp, then I am the wick. If You are the shrine, then I am the pilgrim. My love for You is true and real. When I fell in love with You, I gave up my love for others. Wherever I go, there I seek to serve You. No other god can be a Master like You. By praising You, I cut Yama's noose. Yearning for love Ravi Dass loudly sings. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.rvd - Upon seeing poverty, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass Upon seeing poverty people laugh and jeer, and such was my plight. But now I hold the powers of creation in the palm of my hand -- all because of Your mercy. You know I am nothing, O Ram, Destroyer of fear. All creatures seek Your refuge, O Prabhu, Fulfiller of desires. Those who find Your refuge suffer no more afflictions. Because of You, the high and the low -- all have gone across, escaping from the prison of this world. Ravi Dass says, The tale cannot be told, so why speak further? You are what You are. What metaphor can I possibly use to describe You? [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.rvd - When I existed, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Nirmal Dass When I existed, You did not. Now You exist and I do not: as a storm lifts waves from water -- still they are water within water. O Madho, how can we describe this illusion? What we believe does not exist. A mighty king sleeps on his throne and in his dream becomes a beggar. Seeing his kingdom vanish before him he greatly mourns -- such is our condition. Like the tale of the serpent and the rope -- I know a little of the secret. Seeing many bracelets we think gold has many forms -- but it is always forever gold. In all things exists the Lord, assuming countless shapes; in each pore he plays and sports. Ravi Dass say, He is nearer than my hand. All that comes to pass is by His will alone. [2184.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, Translated by Nirmal Dass <
1.sfa - Prayer Inspired by the Our Father, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP & Ignatius C. Brady, OFM Original Language Italian O OUR most holy FATHER, Our Creator, Redeemer, Consoler, and Savior WHO ARE IN HEAVEN: In the angels and in the Saints, Enlightening them to love, because You, Lord, are light Inflaming them to love, because You, Lord, are love Dwelling in them and filling them with happiness, because You, Lord, are the Supreme Good, the Eternal Good from Whom comes all good without Whom there is no good. HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME: May our knowledge of You become ever clearer That we may know the breadth of Your blessings the length of Your promises the height of Your majesty the depths of Your judgments YOUR KINGDOM COME: So that You may rule in us through Your grace and enable us to come to Your kingdom where there is an unclouded vision of You a perfect love of You a blessed companionship with You an eternal enjoyment of You YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN: That we may love you with our whole heart by always thinking of You with our whole soul by always desiring You with our whole mind by directing all our intentions to You and by seeking Your glory in everything and with our whole strength by spending all our energies and affections of soul and body in the service of Your love and of nothing else and may we love our neighbors as ourselves by drawing them all with our whole strength to Your love by rejoicing in the good fortunes of others as well as our own and by sympathizing with the misfortunes of others and by giving offense to no one GIVE US THIS DAY: in memory and understanding and reverence of the love which our Lord Jesus Christ had for us and of those things which He said and did and suffered for us OUR DAILY BREAD Your own Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES: Through Your ineffable mercy through the power of the Passion of Your Beloved Son together with the merits and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all Your chosen ones AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US: And whatever we do not forgive perfectly, do you, Lord, enable us to forgive to the full so that we may truly love our enemies and fervently intercede for them before You returning no one evil for evil and striving to help everyone in You AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION Hidden or obvious Sudden or persistent BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL Past, present and to come. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. [1495.jpg] -- from Francis and Clare: The Complete Works: The Classics of Western Spirituality, Translated by Regis J. Armstrong, OFM CAP / Translated by Ignatius C. Brady, OFM <
1.snt - You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by George A. Maloney, S.J. Original Language Greek You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven; You, the land promised to the gentle; You the grazing lands of paradise; You, the hall of the celestial banquet; You, the ineffable marriage chamber; You the table set for all, You the bread of life; You, the unheard of drink; You, both the urn for the water and the life-giving water; You, moreover, the inextinguishable lamp for each one of the Saints; You, the garment and the crown and the one who distributes crowns; You, the joy and the rest; You, the delight and glory; You the gaiety; You, the mirth; and Your grace, grace of the Spirit of all sanctity, will shine like the sun in all the Saints; and You, inaccessible sun, will shine in their midst and all will shine brightly, to the degree of their faith, their asceticism, their hope and their love, their purification and their illumination by Your Spirit. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Hymns of Divine Love: Songs of praise by one of the great mystics of all church history, by Symeon the New Theologian / Channeled by Gearoge A. Maloney, S.J. <
1.srd - Shes found him, she has, but Radha disbelieves, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by John Stratton Hawley & Mark Juergensmeyer She's found him, she has, but Radha disbelieves That it's true, what she sees when her eyes behold her master's moonlike face. Her gaze is fixed, but her mind is glazed, her eyes refuse to close; And her intellect wages a raging debate: Is it a dream? Or is this her true Lord? Her eyes fill and fill with beauty's high pleasure, then hide it away in her breast: Like bees driven wild by any distance from honey they dart back and forth from the hoard to the source. Sometimes she musters her thoughts; she wonders: "Who does he love? Who can this Hari be?" For love, says Sur, is an awkward thing. It ripples the mind with waves. [2326.jpg] -- from Songs of the Saints of India, Translated by John Stratton Hawley / Translated by Mark Juergensmeyer <
1.wby - The Saint And The Hunchback, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
object:1.wby - the Saint And The Hunchback
author class:William Butler Yeats
1.wby - Vacillation, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Accept the miracles of the Saints and honour sanctity?
The body of Saint Teresa lies undecayed in tomb,
1.ww - 3- The White Doe Of Rylstone, Or, The Fate Of The Nortons, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Is offered to the Saints, the sigh
Of tens of thousands, secretly."
--
Under the Saintly ensigns three,
The infant Heir of Mowbray's blood--
1.ww - A Whirl-Blast From Behind The Hill, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The prayer is heard, the Saints have seen,
Diffused through form and face,
1.ww - The Horn Of Egremont Castle, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
And by all the Saints in heaven;
And of Eustace was forgiven:
1.ww - Troilus And Cresida, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Farewell, thou shrine of which the Saint is out.
Therewith he cast on Pandarus an eye,
2.06 - The Wand, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
107:Under the strain of a magical vow this is too terribly the case. No normal human being understands or can understand the temptations of the Saints.
108:An ordinary person with ideas like those which obsessed St. Patrick and St. Antony would be only fit for an asylum.
--
110:Just as if you tell a child not to do a thing - no matter what - it will immediately want to do it, thought otherwise the idea might never have entered its head, so it is with the Saint. We have all of us these tendencies latent in us; of most of them we might remain unconscious all our lives - unless they were awakened by our Magick. They lie in ambush. And every one must be awakened, and every one must be destroyed. Every one who signs the oath of a Probationer is stirring up a hornets' nest.
111:A man has only to affirm his conscious aspiration; and the enemy is upon him.
2.07 - I Also Try to Tell My Tale, #The Castle of Crossed Destinies, #Italo Calvino, #Fiction
The trick of arranging some tarots in a line and making stories emerge from them is something I could perform also with paintings in museums: putting, for example, a Saint Jerome in the place of the Hermit, a Saint George in the place of the Knight of Swords, to see what comes out. They are, as it happens, the painting subjects that have most attracted me. In museums I always enjoy stopping at the Saint Jeromes. The painters portray the hermit as a scholar consulting treatises outdoors, seated at the mouth of a cave. A little farther on a lion is curled up, domestic, serene. Why the lion? Does the written word tame passions? Or subdue the forces of nature? Or does it find a harmony with the inhumanity of the universe? Or incubate a violence, held back but always ready to spring, to claw? Explain it as you will, painters have been pleased to show Saint Jerome with a lion (taking as genuine the old tale of the thorn in the paw, thanks to the usual mistake of a copyist), and so it gives me satisfaction and security to see them together, to try to recognize myself there, not particularly in the Saint or even in the lion (though, for that matter, the two often resemble each other), but in the pair together, in the whole, in the picture, figures, objects, landscape.
In the landscape the objects of reading and writing are placed among rocks, grass, lizards, having become products and instruments of the mineral-vegetable-animal continuum. Among the hermit's bric-a-brac there is also a skull: the written word always takes into consideration the erasure of the person who has written or the one who will read. Inarticulate nature comprehends in her discourse the discourse of human beings.
But remember we are not in the desert, in the jungle, on Crusoe's island: the city is only a step away. The paintings of hermits, almost always, have a city in the background. An engraving by Drer is completely occupied by the city, a low pyramid carved with squared towers and peaked roofs; the Saint, flattened against a hillock in the foreground, has his back to the city and does not take his eyes off his book, beneath his monk's hood. In Rembrandt's drypoint the high city dominates the lion, who turns his muzzle around, and the Saint below, reading blissfully in the shadow of a walnut tree, under a broad-brimmed hat. At evening the hermits see the lights come on at the windows; the wind bears, in gusts, the music of festivities. In a quarter of an hour, if they chose, they could be back among other people. The hermit's strength is measured not by how far away he has gone to live, but by the scant distance he requires to detach himself from the city, without ever losing sight of it.
Or else the solitary writer is shown in his study, where a Saint Jerome, were it not for the lion, could easily be mistaken for a Saint Augustine: the job of writing makes individual lives uniform, one man at a desk resembles every other man at a desk. But in addition to the lion, other animals visit the scholar's solitude, discreet messengers from the outside world: a peacock (Antonello da Messina, London), a wolf cub (another engraving of Drer's), a Maltese spaniel (Carpaccio, Venice).
In these paintings of interiors, what counts is how a certain number of quite distinct objects are set in a certain space and allow light and time to flow over their surface: bound volumes, parchment scrolls, hourglasses, astrolabes, shells, the sphere hanging from the ceiling which shows how the heavens rotate (in Drer, its place is taken by a pumpkin). the Saint Jerome-Saint Augustine figure can be seated squarely in the center of the canvas, as in Antonello, but we know that the portrait includes the catalogue of objects, and the space of the room reproduces the space of the mind, the encyclopaedic ideal of the intellect, its order, its categories, its calm.
Or its restlessness: Saint Augustine, in Botticelli (Uffizi), begins to grow nervous, crumples page after page and throws them on the ground beneath the desk. Also in the study where there reigns meditative serenity, concentration, ease (I am still looking at the Carpaccio), a high-tension current passes: the scattered books left open turn their pages on their own, the hanging sphere sways, the light falls obliquely through the window, the dog raises his nose. Within the interior space there hovers the announcement of an earthquake: the harmonious intellectual geometry grazes the borderline of paranoid obsession. Or is it the explosions outside that shake the windows? As only the city gives a meaning to the bleak landscape of the hermit, so the study, with its silence and its order, is simply the place where the oscillations of the seismographs are recorded.
For years now I have been shut up in here, brooding over a thousand reasons for not putting my nose outside, unable to find one that gives my spirit peace. Do I perhaps regret more extroverted ways of expressing myself? There was also a time when, wandering through museums, I would stop to face and question the Saint Georges and their dragons. The paintings of Saint George have this virtue: you can tell the painter was pleased to have to paint a Saint George. Because Saint George can be painted without believing too much in him, believing only in painting and not in the theme? But Saint George's position is shaky (as a legendary saint, too similar to the Perseus of the myth; as a mythical hero, too similar to the younger brother of the fairy tale), and painters always seem to have been aware of this, so they always looked on him with a somewhat "primitive" eye. But, at the same time, believing: in the way painters and writers have of believing in a story that has gone through many forms, and with painting and repainting, writing and rewriting, if it was not true, has become so.
Even in the painters' pictures, Saint George always has an impersonal face, not unlike the Knight of Swords of the cards, and his battle with the dragon is a scene on a coat of arms, fixed outside of time, whether you see him galloping with his lance at rest, as in Carpaccio, charging from his half of the canvas at the dragon who rushes from the other half, and attacking with a concentrated expression, his head down, like a cyclist (around, in the details, there is a calendar of corpses whose stages of decomposition reconstruct the temporal development of the story), or whether horse and dragon are superimposed, monogram-like, as in the Louvre Raphael, where Saint George is using his lance from above, driving it down into the monster's throat, operating with angelic surgery (here the rest of the story is condensed in a broken lance on the ground and a blandly amazed virgin); or in the sequence: princess, dragon, Saint George, the animal (a dinosaur!) is presented as the central element (Paolo Uccello, in London and Paris); or whether Saint George comes between the dragon in the rear and the princess in the foreground (Tintoretto, London).
--
So I have succeeded in coming to a conclusion, I can consider myself satisfied. But will I not have been too pontifical? I reread. Shall I tear it all up? Let us see. The first thing to be said is that the Saint George-Saint Jerome story is not one with a before and an after: we are in the center of a room with figures who present themselves to our view all together. The character in question either succeeds in being warrior and sage in everything he does and thinks, or he will be no one, and the same beast is at once dragon-enemy in the daily massacre of the city and lion-guard in the space of thoughts: and he does not allow himself to be confronted except in the two forms together.
Thus I have set everything to rights. On the page, at least. Inside me, all remains as before.
2.07 - The Cup, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
14:Kant has shown that even the laws of nature are but the conditions of thought. And as the current of thought is the blood of the mind, it is said that the Magick Cup is filled with the blood of the Saints. All thought must be offered up as a sacrifice.
15:The Cup can hardly be described as a weapon. It is round like the pantacle - not straight like the wand and the dagger. Reception, not projection, is its nature. footnote: As the Magician is in the position of God towards the Spirit that he evokes, he stands in the Circle, and the spirit in the Triangle; so the Magician is in the Triangle with respect to his own God.
2.07 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
featureless Absolute; if the soul or mind of the illusion-driven individual has dreamed of a divine realisation in this ephemeral world of the Ignorance, it must in the end recognise its mistake and renounce its vain endeavour. But still, since there are these two sides of existence, the ignorance of Nature and the light of the Spirit, and since there is behind them the One Reality, the reconciliation or at any rate the bridging of the gulf forecast in the mystic parables of the Veda ought to be possible. It is a keen sense of this possibility which has taken different shapes and persisted through the centuries, - the perfectibility of man, the perfectibility of society, the Alwar's vision of the descent of Vishnu and the Gods upon earth, the reign of the Saints, sadhunam rajyam, the city of God, the millennium, the new heaven and earth of the Apocalypse. But these intuitions have lacked a basis of assured knowledge and the mind of man has remained swinging between a bright future hope and a grey present certitude. But the grey certitude is not so certain as it looks and a divine life evolving or preparing in earth Nature need not be a chimera. All acceptations of our defeat or our limitation start from the implied or explicit recognition, first, of an essential dualism and, then, of an irreconcilable opposition between the dual principles, between the Conscient and the
Inconscient, between Heaven and Earth, between God and the
2.08 - God in Power of Becoming, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And if in spite of the limitations of human mind and nature we can see God in the man of God, how shall we see him in those who oppose him and represent in act and nature all that we conceive of as undivine? If Narayana is without difficulty visible in the sage and the Saint, how shall he be easily visible to us in the sinner, the criminal, the harlot and the outcaste? To all the differentiations of the world-existence the sage, looking everywhere for the supreme purity and oneness, returns the austere cry, "not this, not this," neti neti. Even if to many things in the world we give a willing or reluctant assent and admit the
Divine in the universe, still before most must not the mind persist in that cry "not this, not this"? Here constantly the assent of the understanding, the consent of the will and the heart's faith become difficult to a human mentality anchored always on phenomenon and appearance. At least some compelling indications are needed, some links and bridges, some supports to the difficult effort at oneness.
2.08 - The God of Love is his own proof, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
The mistake consists in making the sphere of love narrow and contracted. All things in the universe are of divine origin and deserve to be loved; it has, however, to be borne in mind that the love of the whole includes the love of the parts. This whole is the God of the Bhaktas and all the other Gods, Fathers in Heaven, or Rulers, or Creators, and all theories and doctrines and books have no purpose and no meaning for them, seeing that they have, through their supreme love and devotion, risen above those things altogether. When the heart is purified and cleansed and filled to the brim with the divine nectar of love, all other ideas of God become simply puerile, and are rejected as being inadequate or unworthy. Such is indeed the power of Para-Bhakti or Supreme Love; and the perfected Bhakta no more goes to see God in temples and churches; he knows no place where he will not find Him. He finds Him in the temple as well as out of the temple; he finds Him in the Saints saintliness as well as in the wicked mans wickedness, because he has Him already seated in glory in his own heart, as the one Almighty, inextinguishable Light of Love, which is ever shining and eternally present.
2.0 - THE ANTICHRIST, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
"Do ye not know that the Saints shall judge the world? and if the world
shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?"
2.1.01 - The Central Process of the Sadhana, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The object of the sadhana is opening of the consciousness to the Divine and the change of the nature. Meditation or contemplation is one means to this but only one means; bhakti is another; work is another. Chittashuddhi was practised by the Yogis as a first means towards realisation and they got by it the Saintliness of the Saint and the quietude of the sage. But the transformation of the nature of which we speak is something more than that, and this transformation does not come by contemplation alone; works are necessary, Yoga in action is indispensable.
***
2.16 - VISIT TO NANDA BOSES HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The brahmani, who had also come, was visiting the drawing-room and the inner apartments alternately. Every few minutes she would come to the door of the drawing-room and look at the Master. Some youngsters from the neighbourhood also looked at him through the windows. The people of the locality, young and old, came thronging to see the Saint.
The younger Naren saw the boys in the street climbing the windows. He said to them: "Why are you here? Get away! Go home!" The Master said tenderly, "Let them stay."
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: In the case of psychic individuality the man may feel the ego of the Sadhu, the Saint, the Bhakta, or the virtuous man. He may also get rid of egoism by imposing on his nature the One Spirit and a feeling of sympathy for all humanity. But that is not the same as getting rid entirely of the ego. The psychic clears the way for the removal of the ego.
Disciple: What happens when one realises the Spirit?
--
Sri Aurobindo: Of course there is. Saints are limited by their psychic nature, but spiritual men are not. the Saint, generally, proceeds from and lives in the heart-centre. The spiritual man might live in other higher centres say, above the head, in the spiritual consciousness.
Disciple: It is not quite clear to me, the distinction.
Sri Aurobindo: the Saint lives in the psychic being, that is, in the Purusha in the heart, but the spiritual man may live above the head, in the spiritual consciousness. I never felt like a saint myself though Maurice Magre calls me "a philosopher and a saint". Krishna, for instance, was not a saint. A spiritual man may not always behave like a saint, he may have many other things in him, say like Rishi Durvasa.
Disciple: But saints are nearer to humanity; they are not like the Ishwara-Koti to whom no laws apply, for they are on the top of the human ladder.
2.24 - Gnosis and Ananda, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
he is all these things alternately, successively or at once. Or he may transform the lower forms into manifestations of the higher state; he may draw upward the childlikeness or the inert irresponsibility of the free physical mind or the free vital mind's divine madness and carelessness of all rules, proprieties, harmonies and colour or disguise with them the ecstasy of the Saint or the solitary liberty of the wandering eremite. Here again there is no mastery, no sublimation of the Nature by the soul in the world, but a double possession, by the freedom and delight of the mental spiritual infinite within and without by the happy, natural and unregulated play of the mind-Nature. But since the mental being is capable of receiving the gnosis in a way in which the life-soul and physical soul cannot receive it, since he can accept it with knowledge though only the limited knowledge of a mental response, he may to a certain extent govern by its light his outer action or, if not that, at least ba the and purify in it his will and his thinkings. But Mind can arrive only at a compromise between the infinite within and the finite nature without; it cannot pour the infinity of the inner being's knowledge and power and bliss with any sense of fullness into its external action which remains always inadequate. Still it is content and free because it is the Lord within who takes up the responsibility of the action adequate or inadequate, assumes its guidance and fixes its consequence.
But the gnostic soul, the vijnanammaya purusa, is the first to participate not only in the freedom, but in the power and sovereignty of the Eternal. For it receives the fullness, it has the sense of plenitude of the Godhead in its action; it shares the free, splendid and royal march of the Infinite, is a vessel of the original knowledge, the immaculate power, the inviolable bliss, transmutes all life into the eternal Light and the eternal Fire and the eternal Wine of the nectar. It possesses the infinite of the Self and it possesses the infinite of Nature. It does not so much lose as find its nature self in the self of the Infinite. On the other planes to which the mental being has easier access, man finds God in himself and himself in God; he becomes divine in essence rather than in person or nature. In the gnosis, even the mentalised gnosis, the Divine Eternal possesses, changes and stamps the human symbol, envelops and partly finds himself in the person and nature. The mental being at most receives or reflects that which is true, divine and eternal; the gnostic soul reaches a true identity, possesses the spirit and power of the truth-Nature. In the gnosis the dualism of Purusha and prakriti, Soul and Nature, two separate powers complementary to each other, the great truth of the Sankhyas founded on the practical truth of our present natural existence, disappears in their biune entity, the dynamic mystery of the occult Supreme. The Truth-being is the Hara-Gauri481 of the Indian iconological symbol; it is the double Power masculine-feminine born from and supported by the supreme shakti of the Supreme.
2.2.4 - Taittiriya Upanishad, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
know him for the Saint & the one reality. And this Self of Bliss is
the soul in the body to the former one which was of Knowledge.
2.24 - The Evolution of the Spiritual Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But none of these three lines of approach can by themselves entirely fulfil the greater and ulterior intention of Nature; they cannot create in mental man the spiritual being, unless and until they open the door to spiritual experience. It is only by an inner realisation of what these approaches are seeking after, by an overwhelming experience or by many experiences building up an inner change, by a transmutation of the consciousness, by a liberation of the spirit from its present veil of mind, life and body that there can emerge the spiritual being. That is the final line of the soul's progress towards which the others are pointing and, when it is ready to disengage itself from the preliminary approaches, then the real work has begun and the turning-point of the change is no longer distant. Till then all that the human mental being has reached is a familiarity with the idea of things beyond him, with the possibility of an other-worldly movement, with the ideal of some ethical perfection; he may have made too some contact with greater Powers or Realities which help his mind or heart or life. A change there may be, but not the transmutation of the mental into the spiritual being. Religion and its thought and ethics and occult mysticism in ancient times produced the priest and the mage, the man of piety, the just man, the man of wisdom, many high points of mental manhood; but it is only after spiritual experience through the heart and mind began that we see arise the Saint, the prophet, the Rishi, the Yogi, the seer, the spiritual sage and the mystic, and it is the religions in which these types of spiritual manhood came into being that have endured, covered the globe and given mankind all its spiritual aspiration and culture.
When spirituality disengages itself in the consciousness and puts on its distinctive character, it is only at first a small kernel, a growing tendency, an exceptional light of experience amidst the great mass of normal unenlightened human mind, vitality, physicality which forms the outer self and engrosses our natural preoccupation. There are tentative beginnings and a slow evolution and hesitating emergence. An earlier first preliminary form of it creates a certain kind of religiosity which is not the pure spiritual temperament, but is of the nature of mind or life seeking or finding in itself a spiritual support or factor; in this stage man is mostly preoccupied with the utilisation of such contacts as he can get or construct with what is beyond him to help or serve his mental ideas or moral ideals or his vital and physical interests; the true turn to some spiritual change has not come. The first true formations take the shape of a spiritualisation of our natural activities, a permeating influence on them or a direction: there is a preparatory influence or influx in some part or tendency of the mind or life, - a spiritualised turn of thought with uplifting illuminations, or a spiritualised turn of the emotional or the aesthetic being, a spiritualised ethical formation in the character, a spiritualised urge in some life-action or other dynamic vital movement of the nature. An awareness comes perhaps of an inner light, of a guidance or a communion, of a greater Control than the mind and will to which something in us obeys; but all is not yet recast in the mould of that experience. But when these intuitions and illuminations grow in insistence and canalise themselves, make a strong inner formation and claim to govern the whole life and take over the nature, then there begins the spiritual formation of the being; there emerges the Saint, the devotee, the spiritual sage, the seer, the prophet, the servant of God, the soldier of the spirit. All these take their stand on one part of the natural being lifted up by a spiritual light, power or ecstasy. The sage and seer live in the spiritual mind, their thought or their vision is governed and moulded by an inner or a greater divine light of knowledge; the devotee lives in the spiritual aspiration of the heart, its self-offering and its seeking; the Saint is moved by the awakened psychic being in the inner heart grown powerful to govern the emotional and vital being; the others stand in the vital kinetic nature driven by a higher spiritual energy and turned by it towards an inspired action, a God-given work or mission, the service of some divine Power, idea or ideal. The last or highest emergence is the liberated man who has realised the Self and Spirit within him, entered into the cosmic consciousness, passed into union with the Eternal and, so far as he still accepts life and action, acts by the light and energy of the Power within him working through his human instruments of Nature. The largest formulation of this spiritual change and achievement is a total liberation of soul, mind, heart and action, a casting of them all into the sense of the cosmic Self and the Divine Reality.10 The spiritual evolution of the individual has then found its way and thrown up its range of Himalayan eminences and its peaks of highest nature. Beyond this height and largeness there opens only the supramental ascent or the incommunicable Transcendence.
This then has been up till now the course of Nature's evolution of the spiritual man in the human mental being, and it may be questioned what is the exact sum of this achievement and its actual significance. In the recent reaction towards the life of the mind in Matter, this great direction and this rare change have been stigmatised as no true evolution of consciousness but rather a sublimated crudity of ignorance deviating from the true human evolution, which should be solely an evolution of life-power, the practical physical mind, the reason governing thought and conduct and the discovering and organising intelligence. In this epoch religion was pushed aside as an out-of-date superstition and spiritual realisation and experience discredited as a shadowy mysticism; the mystic in this view is the man who turns aside into the unreal, into occult regions of a self-constructed land of chimeras and loses his way there. This judgment proceeds from a view of things which is itself bound to pass into discredit, because it depends ultimately on the false perception of the material as alone real and the outward life as alone of importance.
2.25 - The Triple Transformation, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A second approach made by the soul to the direct contact is through the heart: this is its own more close and rapid way because its occult seat is there, just behind in the heart-centre, in close contact with the emotional being in us; it is consequently through the emotions that it can act best at the beginning with its native power, with its living force of concrete experience. It is through a love and adoration of the All-beautiful and Allblissful, the All-Good, the True, the spiritual Reality of love, that the approach is made; the aesthetic and emotional parts join together to offer the soul, the life, the whole nature to that which they worship. This approach through adoration can get its full power and impetus only when the mind goes beyond impersonality to the awareness of a supreme Personal Being: then all becomes intense, vivid, concrete; the heart's emotion, feeling, spiritualised sense reach their absolute; an entire selfgiving becomes possible, imperative. The nascent spiritual man makes his appearance in the emotional nature as the devotee, the bhakta; if, in addition, he becomes directly aware of his soul and its dictates, unites his emotional with his psychic personality and changes his life and vital parts by purity, God-ecstasy, the love of God and men and all creatures into a thing of spiritual beauty, full of divine light and good, he develops into the Saint and reaches the highest inner experience and most considerable change of nature proper to this way of approach to the Divine Being. But for the purpose of an integral transformation this too is not enough; there must be a transmutation of the thinking mind and all the vital and physical parts of consciousness in their own character.
This larger change can be partly attained by adding to the experiences of the heart a consecration of the pragmatic will which must succeed in carrying with it - for otherwise it cannot be effective - the adhesion of the dynamic vital part which supports the mental dynamis and is our first instrument of outer action. This consecration of the will in works proceeds by a gradual elimination of the ego-will and its motive-power of desire; the ego subjects itself to some higher law and finally effaces itself, seems not to exist or exists only to serve a higher Power or a higher Truth or to offer its will and acts to the Divine Being as an instrument. The law of being and action or the light of Truth which then guides the seeker, may be a clarity or power or principle which he perceives on the highest height of which his mind is capable; or it may be a truth of the divine Will which he feels present and working within him or guiding him by a Light or a Voice or a Force or a divine Person or Presence. In the end by this way one arrives at a consciousness in which one feels the Force or Presence acting within and moving or governing all the actions and the personal will is entirely surrendered or identified with that greater Truth-Will, Truth-Power or Truth-Presence. A combination of all these three approaches, the approach of the mind, the approach of the will, the approach of the heart, creates a spiritual or psychic condition of the surface being and nature in which there is a larger and more complex openness to the psychic light within us and to the spiritual Self or the Ishwara, to the Reality now felt above and enveloping and penetrating us.
In the nature there is a more powerful and many-sided change, a spiritual building and self-creation, the appearance of a composite perfection of the Saint, the selfless worker and the man of spiritual knowledge.
But, for this change to arrive at its widest totality and profound completeness, the consciousness has to shift its centre and its static and dynamic position from the surface to the inner being; it is there that we must find the foundation for our thought, life and action. For to stand outside on our surface and to receive from the inner being and follow its intimations is not a sufficient transformation; one must cease to be the surface personality and become the inner Person, the Purusha. But this is difficult, first because the outer nature opposes the movement and clings to its normal accustomed poise and externalised way of existence and, in addition, because there is a long way from the surface to the depths in which the psychic entity is veiled from us, and this intervening space is filled with a subliminal nature and nature-movements which are not by any means all of them favourable to the completion of the inward movement.
24.05 - Vision of Dante, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Apart from the Saints and sages and wise men (theologians) of Christendom, the higher Heavens sheltered also non-human, that is to say, godly or divine beings - angels and archangels, cherubs and seraphs - powers of Love, powers of Knowledge - Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Principalities, as Dante names them - various grades and modes of the divine force and energy - or, as we say, Personalities and Emanations.
Indeed Dante's mind was full of questions and doubts and Beatrice herself had noticed it and given warnings to him. As she was purifying his heart movements lifting his human love to the divine level, so she sought to cleanse his mind too and as they moved on she was disclosing to him with her love and with her consciousness the nature of true mind and consciousness. At one place she said almost echoing an Upanishadic utterance: "Truth is not attained by debate and discussion, not by the normal intelligence and reason, but through a suspension of these faculties." In the higher Heavens Truth reveals itself spontaneously, whole and entire. Beatrice was lifting up both the mind and the heart of Dante into her knowledge and consciousness, into her own love. Indeed through her words, Dante says, Truth is visible, clear like a star in the sky.
They now moved on further and arrived at the last lap, the highest Heaven. Saint Bernard now took charge of him. the Saint said: "Henceforth I will be the guide, the last guide. Beatrice now leaves you and goes to her place, beyond the Heaven, God's own home, Perfection and Bliss - the Empyrean."
Dante stopped, stood still and was asked to look ahead. Oh, what a bewitching scene! Epiphany - a world of dazzling light - circles and waves of bright gold and diamond!
--
*Paradiso,*Canto III, 85.It was he who thus uttered the famous mantraso well known to all. Dante wondered and felt illumined hearing the reply of the Saint.
*Paradiso,*Canto XXXI, n. 79-85.
27.02 - The Human Touch Divine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How far can the human be divinised? The Divine as Avatara does become human, almost totally - in appearance at least. One may recall not only the impulses and passions, all the foibles and lapses, even misdeeds liberally recorded of Sri Krishna. But this does not mean that the human has been divinised in him, the Divine has only assumed the human character and qualities, it is after all a disguise, it is an assumption, the adhyaropaof Maya upon Brahman. The Divine is beyond the Maya. The question remains then how far can human remain human and yet be truly divinised. The feeling, the experience in the heart of the Saintly human being which we have variously described as commiseration, 'caritas', 'karuna', seems to set the limit of divinisation. There is love of course, but it is a dangerous and ambiguous term. The central truth and reality of love is Ananda - ananda in the category of Sat-chit-ananda. But there I am afraid the human element gets dissolved.
The tear-drop in the eye of the Divine seems to be the supreme status of the human in the Divine. Can one go farther?
29.03 - In Her Company, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In this age, the Saints say, the Divine is near to us, quite near. When we were young we were told that we have entered into Kali age, the age of darkness, of darkness and smallness, that is to say, human beings are small, small and weak in the body and in the inner make-up. But the Divine took pity on us and to be with us became himself small and perhaps apparently weak also (Vamana) to be human with us. In other ages, even in the Satya Yuga, the age of Truth, God, the Divine was very far from earth, away and aloof from the material universe (which was Illusion, Maya). Therefore in those days to reach the Divine, to attain nearness to God, one had to rise and mount on and on almost endlessly, strenuously. It needed tremendous, arduous labour, it was the age of tapasya,one had to be a tapasvito find God and reach him. But now it is different. God has come down to us and lodged himself in the material body. He continues to be in the earth atmosphere, but not very far from the material. In our childhood we used to hear that in Kali the practice of religion or spirituality has been made easy by the Divine Grace in view of man's frailty. In Kali man is now incapable of austerity, so, at present simply to utter God's name is sufficient to bring salvation. So I was saying the Divine help is at our door: the Divine himself is there in person. Only you have to be sincere and earnest about it, you have to extend your arms, extend your consciousness. It is a turning of the consciousness that is needed, it is to ask for it with the sincerity of a child. That is what the Mother used to say always: Be a child, be a child, I am with you always.
It is interesting to compare the Buddhist teaching:
30.03 - Spirituality in Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The picture of a naked woman is offensive to our eyes and not only to our sense of morality but also to our aesthetic sense. For the picture we often see is not verily a work of art but only a photograph, an exact imitation of nature. What is ugliness? Ugliness is that which shows only the outer form of a thing, phenomenon, and which fails to show the raison d'treof the thing, noumenon. A photograph of anything is often ugly, be it of a naked woman or a saintly man. For we see therein only a naked woman and not the nakedness of a woman. We see therein a sadhu's lock of hair and the bark for his loins and not his saintliness. If we judge from an artistic point of view then the pictures of the gods and the goddesses drawn by Ravi Varma are as ugly as the worthless novels of the street. Where there is only body and where we do not get the meaning of the body in some deeper truth behind it, the other-worldliness of the Saint is an object of contempt equally to the moralist's sense of decency and the artist's aesthetic sense.
The artist who has drawn the picture of a naked woman to express the soul of a naked woman has not seen the naked woman with the naked eyes of a lustful man, nor with those of a sadhu. He has seen her with the eyes of a seer. He has unveiled a divine truth. Other people being duped by the mind say that this is pure, that is impure, this is the virtue, that is vice. But the artist with an insight like that of a seer sees what is the truth, the hidden principle, behind a thing, the perennial source of true delight.
3.01 - Fear of God, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
1.: Souls in the Third Mansions. 2. Insecurity of this life. 3. Our danger of falling from grace. 4. the Saint bewails her past life. 5. Our Lady's patronage. 6. Fear necessary even for religious. 7. St. Teresa's contrition. 8. Characteristics of those in the Third Mansions. 9. The rich young man in the Gospel. 10. Reason of aridities in prayer. 11. Humility. 12. Tepidity. 13. We must give all to God. 14. Our debt. 15. Consolations and aridities.
1.: As for those who, by the mercy of God, have vanquished in these combats and persevered until they reached the third mansions, what can we say to them but 'Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord'?1' It is no small favour from God that I should be able to translate this verse into Spanish so as to explain its meaning, considering how dense I usually am in such matters. We may well call these souls blessed, for, as far as we can tell, unless they turn back in their course they are on the safe road to salvation. Now, my sisters, you see how important it is for them to conquer in their former struggles, for I am convinced that our Lord will henceforth never cease to keep them in security of conscience, which is no small boon.
--
3.: This is why I say, daughters, that we ought to ask our Lord as our boon to grant us one day to dwell in safety with the Saints, for with such fears, what pleasure can she enjoy whose only pleasure is to please God? Remember, many Saints have felt this as we do, and were even far more fervent, yet fell into grave sin, and we cannot be sure that God would stretch forth His hand to raise us from sin again to do such penance as they performed. This applies to extraordinary grace.3' Truly, my daughters, I feel such terror as I tell you this, that I know not how to write it, nor even how to go on living, when I reflect upon it as I very often do. Beg of His Majesty, my daughters, to abide within me, for otherwise, what security could I feel, after a life so badly spent as mine has been?
4.: Do not grieve at knowing this. I have often seen you troubled when I spoke about it, for you wish that my past had been a very holy one, in which you are right-indeed, I wish the same myself. But what can be done, now that I have wasted it entirely through my own fault? I have no right to complain that God withheld the aid I needed to fulfil your wishes. It is impossible for me to write this without tears and great shame, when I see that I am explaining these matters to those capable of teaching me. What a hard task has obedience laid, upon me! God grant that, as I do it for Him, it may be of some service to you; therefore beg Him to pardon me for my miserable presumption.
--
10.: I hold that these effects usually result from the first cause I mentioned; such souls know that nothing would induce them to commit a sin (many of them would not even commit a venial sin advertently), and that they employ their life and riches well. They cannot, therefore, patiently endure to be excluded from the presence of our King, Whose vassals they consider themselves, as indeed they are. An earthly king may have many subjects yet all do not enter his court. Enter then, enter, my daughters, into your interior; pass beyond the thought of your own petty works, which are no more, nor even as much, as Christians are bound to perform: let it suffice that you are God's servants, do not pursue so much as to catch nothing.7' Think of the Saints, who have entered the Divine Presence, and you will see the difference between them and ourselves.
11.: Do not ask for what you do not deserve, nor should we ever think, however much we may have done for God, that we merit the reward of the Saints, for we have offended Him. Oh, humility, humility! I know not why, but I am always tempted to think that persons who complain so much of aridities must be a little wanting in this virtue. However, I am not speaking of severe interior sufferings, which are far worse than a want of devotion.
12.: Let us try ourselves, my sisters, or let our Lord try us; He knows well how to do so (although we often pretend to misunderstand Him). We will now speak of these well-ordered souls. Let us consider what they do for God and we shall see at once what little right we have to murmur against His Majesty. If we turn our backs on Him and go away sorrowfully like the youth in the Gospel8 when He tells us what to do to be perfect, what can God do? for He must proportion the reward to our love for Him. This love, my daughters, must not be the fabric of our imagination; we must prove it by our works. Yet do not suppose that our Lord has need of any works of ours; He only expels us to manifest our goodwill.9
3.02 - The Psychology of Rebirth, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
camp of the Saints about, and the beloved city.
2 5 6 Here Dhulqarnein takes over the role of Khidr and builds
3.03 - The Godward Emotions, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The moment we come well into these developments and their deeper spiritual meaning, the motive of the fear of God becomes otiose, superfluous and even impossible. It is of importance chiefly in the ethical field when the soul has not yet grown sufficiently to follow good for its own sake and needs an authority above it whose wrath or whose stern passionless judgment it can fear and found upon that fear its fidelity to virtue. When we grow into spirituality, this motive can no longer remain except by the lingering on of some confusion in the mind, some persistence of the old mentality. Moreover, the ethical aim in Yoga is different from that of the external idea of virtue. Ordinarily, ethics is regarded as a sort of machinery of right action, the act is everything and how to do the right act is the whole question and the whole trouble. But to the Yogin action is chiefly important not for its own sake, but rather as a means for the growth of the soul Godward. Therefore what Indian spiritual writings lay stress upon is not so much the quality of the action to be done as the quality of the soul from which the action flows, upon its truth, fearlessness, purity, love, compassion, benevolence, absence of the will to hurt, and upon the actions as their outflowings. The old western idea that human nature is intrinsically bad and virtue is a thing to be followed out in despite of our fallen nature to which it is contrary, is foreign to the Indian mentality trained from ancient times in the ideas of the Yogins. Our nature contains, as well as its passionate rajasic and its downward-tending tamasic quality, a purer sattwic element and it is the encouragement of this, its highest part, which is the business of ethics. By it we increase the divine nature, daivi prakrti, which is present in us and get rid of the Titanic and demoniac elements. Not therefore the Hebraic righteousness of the God-fearing man, but the purity, love, beneficence, truth, fearlessness, harmlessness of the Saint and the God-lover are the goal of the ethical growth according to this notion. And, speaking more largely, to grow into the divine nature is the consummation of the ethical being. This can be done best by realising God as the higher Self, the guiding and uplifting Will or the Master whom we love and serve. Not fear of him, but love of him and aspiration to the freedom and eternal purity of his being must be the motive.
Certainly, fear enters into the relations of the master and the servant and even of the father and the child, but only when they are on the human level, when control and subjection and punishment figure predominantly in them and love is obliged to efface itself more or less behind the mask of authority. The Divine even as the Master does not punish anybody, does not threaten, does not force obedience. It is the human soul that has freely to come to the Divine and offer itself to his overpowering force that he may seize and uplift it towards his own divine levels, and give it that joy of mastery of the finite nature by the Infinite and of service to the Highest by which there comes freedom from the ego and the lower nature. Love is the key of this relation, and this service, dasyam, is in Indian Yoga the happy service of the divine Friend or the passionate service to the divine Beloved. The Master of the worlds who in the Gita demands of his servant, the Bhakta, to be nothing more in life than his instrument, makes this claim as the friend, the guide, the higher Self, and describes himself as the Lord of all worlds who is the friend of all creatures, sarvalokamahesvaram smhrdanl suhrdam sarvabhutaman; the two relations in fact must go together and neither can be perfect without the other. So too it is not the fatherhood of God as the Creator who demands obedience because he is the maker of our being, but the fatherhood of love which leads us towards the closer soul-union of Yoga. Love is the real key in both, and perfect love is inconsistent with the admission of the motive of fear. Closeness of the human soul to the Divine is the object, and fear sets always a barrier and a distance; even awe and reverence for the divine Power are a sign of distance and division and they disappear in the intimacy of the union of love.
3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[304] In alchemy the fire purifies, but it also melts the opposites into a unity. He who ascends unites the powers of Above and Below and shows his full power when he returns again to earth.580 By this is to be understood the production on the one hand of the panacea or Medicina Catholica, and on the other, of a living being with a human form, the filius philosophorum, who is often depicted as a youth or hermaphrodite or child. He is a parallel of the Gnostic Anthropos, but he also appears as an Anthroparion, a kind of goblin, a familiar who stands by the adept in his work and helps the physician to heal.581 This being ascends and descends and unites Below with Above, gaining a new power which carries its effect over into everyday life. His mistress gives Hermas this advice: Therefore do not cease to speak to the ears of the Saints582in other words, work among your fellow men by spreading the news of the Risen.
[305] Just as Maier on his return met Mercurius, so Hermas in his next vision met the Poimen, the shepherd, a white fleece round his shoulders, a knapsack on his back, and a staff in his hand. Hermas recognized that it was he to whom I was handed over,583 namely the shepherd of the lamb, which was himself. In iconography the good shepherd has the closest connections with Hermes Kriophoros (the lamb-bearer); thus even in antiquity these two saviour figures coalesced. Whereas Hermas is handed over to his shepherd, Hermes hands over his art and wisdom to his pupil Maier and thus equips him to do something himself and to work with the aid of the magic caduceus. This, for a physician who was an alchemist, took the place of the staff of Asklepios, which had only one snake. The sacred snake of the Asklepieion signified: The god heals; but the caduceus, or Mercurius in the form of the coniunctio in the retort, means: In the hands of the physician lie the magic remedies granted by God.584
3.07 - The Formula of the Holy Grail, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This Cup is said to be full of the Blood of the Saints; that is, every
saint or magician must give the last drop of his lifes blood to
3.09 - The Return of the Soul, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of the Holy Grail to the Saint. The unconscious anima is a creature without
relationships, an autoerotic being whose one aim is to take total possession
3.1.04 - Transformation in the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I have not denied that the ideal of a change on earth is of old standing. It is there vaguely in the human mind perhaps since the beginning, though more often perfection is put in some golden age of the past and deterioration and a cataclysm is the law of the future. Christianity foresees a descent of Christ and his rule on earth, but this is figured as an outward event, not as a change produced by an inward power and process or by Yoga. A reign of the Saints is also foreshadowed in some Hindu scriptures, but that equally is something different from my conception. As for sainthood itself or the siddhis of Yoga including a siddha body, that too is not what I mean by transformationit is a radical change of consciousness and nature itself that I envisage. I do not know also that these things were sought by the process of descent the Tamil Shaiva saints for instance sought for the siddha body by tremendous austerities; the siddhis they sought were all there in the sukshma mental and vital worlds and by a stupendous effort and mastery of the body they brought them down into the physical instrument. I have always said that these things and these methods are out of my scope and eschewed by me in my Yoga. I tried some of these but after achieving some initial results I saw it was a bypath and I left it.
To get rid of or mastery over kma-krodha is not the transformation, it is at best a preliminary step towards it provided it is done not in the moral way by mental self-control but in the spiritual way. Sainthood is not my object. I do not know how far Ramakrishna had gone towards the transformation as I conceive it; the metaphors you quote contain nothing precise with which I can compare my own experience or my own intuitions about the change. According to certain accounts there was a descent of Kali into his body which made it luminous, but he repressed it as something contrary to what he was seeking after. If there is something anywhere in the past which coincides with the aim and conceived process of my Yoga I shall be glad to know of it; for that would certainly be an aid to me. I put no value on the newness of what I am doing or trying to do. If the path was already there open and complete, it is a great pity that I should have wasted all my life clearing it out anew with much difficulty and peril when I could just have walked on a clear and safe avenue towards the goal of my endeavour. But the nearest I could get to it were some things in the Veda and Upanishads (secret words, veiled hints) which seemed to coincide with or point towards certain things in my own knowledge and experience. But after incorporating certain parts of the Vedic method as far as I could interpret or recover it, I found it was insufficient and I had to seek farther.
3.21 - Of Black Magic, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
him in body and soul and had renounced God and all the Saints ultimately his
body was found dragged through the streets and his head without any tongue
37.02 - The Story of Jabala-Satyakama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The quiet beauty and rhythm of Nature permeate the limbs if one lives in close proximity to Nature. We in our country had, no doubt, the advantage of forests. But even in other countries like Arabia or Egypt which had no forests but only desert tracts with their wide stretches of bare sand, the same method was followed. There the seekers and the Saints and mystics lived in the heart of the desert and drew from that source its rhythm and harmony and inspiration.
But in the modern world, under the circumstances of today, we no longer follow the ancient method either physically or even perhaps psychologically. Man does not now depend on external props or surroundings, nor does his consciousness either. Man's consciousness has grown to be in large measure free and self-reliant. It would rather bring external Nature under its own control than be guided by its influence. As in our outer so in our inner spiritual life, we are becoming city-dwellers in place of the old forest recluses. Even when we repair to the forest we try to make it as far as possible akin to the city. But this need not give rise to a quarrel or conflict between the forest and the city; it is possible to reconcile the two - the rural and the urban - even as it is necessary to effect a reconciliation between the inner and the outer life, between the consciousness within and the conditions of life without.
3.7.1.01 - Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
How comforting it would be if we could tell a good man and even the amount of his goodness,for should not the Supreme be a strict and honourable accountant?by the amount of ghee that he is allowed to put into his stomach and the number of rupees he can jingle into his bank and the various kinds of good luck that accrue to him. Yes, and how comforting too if we could point our finger at the wicked stripped of all concealment and cry at him, O thou wicked one! for if thou wert not evil, wouldst thou in a world governed by God or at least by good, be thus ragged, hungry, unfortunate, pursued by griefs, void of honour among men? Yes, thou art proved wicked, because thou art ragged. Gods justice is established. The Supreme Intelligence being fortunately wiser and nobler than mans childishness, this is impossible But let us take comfort! It appears that if the good man has not enough good luck and ghee and rupees, it is because he is really a scoundrel suffering for his crimes,but a scoundrel in his past life who has suddenly turned a new leaf in his mothers womb; and if yonder wicked man flourishes and tramples gloriously on the world, it is because of his goodnessin a past life, the Saint that was then having since been convertedwas it by his experience of the temporal vanity of virtue?to the cult of sin. All is explained, all is justified. We suffer for our sins in another body; we shall be rewarded in another body for our virtues in this; and so it will go on ad infinitum. No wonder, the philosophers found this a bad business and proposed as a remedy to get rid of both sin and virtue and even as our highest good to scramble anyhow out of a world so amazingly governed.
Obviously, this scheme of things is only a variation of the old spiritual-material bribe and menace, the bribe of a Heaven of fat joys for the good and the threat of a hell of eternal fire or bestial tortures for the wicked. The idea of the Law of the world as primarily a dispenser of rewards and punishments is cognate to the idea of the Supreme Being as a judge, father and school-master who is continually rewarding with lollipops his good boys and continually caning his naughty urchins. It is cognate also to the barbarous and unthinking system of sometimes savage and always degrading punishment for social offences on which human society, unable still to find out or organise a more satisfactory way, is still founded. Man insists continually on making God in his own image instead of seeking to make himself more and more in the image of God, and all these ideas are the reflection of the child and the savage and the animal in us which we have still failed to transform or outgrow. We should be inclined to wonder how these fancies of children found their way into such profound philosophical religions as Buddhism and Hinduism, if it were not so patent that men will not deny themselves the luxury of tacking on the rubbish from their past to the deeper thoughts of their sages.
3.7.2.02 - The Terrestial Law, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But on earth the first energy is the physical; the lines of the physical energy creating the forms, deploying the forces of the material universe are the first apparent conditions of our birth and create the practical basis and the original mould of our earthly existence. And what is the law of this first energy, its self-nature, swabhava and swadharma? It is evidently not moral in the human sense of the word: the elemental gods of the physical universe know nothing about ethical distinctions, but only the bare literal rule of energy, the right track and circuit of the movement of a force, its right action and reaction, the just result of its operation. There is no morality, no hesitation of conscience in our or the worlds elements. The fire is no respecter of persons and if the Saint or the thinker is cast into it, it will not spare his body. The sea, the stormwind, the rock on which the ship drives do not ask whether the just man drowned in the waters deserved his fate. If there is a divine or a cosmic justice that works in these cruelties, if the lightning that strikes impartially tree or beast or man, is but it would appear in the case of the man alone, for the rest is accident,the sword of God or the instrument of Karma, if the destruction wrought by the volcano, the typhoon or the earthquake is a punishment for the sins of the community or individually of the sins in a past life of each man there that suffers or perishes, at least the natural forces know it not and care nothing about it and rather they conceal from us in the blind impartiality of their rage all evidence of any such intention. The sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike; the beneficence and the maleficence of Nature, the gracious and dreadful Mother, her beauty and terror, her utility and her danger are bestowed and inflicted without favour or disfavour on all her children and the good man is no more her favourite than the sinner. If a law of moral punishment is imposed through the action of her physical forces, it must be by a Will from above her or a Force acting unknown to her in her inconscient bosom.
But such a Will could not be itself that of a moral Being ethical after the conceptions of man,unless indeed it resembled man in his most coldly pitiless and savage moral reason or unreason. For its action involves terrors of punishment that would be abhorred as atrocities in an all-powerful human ruler and could not be other than monstrous in a moral Divine Ruler. A personal God so acting would be a Jehovah-Moloch, a merciless and unrighteous demander of righteousness and mercy. On the other hand an inconscient Force mechanically executing an eternal ethical rule without an author or mover would be a paradox: for morality is a creation of conscious mind; an inconscient machinery could have no idea of good and evil, no moral intention or significance. An impersonal or omni-personal conscious Will or Spirit in the universe could well enact such a law and assure its execution, but must then be, although imposing on us good and evil and their results, itself beyond good and evil. And what is this but to say that the universal Being escapes from our ethical limitations and is a supramoral, appearing to us here in physical Nature as an infra-moral, Infinite?
3.7.2.05 - Appendix I - The Tangle of Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The complexity of the lines of Karma is much greater than we have yet seen in the steps of thought that we have been obliged to cut in order to climb to the summits where they converge. For the convenience of the mind we have chosen to speak as if there were four quite separate planes each with its separate lines of Karma,the physical with its fixed law and very easily perceptible return to our energies, the life plane, complex, full of doubtful rewards and dangerous rebounds, rich promise and dark menace, the mind plane with its high trenchant unattainable absolutes each in its separateness so difficult to embody and all so hard to reconcile and combine and the supramental where Natures absolutes are reached, her relativities ordered to their place and all these lower movements delivered and harmonised because they have found luminously their inner spiritual reason for existence. That division is not false in itself, but its truth is subject to two capital provisos which at once give them a complexity not apparent in the first formula. There are above and behind our human existence the four levels but there each plane contains in itself the others, although in each these others are subject to the dominant law of the plane,life for instance obeys on the mental level the law of mind and turns its movements into an instrumentation of the free intelligence. Again man exists here in the body and the physical world; he is open more or less to the vast movements of a life plane and the free movements of a mental world that are far vaster and freer in their potentialities than anything that we call here life and mind, but he does not live in that free mental light or in that vast vital force. His business is to bring down and embody here as much of that greater life and greater mind as can be precipitated into matter and equipped with a form and organised in the physical formula. In proportion as he ascends he does indeed rise above the physical and vital into the higher mental lines of Karma, but he cannot leave them entirely behind him. the Saint, the intellectual man, scientist, thinker or creator, the seeker after beauty, the seeker after any mental absolute is not that alone; he is also, even if less exclusively than others, the vital and physical man; subject to the urgings of the life and the body, he participates in the vital and physical motives of Karma and receives the perplexed and intertwined return of these energies. It is not intended in his birth that he shall live entirely in mind, for he is here to deal with life and Matter as well and to bring as best he can a higher law into life and Matter. And since he is not a mental being in a mental world, it is not easy and in the end, we may suspect, not possible for him to impose entirely and perfectly the law of the mental absolutes, a mental good, beauty, love, truth and power on his lower parts. He has to take this other difficult truth into account that life and Matter have absolutes of their own armed with an equal right to formulation and persistence and he has to find some light, some truth, some spiritual and supramental power that can take up these imperatives also no less than the minds imperatives and harmonise all in a grand and integral transformation. But the difficulty is again that if he is not open to the world of free intelligence, he is still less open to the deeper and vaster spiritual and supramental levels. There can indeed be great descents of spiritual light, purity, power, love, delight into the earth consciousness in its human formula; but man as he is now can hold only a little of these things and he can give them no adequate organisation and shape and body in his mental movements or his life-action or his physical and material consciousness and dynamis. The moment he tries to get at the absolute of the spirit, he feels himself obliged to reject body, to silence mind, and to draw back from life. It is that urgent necessity, that inability of mind and life and body to hold and answer to the spirit that is the secret of asceticism, the philosophical justification of the illusionist, the compulsion that moves the eremite and the recluse. If on the other hand he tries to spiritualise mind and life and the body he finds in the end that he has only brought down the spirit to a lower formulation that cannot give all its truth and purity and power. He has to some extent spiritualised mind, but much more has he mentalised the spiritual and to mentalise the spiritual is to falsify and obscure it or at the very least to dilute its truth, to imprison its force, to limit and alter its potentialities. He has perhaps to a much less extent spiritualised his life, but much more has he vitalised the spiritual and to vitalise the spiritual is to degrade it. He has never yet spiritualised the body, at most he has minimised the physical by a spiritual refusal and abstinence or brought down some mental and vital powers mistaken for spiritual into his physical force and physical frame. More has not been done in the human past so far as we can discover, or if anything greater was done it was a transitory gain from the superconscient and has returned again into our superconscience.
The secret reason of mans failure to rise truly beyond himself is a fundamental incapacity in the mind, the life and the body to organise the highest integral truth and power of the spirit. And this incapacity exists because mind and life and matter are in their nature depressed and imperfect powers of the Infinite that need to be transformed into something greater than themselves before they can escape from their depression and imperfection; in their very nature they are a system of partial and separated values and cannot adequately express or embody the integral and the one, a movement of many divergent and mutually non-understanding or misunderstanding lines they cannot arrive of themselves at any but a provisional, limited and imperfect harmony and order. There is no doubt a material Infinite, a vital Infinite, a mental Infinite in which we feel a perfection, a delight, an essential harmony, an inexpressible completeness which, when we experience it, makes us disregard the discords and imperfections and obscurities we see and even perceive them as elements of the infinite perfection. In other words the Spirit, the Infinite supports these depressed values and elicits from them a certain joy of his manifestation that is complete and illimitable enough in its own manner. But there is more behind and above, there are greater more unmistakably harmonious values, greater truly perfect powers of the Spirit than mind, life and matter and these wait for their expression and only when they are expressed can we escape from this system of harmony through discords and of a perfection on the whole that subsists by imperfection in the detail. And as we open to a greater knowledge, we find that even for such harmonies, stabilities, perfections as the energies of Mind, Life and Matter can realise, they depend really not on their own delegated and inferior power which is at best a more or less ignorant instrument but on a greater deeper organising force and knowledge of which they are the inadequate derivations. That force and knowledge is the self-possessed supramental power and will and the perfect and untrammelled supramental gnosis of the Infinite. It is that which has fixed the precise measures of Matter, regulates the motive instincts and impulsions of Life, holds together the myriad seekings of Mind; but none of these things are that power and gnosis and nothing therefore mental, vital or physical is final or can even find its own integral truth and harmony nor all these together their reconciliation until they are taken up and transformed in a supramental manifestation. For this supermind or gnosis is the entire organising will and knowledge of the spiritual, it is the Truth Consciousness, the Truth Force, the organic instrumentation of divine Law, the all-seeing eye of the divine Vision, the freely selecting and generating harmony of the eternal Ananda.
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
the poet, the artist, the Saint, the seer, the hero, in all who have
any sort of communion with the divine Nature & draw from
4.02 - The Integral Perfection, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The mundane perfection is sometimes conceived of as something outward, social, a thing of action, a more rational dealing with our fellow-men and our environment, a better and more efficient citizenship and discharge of duties, a better, richer, kindlier and happier way of living, with a more just and more harmonious associated enjoyment of the opportunities of existence. By others again a more inner and subjective ideal is cherished, a clarifying and raising of the intelligence, will and reason, a heightening and ordering of power and capacity in the nature, a nobler ethical, a richer aesthetic, a finer emotional, a much healthier and better-governed vital and physical being. Sometimes one element is stressed, almost to the exclusion of the rest; sometimes, in wider and more well-balanced minds, the whole harmony is envisaged as a total perfection. A change of education and social institutions is the outward means adopted or an inner self-training and development is preferred as the true instrumentation. Or the two aims may be clearly united, the perfection of the inner individual, the perfection of the outer living. But the mundane aim takes for its field the present life and its opportunities; the religious aim, on the contrary, fixes before it the self-preparation for another existence after death, its commonest ideal is some kind of pure sainthood, its means a conversion of the imperfect or sinful human being by divine grace or through obedience to a law laid down by a scripture or else given by a religious founder. The aim of religion may include a social change, but it is then a change brought about by the acceptance of a common religious ideal and way of consecrated living, a brotherhood of the Saints, a theocracy or kingdom of God reflecting on earth the kingdom of heaven.
The object of our synthetic Yoga must, in this respect too as in its other parts, be more integral and comprehensive, embrace all these elements or these tendencies of a larger impulse of self-perfection and harmonise them or rather unify, and in order to do that successfully it must seize on a truth which is wider than the ordinary religious and higher than the mundane principle. All life is a secret Yoga, an obscure growth of Nature towards the discovery and fulfilment of the divine principle hidden in her which becomes progressively less obscure, more self-conscient and luminous, more self-possessed in the human being by the opening of all his instruments of knowledge, will, action, life to the Spirit within him and in the world. Mind, life, body, all the forms of our nature are the means of this growth, but they find their last perfection only by opening out to something beyond them, first, because they are not the whole of what man is, secondly, because that other something which he is, is the key of his completeness and brings a light which discovers to him the whole high and large reality of his being.
4.03 - Prayer of Quiet, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
5.: Some one told me of a certain book written on the subject by the Saintly Friar Peter of Alcantara (as I think I may justly call him); I should have submitted to his decision, knowing that he was competent to judge, but on reading it I found he agreed with me that the mind must act until called to recollection by love, although he stated it in other words.33'Possibly I may be mistaken, but I rely on these reasons. Firstly, he who reasons less and tries 30 St. Teresa read this in the Tercer Abecedario of Francisco de Osuna (tr. vi, ch, iv): 'This exercise concentrates the senses of man in the interior of the heart where dwells 'the daughter of the king'; that is, the Catholic soul; thus recollected, man may well be compared to the tortoise or sea-urchin which rolls itself up and withdraws within itself, disregarding everything outside.' Eighth Counsel. Let the last and chiefest counsel be that in this holy exercise we should endeavour to unite Meditation with Contemplation making of the one a ladder for attaining to the other. For this we must know that (p. 118) the very office of Meditation is to consider Divine things with studiousness and attention passing from one to another, to move our hearts to some affection and deep feeling for them, which is as though one should strike a flint to draw from it the spark. For Contemplation is to have drawn forth this spark: I mean to have now found this affection and feeling which were sought for, and to be in peace and silence enjoying them; not with many discursive and intellectual speculations but with simple gaze upon the truth. Wherefore, says a holy teacher, Meditation goes its way and brings forth fruit, with labour, but Contemplation bears fruit without labour. The one seeketh, the other findeth; the one consumeth the food, the other enjoys it; the one discourseth, and maketh reflections, the other is contented with a simple gaze upon the things, for it hath in possession their love and joy. Lastly, the one is as the means, the other as the end; the one as the road and journeying along it, the other as the end of the road and of the journeying. From this is to be inferred a very common thing, which all masters of the spiritual life teach, although it is little (p. 119) understood of those who learn it; which is this, that, as the means cease when the end has been attained, as the voyaging is over when the port has been touched, so when, through the working out of our Meditation, we have come to the repose and sweet savour of Contemplation, we ought then to cease from that pious and laborious searching; and being satisfied with the simple gaze upon, and thought of, God-as though we had Him there present before us-we should rest in the enjoyment of that affection then given, whether it be of love, or of admiration, or joy, or other like sentiment. The reason why this counsel is given is this, that as the aim of this devotion is love and the affections of the will rather than the speculations of the understanding, when the will has been caught and taken by this affection, we should put away all those discursive and intellectual speculations, so far as we can, in order that our soul with all its forces may be fastened upon this affection without being diverted by the action of other influences. A learned teacher, therefore, counsels us that as soon as anyone feels himself fired by the love of God, he should first put aside (p. 120.) all these considerations and thoughts-however exalted they may seem-not because they are really not good in themselves, but because they are then hindrances to what is better. and more important. For this is nothing else than that, having come to the end and purpose of our work, we should stay therein, and leave Meditation for the love of Contemplation. This may especially be done at the end of any exercise, that is, after the petition for the Divine love of which we have spoken, for one reason, because then it is supposed that the labour of the exercise we have just gone through has produced some divine devotion and feeling, since, saith the wise man, 'Better is the end of prayer than the beginning': and for another reason, that, after the work of Prayer and Meditation, it is well that one should give his mind a little rest, and allow it to repose in the arms of Contemplation. At this point, then, we should put away all other thoughts that may present themselves, and, quieting the mind and stilling the memory, fix all upon our Lord; and remembering that we are then in His presence, no longer dwell upon the details of divine things. Ibidem p. 121. And not only at the end of the exercise but in the midst of it, and at whatever part of it, this spiritual swoon should come upon us, when the intellect is laid to sleep, we should make this pause, and enjoy the blessing bestowed; and then, when we have finished the digestion of it, turn to the matter we have in hand, as the gardener does, when he waters his garden-bed; who, after giving it (p. 122) a sufficiency of water, holds back the stream, and lets it soak and spread itself through the depths of the earth; and then when this hath somewhat dried up, he turns down upon it again the flow of water that it may receive still more, and be well irrigated.' to do least, does most in spiritual matters. We should make our petitions like beggars before a powerful and rich Emperor; then, with downcast eyes, humbly wait. When He secretly shows us He hears our prayers, it is well to be silent, as He has drawn us into His presence; there would then be no harm in trying to keep our minds at rest (that is to say, if we can). If, however, the King makes no sign of listening or of seeing us, there is no need to stand inert, like a dolt, which the soul would resemble if it continued inactive. In this case its dryness would greatly increase, and the imagination would be made more restless than before by its very effort to think of nothing. Our Lord wishes us at such a time to offer Him our petitions and to place ourselves in His presence; He knows what is best for us.
6.: I believe that human efforts avail nothing in these matters, which His Majesty appears to reserve to Himself, setting this limit to our powers. In many other things, such as penances, good works, and prayers, with His aid we can help ourselves as far as human weakness will allow. The second reason is, that these interior operations being sweet and peaceful,34' any painful effort does us more harm than good. By 'painful effort' I mean any forcible restraint we place on ourselves, such as holding our breath.35' We should rather abandon our souls into the hands of God, leaving Him to do as He chooses with us, as far as possible forgetting all self-interest and resigning ourselves entirely to His will. The third reason is, that the very effort to think of nothing excites our imagination the more. The fourth is, because we render God the most true and acceptable service by caring only for His honour and glory and forgetting ourselves, our advantages, comfort and happiness. How can we be self-oblivious, while keeping ourselves under such strict control that we are afraid to move, or even to think, or to leave our minds enough liberty to desire God's greater glory and to rejoice in the glory which He possesses? When His Majesty wishes the mind to rest from working He employs it in another manner, giving it a light and knowledge far above any obtainable by its own efforts and absorbing it entirely into Himself. Then, though it knows not how, it is filled with wisdom such as it could never gain for itself by striving to suspend the thoughts. God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.36 'The whole of the time in which our Lord communicates the simple, loving general attention of which I made mention before, or when the soul, assisted by grace, is established in that state, we must contrive to keep the understanding in repose, undisturbed by the intrusion of forms, figures, or particular knowledge, unless it were slightly and for an instant, and that with sweetness of love, to enkindle our souls the more. At other times, however, in all our acts of devotion and good works, we must make use of good recollections and meditations, so that we may feel an increase of profit and devotion; most especially applying ourselves to the life, passion,
4.03 - The Meaning of Human Endeavor, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
tion of his spirit, the Saint, by an inverse process,
escapes from the complexities of affection and in so
4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[432] There are, in alchemy, two main kinds of smell, the stench of graves and the perfume of flowers, the latter being a symbol of resurgent life. In ecclesiastical allegory and in the lives of the Saints a sweet smell is one of the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, as also in Gnosticism. In alchemy the Holy Ghost and Sapientia are more or less identical; hence the smell of flowers attests that the rebirth of the king is a gift of the Holy Ghost or of Sapientia, thanks to whom the regeneration process could take place.
[433] Verses 2124
4.05 - THE DARK SIDE OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[469] The mire of the deep refers to Psalm 68 : 3 (Vulgate) : Infixus sum in limo profundi et non est substantia (AV 69 : 2: I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing). Davids words are interpreted by Epiphanius 283 as follows: there is a material which consists of miry reflections and muddy thoughts of sin. But of Psalm 130 : 1: Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord, he gives the following interpretation: After the Saints are so graced that the Holy Ghost dwells within them, he gives them, after having made his habitation in the Saints, the gift to look into the deep things of God, that they may praise him from the depths, as also David declares: Out of the depths, he says, have I cried to thee, O Lord. 284
[470] These contradictory interpretations of the depths (profunda) come much closer together in alchemy, often so close that they seem to be nothing more than two different aspects of the same thing. It is natural that in alchemy the depths should mean now one and now the other, to the despair of all lovers of consistency. But the eternal images are far from consistent in meaning. It is characteristic of the alchemists that they never lost sight of this polarity, thereby compensating the world of dogma, which, in order to avoid ambiguity, emphasizes the one pole to the exclusion of the other. The tendency to separate the opposites as much as possible and to strive for singleness of meaning is absolutely necessary for clarity of consciousness, since discrimination is of its essence. But when the separation is carried so far that the complementary opposite is lost sight of, and the blackness of the whiteness, the evil of the good, the depth of the heights, and so on, is no longer seen, the result is one-sidedness, which is then compensated from the unconscious without our help. The counterbalancing is even done against our will, which in consequence must become more and more fanatical until it brings about a catastrophic enantiodromia. Wisdom never forgets that all things have two sides, and it would also know how to avoid such calamities if ever it had any power. But power is never found in the seat of wisdom; it is always the focus of mass interests and is therefore inevitably associated with the illimitable folly of the mass man.
4.06 - THE KING AS ANTHROPOS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[492] If the adept experiences his own self, the true man, in his work, then, as the passage from the Aquarium sapientum shows, he encounters the analogy of the true manChristin new and direct form, and he recognizes in the transformation in which he himself is involved a similarity to the Passion. It is not an imitation of Christ but its exact opposite: an assimilation of the Christ-image to his own self, which is the true man.349 It is no longer an effort, an intentional straining after imitation, but rather an involuntary experience of the reality represented by the sacred legend. This reality comes upon him in his work, just as the stigmata come to the Saints without being consciously sought. They appear spontaneously. The Passion happens to the adept, not in its classic formotherwise he would be consciously performing spiritual exercises but in the form expressed by the alchemical myth. It is the arcane substance that suffers those physical and moral tortures; it is the king who dies or is killed, is dead and buried and on the third day rises again. And it is not the adept who suffers all this, rather it suffers in him, it is tortured, it passes through death and rises again. All this happens not to the alchemist himself but to the true man, who he feels is near him and in him and at the same time in the retort. The passion that vibrates in our text and in the Aurora is genuine, but would be totally incomprehensible if the lapis were nothing but a chemical substance. Nor does it originate in contemplation of Christs Passion; it is the real experience of a man who has got involved in the compensatory contents of the unconscious by investigating the unknown, seriously and to the point of self-sacrifice. He could not but see the likeness of his projected contents to the dogmatic images, and he might have been tempted to assume that his ideas were nothing else than the familiar religious conceptions, which he was using in order to explain the chemical procedure. But the texts show clearly that, on the contrary, a real experience of the opus had an increasing tendency to assimilate the dogma or to amplify itself with it. That is why the text says that Christ was compared and united with the stone. The alchemical Anthropos showed itself to be independent of any dogma.350
[493] The alchemist experienced the Anthropos in a form that was imbued with new vitality, freshness and immediacy, and this is reflected in the enthusiastic tone of the texts. It is therefore understandable that every single detail of the primordial drama would be realized in quite a new sense. The nigredo not only brought decay, suffering, death, and the torments of hell visibly before the eyes of the alchemist, it also cast the shadow of its melancholy over his own solitary soul.351 In the blackness of a despair which was not his own, and of which he was merely the witness, he experienced how it turned into the worm and the poisonous dragon.352 From inner necessity the dragon destroyed itself (natura naturam vincit) and changed into the lion,353 and the adept, drawn involuntarily into the drama, then felt the need to cut off its paws354 (unless there were two lions who devoured one another). The dragon ate its own wings as the eagle did its feathers.355 These grotesque images reflect the conflict of opposites into which the researchers curiosity had led him. His work began with a katabasis, a journey to the underworld as Dante also experienced it,356 with the difference that the adepts soul was not only impressed by it but radically altered. Faust I is an example of this: the transformation of an earnest scholar, through his pact with the devil, into a worldly cavalier and crooked careerist. In the case of the fanciful Christian Rosencreutz the descent to Venus led only to his being slightly wounded in the hand by Cupids arrow. The texts, however, hint at more serious dangers. Olympiodorus says:357 Without great pains this work is not perfected; there will be struggles, violence, and war. And all the while the demon Ophiuchos358 instils negligence (
4.09 - The Liberation of the Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But richness of life, even a sattwic harmony of mind and nature does not constitute spiritual perfection. There is a relative possible perfection, but it is a perfection of incompleteness, some partial height, force, beauty, some measure of nobility and greatness, some imposed and precariously sustained balance. There is a relative mastery, but it is a mastery of the body by life or of the life by mind, not a free possession of the instruments by the liberated and self-possessing spirit. The gunas have to be transcended if we would arrive at spiritual perfection. Tamas evidently has to be overcome, inertia and ignorance and incapacity cannot be elements of a true perfection; but it can only be overcome in Nature by the force of Rajas aided by an increasing force of Sattwa. Rajas has to be overcome, egoism, personal desire and self-seeking passion are not elements of the true perfection; but it can only be overcome by force of Sattwa enlightening the being and force of Tamas limiting the action. Sattwa itself does not give the highest or the integral perfection; Sattwa is always a quality of the limited nature; sattwic knowledge is the light of a limited mentality; sattwic will is the government of a limited intelligent force. Moreover, Sattwa cannot act by itself in Nature, but has to rely for all action on the aid of Rajas, so that even sattwic action is always liable to the imperfections of Rajas; egoism, perplexity, inconsistency, a one-sided turn, a limited and exaggerated will, exaggerating itself in the intensity of its limitations, pursue the mind and action even of the Saint, philosopher and sage. There is a sattwic as well as a rajasic or tamasic egoism, at the highest an egoism of knowledge or virtue; but the mind's egoism of whatever type is incompatible with liberation. All the three gunas have to be transcended. Sattwa may bring us near to the Light, but its limited clarity falls away from us when we enter into the luminous body of the divine Nature.
This transcendence is usually sought by a withdrawal from the action of the lower nature. That withdrawal brings with it a stressing of the tendency to inaction. Sattwa, when it wishes to intensify itself, seeks to get rid of Rajas and calls in the aid of the tamasic principle of inaction; that is the reason why a certain type of highly sattwic men live intensely in the inward being, but hardly at all in the outward life of action, or else are there incompetent and ineffective. The seeker of liberation goes farther in this direction, strives by imposing an enlightened Tamas on his natural being, a Tamas which by this saving enlightenment is more of a quiescence than an incapacity, to give the sattwic Guna freedom to lose itself in the light of the spirit. A quietude and stillness is imposed on the body, on the active life-soul of desire and ego, on the external mind, while the sattwic nature by stress of meditation, by an exclusive concentration of adoration, by a will turned inward to the Supreme, strives to merge itself in the spirit. But if this is sufficient for a quietistic release, it is not sufficient for the freedom of an integral perfection. This liberation depends upon inaction and is not entirely self-existent and absolute; the moment the soul turns to action, it finds that the activity of the nature is still the old imperfect motion. There is a liberation of the soul from the nature which is gained by inaction, but not a liberation of the soul in nature perfect and self-existent whether in action or in inaction. The question then arises whether such a liberation and perfection are possible and what may be the condition of this perfect freedom.
4.1.1 - The Difficulties of Yoga, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Fortunately, there is also in human nature a sattwic element which turns towards light and a rajasic or kinetic element which desires and needs to act and can be made to desire not only change but constant progress. But these too, owing to the limitations of human ignorance and the obstructions of the fundamental inconscience, suffer from pettiness and division and can resist as well as assist the spiritual endeavour. The spiritual change which Yoga demands from human nature and individual character is, therefore, full of difficulties, one may almost say that it is the most difficult of all human aspirations and efforts. In so far as it can get the sattwic and the rajasic (kinetic) elements to assist it, its path is made easier but even the sattwic element can resist by attachment to old ideas, to preconceived notions, to mental preferences and partial judgments, to opinions and reasonings which come in the way of higher truth and to which it is attached: the kinetic element resists by its egoism, its passions, desires and strong attachments, its vanity and self-esteem, its constant habit of demand and many other obstacles. The resistance of the vital has a more violent character than the others and it brings to the aid of the others its own violence and passion and that is a source of all the acute difficulty, revolt, upheavals and disorders which mar the course of the Yoga. The Divine is there, but He does not ignore the conditions, the laws, the circumstances of Nature; it is under these conditions that He does all His work, His work in the world and in man and consequently also in the sadhak, the aspirant, even in the Godknower and God-lover; even the Saint and the sage continue to have difficulties and to be limited by their human nature. A complete liberation and a complete perfection or the complete possession of the Divine and possession by the Divine is possible but it does not usually happen by an easy miracle or a series of miracles. The miracle can and does happen but only when there is the full call and complete self-giving of the soul and the entire widest opening of the nature.
Still, if the call of the soul is there, although not yet full, however great and obstinate the difficulties, there can be no final and irretrievable failure; even when the thread is broken it is taken up again and reunited and carried to its end. There is a working in the nature itself in response to the inner need which, however slowly, brings about the result. But a certain inner consent is needed; the progress that you have marked in yourself is due to the fact that there was this consent in the soul and also in part of the nature; the change was insisted on by the mind and desired by part of the vital; the resistance in part of the mind and part of the vital made it slow and difficult but could not prevent it. The strong development you have observed in your powers with its proof in the response of others is due to the same reason; part of your being consented to it, wanted and needed it as a self-fulfilment of the nature and the soul wanted it as a means of service to the Divine; the rest was due to the pressure of the Divine force and my pressure. As for the distaste, the lack of interest etc. all this is temporary and belongs only to a part of you. In so far as it comes from a kind of vairgya, it may have helped you in overcoming some of your attachments, but it is defective in so far as the element of tamas and apravtti is there; it is not so fundamental as to resist the victorious drive of the pressure of the Divine Force.
4.1.2 - The Difficulties of Human Nature, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
As for the lack of response,well, cant you see that you are in the ancient tradition? Read the lives of the Saintsyou will find them all (perhaps not all, but at least so many) shouting like you that there was no response, no response and getting into frightful tumults, agonies and desperationsuntil the response came. Many people here who cant say they have had no experiences, do just the sameso it does not depend on experiences. I dont advise this procedure to anybodymind you. I only want to say that the feeling of never having had a response does not mean that there never will be a response and that fits of despair at having arrived nowhere do not mean that one will never arrive.
***
4.2 - Karma, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
221. the Saint and the angel are not the only divinities; admire also the Titan and the giant.
Karma
--
323. Vedanta realised is the only practicable basis for a communistic society. It is the kingdom of the Saints dreamed of by
Christianity, Islam and Puranic Hinduism.
4.3 - Bhakti, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
439. My Lover took His crown and royal necklace from His head and neck and clothed me with them; but the disciples of the Saints and the prophets abused me and said, "He is hunting after siddhis."
440. I did my Lover's commands in the world & the will of my Captor; but they cried, "Who is this corruptor of youth, this disturber of morals?"
6.08 - Intellectual Visions, #The Interior Castle or The Mansions, #Saint Teresa of Avila, #Christianity
1. Our Lords presence accompanying the soul. 2. St. Teresas experience of this. 3. Confidence and graces resulting from this vision. 4. Its effects . 5. It Produces humility. 6. And prepares the soul for other graces. 7. Consciousness of the presence of the Saints. 8. Obligations resulting from this grace. 9. Signs that this favour is genuine. 10. A confessor should be consulted. 11. Our Lord will enlighten our advisers. 12. Cautions about this vision.
1. To prove to you more clearly, sisters, the truth of what I have been saying and to show that the more the soul advances, the closer does this good Jesus bear it company, it would be well for me to tell you how, when He so chooses, it cannot withdraw from His presence.
6.10 - THE SELF AND THE BOUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[778] With the advance towards the psychological a great change sets in, for self-knowledge has certain ethical consequences which are not just impassively recognized but demand to be carried out in practice. This depends of course on ones moral endowment, on which as we know one should not place too much reliance. The self, in its efforts at self-realization, reaches out beyond the ego-personality on all sides; because of its all-encompassing nature it is brighter and darker than the ego, and accordingly confronts it with problems which it would like to avoid. Either ones moral courage fails, or ones insight, or both, until in the end fate decides. The ego never lacks moral and rational counterarguments, which one cannot and should not set aside so long as it is possible to hold on to them. For you only feel yourself on the right road when the conflicts of duty seem to have resolved themselves, and you have become the victim of a decision made over your head or in defiance of the heart. From this we can see the numinous power of the self, which can hardly be experienced in any other way. For this reason the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego. The extraordinary difficulty in this experience is that the self can be distinguished only conceptually from what has always been referred to as God, but not practically. Both concepts apparently rest on an identical numinous factor which is a condition of reality. The ego enters into the picture only so far as it can offer resistance, defend itself, and in the event of defeat still affirm its existence. The prototype of this situation is Jobs encounter with Yahweh. This hint is intended only to give some indication of the nature of the problems involved. From this general statement one should not draw the overhasty conclusion that in every case there is a hybris of ego-consciousness which fully deserves to be overpowered by the unconscious. That is not so at all, because it very often happens that ego-consciousness and the egos sense of responsibility are too weak and need, if anything, streng thening. But these are questions of practical psycho therapy, and I mention them here only because I have been accused of underestimating the importance of the ego and giving undue prominence to the unconscious. This strange insinuation emanates from a theological quarter. Obviously my critic has failed to realize that the mystical experiences of the Saints are no different from other effects of the unconscious.
[779] In contrast to the ideal of alchemy, which consisted in the production of a mysterious substance, a man, an anima mundi or a deus terrenus who was expected to be a saviour from all human ills, the psychological interpretation (foreshadowed by the alchemists) points to the concept of human wholeness. This concept has primarily a therapeutic significance in that it attempts to portray the psychic state which results from bridging over a dissociation between conscious and unconscious. The alchemical compensation corresponds to the integration of the unconscious with consciousness, whereby both are altered. Above all, consciousness experiences a widening of its horizon. This certainly brings about a considerable improvement of the whole psychic situation, since the disturbance of consciousness by the counteraction of the unconscious is eliminated. But, because all good things must be paid for dearly, the previously unconscious conflict is brought to the surface instead and imposes on consciousness a heavy responsibility, as it is now expected to solve the conflict. But it seems as badly equipped and prepared for this as was the consciousness of the medieval alchemist. Like him, the modern man needs a special method for investigating and giving shape to the unconscious contents in order to get consciousness out of its fix. As I have shown elsewhere, an experience of the self may be expected as a result of these psycho therapeutic endeavours, and quite often these experiences are numinous. It is not worth the effort to try to describe their totality character. Anyone who has experienced anything of the sort will know what I mean, and anyone who has not had the experience will not be satisfied by any amount of descriptions. Moreover there are countless descriptions of it in world literature. But I know of no case in which the bare description conveyed the experience.
7.06 - The Simple Life, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One day, as he and his companion, Brother Masseo, were passing through a town, Masseo went down one street while Francis took another. Masseo was tall and handsome, whereas the Saint was short and plain-looking. People gave generously to Masseo, but Francis collected only very little.
When they met outside the gates of the town, they sat by a large stone on the bank of a clear stream that ran nearby, and put together the alms they had received.
--
Is it not a feast, replied the Saint, to have good bread on a good table when one is hungry, and fresh water from a limpid spring to drink when one is thirsty?
This does not mean to say that poor people should always be resigned to their miserable fare. But in any case it shows how the contentment that comes from a noble life and the cheerfulness native to beautiful souls can make up for the absence of material possessions and outer riches.
--
In the reign of the famous Akbar, there lived at Agra a Jain saint named Banarasi Das. The Emperor summoned the Saint to his palace and told him:
Ask of me what you will, and because of your holy life, your wish shall be satisfied.
Parabrahman has given me more than I could wish for, replied the Saint.
But ask all the same, Akbar insisted.
--
But it so happened that the very day on which the Saint visited the Emperor was a fast-day. And therefore Akbar would only have his meal several hours after midnight. The palace cooks had prepared the dishes in the evening and had placed them in plates of gold and silver, until the time of fasting should be over.
It was still dark when Akbar had them brought before him. Despite his haste to take some nourishment, he suddenly remembered the words of Banarasi Das: Take care over your meat and drink. So he examined the plate before him carefully and found that the food was covered with brown ants. In spite of all precautions, these ants had crept in and spoiled the Emperors meal.
7.09 - Right Judgement, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
At last the good Saint Francis decided to face the frightful creature. He went out of the town, followed at a distance by many men and women. As he drew near to the forest, the wolf suddenly sprang at the Saint with wide open jaws. But Francis calmly made a sign and the wolf lay down peacefully at his feet like a lamb.
"Brother Wolf," Saint Francis told him, "you have done much harm in this land, and you deserve a murderer's death. All men hate you. But I would gladly make peace between you and my friends of Gubbio."
--
Then the wolf bowed his head very low and put his right paw in the Saint's hand. In this way they made a pact together, in good faith.
Then Francis led the wolf into the marketplace of Gubbio and repeated before the assembled citizens what he had just said to the wolf, and once more the wolf put his paw in the Saint's hand as a pledge of his good behaviour for the future.
The wolf lived in the town for two years and did no harm to anyone. Each day the townsfolk would bring him his food, and they all mourned him when he died.
--
something in him which no one had discovered until the Saint had called him his brother. In this legend the wolf no doubt represents some great offender much hated by other men. It is intended to show that even in those who seem lost beyond hope, there still remain some seeds of good that can be awakened with a little love.
All good cabinet-makers know that there is no plank, however rotten, in which one cannot find some sound fibres. The bad workman will throw away the plank in ignorance and contempt, but the good workman will take it up, remove what is wormeaten and carefully plane the rest. And out of the hardest knots in the wood, the artist can shape the most heart-stirring figures.
7.14 - Modesty, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The mountain-side was covered with trees, and at the top there was an open flat space where St. Francis wished to pray, in the hope of having a new vision of things divine. the Saint was well known and revered by rich lords and poor villagers alike.
The day was hot and the path steep. Francis was too tired to walk. So one of the monks went to a peasant and asked him to lend his ass for Francis to ride.
--
The peasant willingly agreed; the Saint mounted the ass and the monks walked by his side while the peasant followed behind.
"Tell me," asked the peasant, "are you Brother Francis?"
7 - Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
need not talk much of Overmind, because all the Saints
and seers, all religions and spiritual disciplines, scriptures
Blazing P2 - Map the Stages of Conventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
selfish desire in the here and now. the Saintly, the monkish, the Christian form of existence
Infancy to Enlightenment, Part II: Conventional Consciousness
BOOK I. - Augustine censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the world, and especially the sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the gods, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
10. That the Saints lose nothing in losing temporal goods.
These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is needless, and that the apostle is vapouring when he says, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God?"[48]
--
13. Reasons for burying the bodies of the Saints.
Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be despised and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful, which have been used by the Holy Ghost as His organs and instruments for all good works. For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or anything he wore, be precious to his children, in proportion to the love they bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for[Pg 21] the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and intimately than any clothing! For the body is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very nature. And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and obsequies celebrated;[63] and they themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons about the burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some favourite place.[64] And Tobit, according to the angel's testimony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by burying the dead.[65] Our Lord Himself, too, though He was to rise again the third day, applauds, and commends to our applause, the good work of the religious woman who poured precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial.[66] And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were careful to take down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in costly cerements, and see to its burial.[67] These instances certainly do not prove that corpses have any feeling; but they show that God's providence extends even to the bodies of the dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection. And we may also draw from them this wholesome lesson, that if God does not forget even any kind office which loving care pays to the unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity we exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the holy patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies, they meant to be taken in a prophetic sense; but of these we need not here speak at large, what we have already said being sufficient. But if the want of those things which are necessary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary attentions paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed! Consequently, though in the sack of Rome and of other towns the dead[Pg 22] bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices, this is neither the fault of the living, for they could not render them; nor an infliction to the dead, for they cannot feel the loss.
14. Of the captivity of the Saints, and that divine consolation never failed them therein.
But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive. This indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place where they could not find their God. But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords great consolation. The three youths[68] were captives; Daniel was a captive; so were other prophets: and God, the comforter, did not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed His own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous, is yet human,He who did not abandon the prophet[69] in the belly of a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to ridicule rather than credited by those with whom we are debating; though they believe what they read in their own books, that Arion of Methymna, the famous lyrist,[70] when he was thrown overboard, was received on a dolphin's back and carried to land. But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is far more incredible,more incredible because more marvellous, and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.
--
Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the Saintly Job, who endured dreadful evils in his body rather than deliver himself from all torment by self-inflicted death; or other saints, of whom it is recorded in our authoritative and trustworthy books that they bore captivity and the oppression of their enemies rather than commit suicide. But their own books authorize us to prefer to Marcus Cato, Marcus Regulus. For Cato had never conquered Csar; and when conquered by him, disdained to submit himself to him, and that he might escape this submission put himself to death. Regulus, on the contrary, had formerly conquered the Carthaginians, and in comm and of the army of Rome had won for the Roman republic a victory which no citizen could bewail, and which the enemy himself was constrained to admire; yet afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by them, he preferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond their reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the Carthaginians, and constant in his love of the Romans, he neither deprived the one of his conquered body, nor the other of his unconquered spirit. Neither was it love of life that prevented him from killing himself. This was plainly enough indicated by his unhesitatingly returning, on account of his promise and oath, to the same enemies whom he had more grievously provoked by his words in the senate than even by his arms in battle. Having such a contempt of life, and preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies might contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand, he could not more distinctly have declared how great a crime he judged suicide to be. Among all their famous and remarkable citizens, the Romans have no better man to boast of than this, who was neither corrupted by prosperity, for he remained a very poor man after winning such victories; nor broken by adversity, for he returned intrepidly to the most miserable end. But if the bravest and most renowned heroes, who had but an earthly country to defend, and who, though they had but false gods, yet rendered them a true worship, and carefully kept their oath to them; if these men, who by the custom[Pg 36] and right of war put conquered enemies to the sword, yet shrank from putting an end to their own lives even when conquered by their enemies; if, though they had no fear at all of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than commit suicide, how much rather must Christians, the worshippers of the true God, the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink from this act, if in God's providence they have been for a season delivered into the hands of their enemies to prove or to correct them! And, certainly, Christians subjected to this humiliating condition will not be deserted by the Most High, who for their sakes humbled Himself. Neither should they forget that they are bound by no laws of war, nor military orders, to put even a conquered enemy to the sword; and if a man may not put to death the enemy who has sinned, or may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to maintain that he may kill himself because an enemy has sinned, or is going to sin, against him?
25. That we should not endeavour by sin to obviate sin.
--
26. That in certain peculiar cases the examples of the Saints are not to be followed.
But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women escaped those who menaced them with outrage, by casting themselves into rivers which they knew would drown them; and having died in this manner, they are venerated in the church catholic as martyrs. Of such persons I do not presume to speak rashly. I cannot tell whether there may not have been vouchsafed to the church some divine authority, proved by trustworthy evidences, for so honouring their memory: it may be that it is so. It may be they were not deceived by human judgment, but prompted by divine wisdom, to their act of self-destruction. We know that this was the case with Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and intimates by plain evidence that He has enjoined it, who will call obedience criminal? Who will accuse so religious a submission? But then every man is not justified in sacrificing his son to God, because Abraham was commendable in so doing. The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the authority under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused of murder by any law of his state; nay, if he has not slain him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state, and of despising the law. But if he has been acting on his own authority, and at his own impulse, he has in this case incurred the crime of shedding human blood. And thus he is punished for doing without orders the very thing he is punished for neglecting to do when he has been ordered. If the commands of a general make so great a difference, shall the commands of God make none? He, then, who knows it[Pg 38] is unlawful to kill himself, may nevertheless do so if he is ordered by Him whose commands we may not neglect. Only let him be very sure that the divine comm and has been signified. As for us, we can become privy to the secrets of conscience only in so far as these are disclosed to us, and so far only do we judge: "No one knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him."[75] But this we affirm, this we maintain, this we every way pronounce to be right, that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death, for this is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of eternity; that no man ought to do so on account of another man's sins, for this were to escape a guilt which could not pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his own; that no man ought to do so on account of his own past sins, for he has all the more need of this life that these sins may be healed by repentance; that no man should put an end to this life to obtain that better life we look for after death, for those who die by their own hand have no better life after death.
--
Let these and similar answers (if any fuller and fitter answers can be found) be given to their enemies by the redeemed family of the Lord Christ, and by the pilgrim city of King Christ. But let this city bear in mind, that among her enemies lie hid those who are destined to be fellow-citizens, that she may not think it a fruitless labour to bear what they inflict as enemies until they become confessors of the faith. So, too, as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some who shall not eternally dwell in the lot of the Saints. Of these, some are not now recognised; others declare themselves, and do not hesitate to make common cause with our enemies in murmuring against God, whose sacramental badge they wear. These men you may to-day see thronging the churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres with the godless. But we have the less reason to despair of the reclamation even of such persons, if among our most declared enemies there are now some, unknown to themselves, who are destined to become our friends. In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effect their separation. I now proceed to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end[Pg 47] of these two cities; and what I write, I write for the glory of the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter lustre.
36. What subjects are to be handled in the following discourse.
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
symbol "with the blood of the Saints and the blood of the martyrs" who protested and do protest. "And
there are seven Kings (seven races); five are fallen (our fifth race included), and one is (the fifth
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
of beings, the divine Vishnu," and among others this one: "Glory to thee, who art one with the Saints,
whose perfect nature is ever blessed. . . . Glory to thee, who art one with the Serpent-race, doubletongued, impetuous, cruel, insatiate of enjoyment and abounding with wealth. . . . Glory to thee, . . . .
--
** "These notions," remarks Dr. Wilson, "the birth of Rudra and the Saints, seem to have been
borrowed from the Saivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaishnava system." The
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
lives of the Saints written by the Dominican friar Jacobus de
Voragine, read and re-read in the Middle Ages but now
BOOK V. - Of fate, freewill, and God's prescience, and of the source of the virtues of the ancient Romans, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
But the reward of the Saints is far different, who even here endured reproaches for that city of God which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That city is eternal. There none are born, for none die. There is true and full felicity,not a goddess, but a gift of God. Thence we receive the pledge of faith, whilst on our pilgrimage we sigh for its beauty. There rises not the sun on the good and the evil, but the Sun of Righteousness protects the good alone. There no great industry shall be expended to enrich the public treasury by suffering privations at home, for there is the common treasury of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the sake of recompensing the citizens of Rome that her empire and glory had been so signally extended, but also that the citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here, might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and[Pg 208] see what a love they owe to the supernal country on account of life eternal, if the terrestrial country was so much beloved by its citizens on account of human glory.
17. To what profit the Romans carried on wars, and how much they contri buted to the well-being of those whom they conquered.
--
in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that He "maketh the man who is an hypocrite to reign on account of the perversity of the people."[220] Wherefore, though I have, according to my ability, shown for what reason God, who alone is true and just, helped forward the Romans, who were good according to a certain standard of an earthly state, to the acquirement of the glory of so great an empire, there may be, nevertheless, a more hidden cause, known better to God than to us, depending on the diversity of the merits of the human race. Among all who are truly pious, it is at all events agreed that no one without true piety that is, true worship of the true Godcan have true virtue; and that it is not true virtue which is the slave of human praise. Though, nevertheless, they who are not citizens of the eternal city, which is called the city of God in the sacred Scriptures, are more useful to the earthly city when they possess even that virtue than if they had not even that. But there could be nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that, by the mercy of God, they who are endowed with true piety of life, if they have the skill for ruling people, should also have the[Pg 217] power. But such men, however great virtues they may possess in this life, attri bute it solely to the grace of God that He has bestowed it on themwilling, believing, seeking. And, at the same time, they understand how far they are short of that perfection of righteousness which exists in the society of those holy angels for which they are striving to fit themselves. But however much that virtue may be praised and cried up, which without true piety is the slave of human glory, it is not at all to be compared even to the feeble beginnings of the virtue of the Saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of the true God.
20. That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory as bodily pleasure.
BOOK XI. - Augustine passes to the second part of the work, in which the origin, progress, and destinies of the earthly and heavenly cities are discussed.Speculations regarding the creation of the world, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is called simple, because it has not anything which it can lose, and because it is not one thing and its contents another, as a cup and the liquor, or a body and its colour, or the air and the light or heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom. For none of these is what it has: the cup is not liquor, nor the body colour, nor the air light and heat, nor the mind wisdom. And hence they can be deprived of what they have, and can be turned or changed into other qualities and states, so that the cup may be emptied of the liquid of which it is full, the body be discoloured, the air darken, the mind grow silly. The incorruptible body which is promised to the Saints in the resurrection cannot, indeed, lose its quality of incorruption, but the bodily substance and the quality of incorruption are not the same thing. For the quality of incorruption resides entire in each several part, not greater in one and less in[Pg 449] another; for no part is more incorruptible than another. The body, indeed, is itself greater in whole than in part; and one part of it is larger, another smaller, yet is not the larger more incorruptible than the smaller. The body, then, which is not in each of its parts a whole body, is one thing; incorruptibility, which is throughout complete, is another thing;for every part of the incorruptible body, however unequal to the rest otherwise, is equally incorrupt. For the hand, e.g., is not more incorrupt than the finger because it is larger than the finger; so, though finger and hand are unequal, their incorruptibility is equal. Thus, although incorruptibility is inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance of the body is one thing, the quality of incorruption another. And therefore the body is not what it has. The soul itself, too, though it be always wise (as it will be eternally when it is redeemed), will be so by participating in the unchangeable wisdom, which it is not; for though the air be never robbed of the light that is shed abroad in it, it is not on that account the same thing as the light. I do not mean that the soul is air, as has been supposed by some who could not conceive a spiritual nature;[463] but, with much dissimilarity, the two things have a kind of likeness, which makes it suitable to say that the immaterial soul is illumined with the immaterial light of the simple wisdom of God, as the material air is irradiated with material light, and that, as the air, when deprived of this light, grows dark, (for material darkness is nothing else than air wanting light,[464]) so the soul, deprived of the light of wisdom, grows dark.
According to this, then, those things which are essentially and truly divine are called simple, because in them quality and substance are identical, and because they are divine, or wise, or blessed in themselves, and without extraneous supplement. In Holy Scripture, it is true, the Spirit of wisdom is[Pg 450] called "manifold"[465] because it contains many things in it; but what it contains it also is, and it being one is all these things. For neither are there many wisdoms, but one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things intellectual, wherein are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things visible and changeable which were created by it.[466] For God made nothing unwittingly; not even a human workman can be said to do so. But if He knew all that He made, He made only those things which He had known. Whence flows a very striking but true conclusion, that this world could not be known to us unless it existed, but could not have existed unless it had been known to God.
--
From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results from a combination of these two things, namely, that it uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it be delivered from all dubiety, and know certainly that it shall eternally abide in the same enjoyment. That it is so with the angels of light we piously believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default lost that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they sinned, reason bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of any duration before they fell, we must allow them a blessedness of some kind, though not that which is accompanied with foresight. Or, if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels were created, some were created in ignorance either of their perseverance or their fall, while others were most certainly assured of the eternity of their felicity,if it is hard to believe that they were not all from the beginning on an equal footing, until these who are now evil did of their own will fall away from the light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to believe that the holy angels are now uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and do not know regarding themselves as much as we have been able to gather regarding them from the Holy Scriptures. For what catholic Christian does not know that no new devil will ever arise among the good angels, as he knows that this present devil will never again return into the[Pg 453] fellowship of the good? For the truth in the gospel promises to the Saints and the faithful that they will be equal to the angels of God; and it is also promised them that they will "go away into life eternal."[469] But if we are certain that we shall never lapse from eternal felicity, while they are not certain, then we shall not be their equals, but their superiors. But as the truth never deceives, and as we shall be their equals, they must be certain of their blessedness. And because the evil angels could not be certain of that, since their blessedness was destined to come to an end, it follows either that the angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the good angels were assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the perdition of the others; unless, possibly, some one may say that the words of the Lord about the devil, "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,"[470] are to be understood as if he was not only a murderer from the beginning of the human race, when man, whom he could kill by his deceit, was made, but also that he did not abide in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was accordingly never blessed with the holy angels, but refused to submit to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived and deceiving. For the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded; and he who will not piously submit himself to things as they are, proudly feigns, and mocks himself with a state of things that does not exist; so that what the blessed Apostle John says thus becomes intelligible: "The devil sinneth from the beginning,"[471]that is, from the time he was created he refused righteousness which none but a will piously subject to God can enjoy. Whoever adopts this opinion at least disagrees with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other pestilential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from some adverse evil principle a nature proper to himself. These persons are so befooled by error, that, although they acknowledge with ourselves the authority of the gospels, they do not notice that the Lord did not say, "The devil was naturally a stranger to the truth," but "The devil abode not in the truth," by which He meant us to understand that he[Pg 454] had fallen from the truth, in which, if he had abode, he would have become a partaker of it, and have remained in blessedness along with the holy angels.[472]
14. An explanation of what is said of the devil, that he did not abide in the truth, because the truth was not in him.
BOOK XIII. - That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For He who said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,"[581] made also an exception in their favour, in that other sentence where He no less absolutely said, "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven;"[582] and in another place, "Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it."[583] And this explains the verse, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."[584] For what is more precious than a death by which a man's sins are all forgiven, and his merits increased an hundredfold? For those who have been baptized when they could no longer escape death, and have departed this life with all their sins blotted out, have not equal merit with those who did not defer death, though it was in their power to do so, but preferred to end their life by confessing Christ, rather than by denying Him to secure an opportunity of baptism. And even had they denied Him under pressure of the fear of death, this too would have been forgiven them in that baptism, in which was remitted even the enormous wickedness of those who had slain Christ. But how abundant in these men must have been the grace of the Spirit, who breathes where He listeth, seeing that they so dearly loved Christ as to be unable to deny Him even in so sore an emergency, and with so sure a hope of pardon! Precious, therefore, is the death of the Saints, to[Pg 528] whom the grace of Christ has been applied with such gracious effects, that they do not hesitate to meet death themselves, if so be they might meet Him. And precious is it, also, because it has proved that what was originally ordained for the punishment of the sinner, has been used for the production of a richer harvest of righteousness. But not on this account should we look upon death as a good thing, for it is diverted to such useful purposes, not by any virtue of its own, but by the divine interference. Death was originally proposed as an object of dread, that sin might not be committed; now it must be undergone that sin may not be committed, or, if committed, be remitted, and the award of righteousness bestowed on him whose victory has earned it.
8. That the Saints, by suffering the first death for the truth's sake, are freed from the second.
For if we look at the matter a little more carefully, we shall see that even when a man dies faithfully and laudably for the truth's sake, it is still death he is avoiding. For he submits to some part of death, for the very purpose of avoiding the whole, and the second and eternal death over and above. He submits to the separation of soul and body, lest the soul be separated both from God and from the body, and so the whole first death be completed, and the second death receive him everlastingly. Wherefore death is indeed, as I said, good to none while it is being actually suffered, and while it is subduing the dying to its power; but it is meritoriously endured for the sake of retaining or winning what is good. And regarding what happens after death, it is no absurdity to say that death is good to the good, and evil to the evil. For the disembodied spirits of the just are at rest; but those of the wicked suffer punishment till their bodies rise again,those of the just to life everlasting, and of the others to death eternal, which is called the second death.
--
But it is necessary, they say, that the natural weight of earthly bodies either keep them on earth or draw them to it; and therefore they cannot be in heaven. Our first parents were indeed on earth, in a well-wooded and fruitful spot, which has been named Paradise. But let our adversaries a little more carefully consider this subject of earthly weight, because it has important bearings, both on the ascension of the body of Christ, and also on the resurrection body of the Saints. If human skill can by some contrivance fabricate vessels that float, out of metals which sink as soon as they are placed on the water, how much more credible is it that God, by some occult mode of operation, should even more certainly effect that these earthy masses be emancipated from the downward pressure of their weight? This cannot be impossible to that God by whose almighty will, according to[Pg 541] Plato, neither things born perish, nor things composed dissolve, especially since it is much more wonderful that spiritual and bodily essences be conjoined than that bodies be adjusted to other material substances. Can we not also easily believe that souls, being made perfectly blessed, should be endowed with the power of moving their earthy but incorruptible bodies as they please, with almost spontaneous movement, and of placing them where they please with the readiest action? If the angels transport whatever terrestrial creatures they please from any place they please, and convey them whither they please, is it to be believed that they cannot do so without toil and the feeling of burden? Why, then, may we not believe that the spirits of the Saints, made perfect and blessed by divine grace, can carry their own bodies where they please, and set them where they will? For, though we have been accustomed to notice, in bearing weights, that the larger the quantity the greater the weight of earthy bodies is, and that the greater the weight the more burdensome it is, yet the soul carries the members of its own flesh with less difficulty when they are massive with health, than in sickness when they are wasted. And though the hale and strong man feels heavier to other men carrying him than the lank and sickly, yet the man himself moves and carries his own body with less feeling of burden when he has the greater bulk of vigorous health, than when his frame is reduced to a minimum by hunger or disease. Of such consequence, in estimating the weight of earthly bodies, even while yet corruptible and mortal, is the consideration not of dead weight, but of the healthy equilibrium of the parts. And what words can tell the difference between what we now call health and future immortality? Let not the philosophers, then, think to upset our faith with arguments from the weight of bodies; for I don't care to inquire why they cannot believe an earthly body can be in heaven, while the whole earth is suspended on nothing. For perhaps the world keeps its central place by the same law that attracts to its centre all heavy bodies. But this I say, if the lesser gods, to whom Plato committed the creation of man and the other terrestrial creatures, were able, as he affirms, to withdraw from the fire its quality of burning, while[Pg 542] they left it that of lighting, so that it should shine through the eyes; and if to the supreme God Plato also concedes the power of preserving from death things that have been born, and of preserving from dissolution things that are composed of parts so different as body and spirit;are we to hesitate to concede to this same God the power to operate on the flesh of him whom He has endowed with immortality, so as to withdraw its corruption but leave its nature, remove its burdensome weight but retain its seemly form and members? But concerning our belief in the resurrection of the dead, and concerning their immortal bodies, we shall speak more at large, God willing, in the end of this work.
19. Against the opinion of those who do not believe that the primitive men would have been immortal if they had not sinned.
At present let us go on, as we have begun, to give some explanation regarding the bodies of our first parents. I say then, that, except as the just consequence of sin, they would not have been subjected even to this death, which is good to the good,this death, which is not exclusively known and believed in by a few, but is known to all, by which soul and body are separated, and by which the body of an animal which was but now visibly living is now visibly dead. For though there can be no manner of doubt that the souls of the just and holy dead live in peaceful rest, yet so much better would it be for them to be alive in healthy, well-conditioned bodies, that even those who hold the tenet that it is most blessed to be quit of every kind of body, condemn this opinion in spite of themselves. For no one will dare to set wise men, whether yet to die or already dead,in other words, whether already quit of the body, or shortly to be so,above the immortal gods, to whom the Supreme, in Plato, promises as a munificent gift life indissoluble, or in eternal union with their bodies. But this same Plato thinks that nothing better can happen to men than that they pass through life piously and justly, and, being separated from their bodies, be received into the bosom of the gods, who never abandon theirs; "that, oblivious of the past, they may revisit the upper air, and conceive the longing to return again to the body."[597] Virgil[Pg 543] is applauded for borrowing this from the Platonic system. Assuredly Plato thinks that the souls of mortals cannot always be in their bodies, but must necessarily be dismissed by death; and, on the other hand, he thinks that without bodies they cannot endure for ever, but with ceaseless alternation pass from life to death, and from death to life. This difference, however, he sets between wise men and the rest, that they are carried after death to the stars, that each man may repose for a while in a star suitable for him, and may thence return to the labours and miseries of mortals when he has become oblivious of his former misery, and possessed with the desire of being embodied. Those, again, who have lived foolishly transmigrate into bodies fit for them, whether human or bestial. Thus he has appointed even the good and wise souls to a very hard lot indeed, since they do not receive such bodies as they might always and even immortally inhabit, but such only as they can neither permanently retain nor enjoy eternal purity without. Of this notion of Plato's, we have in a former book already said[598] that Porphyry was ashamed in the light of these Christian times, so that he not only emancipated human souls from a destiny in the bodies of beasts, but also contended for the liberation of the souls of the wise from all bodily ties, so that, escaping from all flesh, they might, as bare and blessed souls, dwell with the Father time without end. And that he might not seem to be outbid by Christ's promise of life everlasting to His saints, he also established purified souls in endless felicity, without return to their former woes; but, that he might contradict Christ, he denies the resurrection of incorruptible bodies, and maintains that these souls will live eternally, not only without earthly bodies, but without any bodies at all. And yet, whatever he meant by this teaching, he at least did not teach that these souls should offer no religious observance to the gods who dwelt in bodies. And why did he not, unless because he did not believe that the souls, even though separate from the body, were superior to those gods? Wherefore, if these philosophers will not dare (as I think they will not) to set human souls above the gods who are most blessed, and yet are tied eternally[Pg 544] to their bodies, why do they find that absurd which the Christian faith preaches,[599] namely, that our first parents were so created that, if they had not sinned, they would not have been dismissed from their bodies by any death, but would have been endowed with immortality as the reward of their obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies; and further, that the Saints will in the resurrection inhabit those very bodies in which they have here toiled, but in such sort that neither shall any corruption or unwieldiness be suffered to attach to their flesh, nor any grief or trouble to cloud their felicity?
20. That the flesh now resting in peace shall be raised to a perfection not enjoyed by the flesh of our first parents.
--
These things can also and more profitably be understood of the Church, so that they become prophetic foreshadowings of things to come. Thus Paradise is the Church, as it is called in the Canticles;[603] the four rivers of Paradise are the four gospels; the fruit-trees the Saints, and the fruit their works; the tree of life is the holy of holies, Christ; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the will's free choice. For if man despise the will of God, he can only destroy himself; and so he learns the difference between consecrating himself to the common good and revelling in his own. For he who loves himself is abandoned to himself, in order that, being overwhelmed with fears and sorrows, he may cry, if there be yet soul in him to feel his ills, in the words of the psalm, "My soul is cast down within me,"[604] and when chastened, may say, "Because of his strength I will wait upon Thee."[605] These and similar allegorical interpretations may be suitably put upon Paradise without giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative of facts.[606]
22. That the bodies of the Saints shall after the resurrection be spiritual, and yet flesh shall not be changed into spirit.
The bodies of the righteous, then, such as they shall be in the resurrection, shall need neither any fruit to preserve them from dying of disease or the wasting decay of old age, nor any other physical nourishment to allay the cravings of hunger or of thirst; for they shall be invested with so sure and every[Pg 547] way inviolable an immortality, that they shall not eat save when they choose, nor be under the necessity of eating, while they enjoy the power of doing so. For so also was it with the angels who presented themselves to the eye and touch of men, not because they could do no otherwise, but because they were able and desirous to suit themselves to men by a kind of manhood ministry. For neither are we to suppose, when men receive them as guests, that the angels eat only in appearance, though to any who did not know them to be angels they might seem to eat from the same necessity as ourselves. So these words spoken in the Book of Tobit, "You saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision;"[607] that is, you thought I took food as you do for the sake of refreshing my body. But if in the case of the angels another opinion seems more capable of defence, certainly our faith leaves no room to doubt regarding our Lord Himself, that even after His resurrection, and when now in spiritual but yet real flesh, He ate and drank with His disciples; for not the power, but the need, of eating and drinking is taken from these bodies. And so they will be spiritual, not because they shall cease to be bodies, but because they shall subsist by the quickening spirit.
BOOK XII. - Of the creation of angels and men, and of the origin of evil, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and whether these times which are called "ages of ages" are joined together in a continuous series, and succeed one another with a regulated diversity, and leave exempt from their vicissitudes only those who are freed from their misery, and abide without end in a blessed immortality; or whether these are called "ages of ages," that we may understand that the ages remain unchangeable in God's unwavering wisdom, and are the efficient causes, as it were, of those ages which are being spent in time.[Pg 509] Possibly "ages" is used for "age," so that nothing else is meant by "ages of ages" than by "age of age," as nothing else is meant by "heavens of heavens" than by "heaven of heaven." For God called the firmament, above which are the waters, "Heaven," and yet the psalm says, "Let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord."[557] Which of these two meanings we are to attach to "ages of ages," or whether there is not some other and better meaning still, is a very profound question; and the subject we are at present handling presents no obstacle to our meanwhile deferring the discussion of it, whether we may be able to determine anything about it, or may only be made more cautious by its further treatment, so as to be deterred from making any rash affirmations in a matter of such obscurity. For at present we are disputing the opinion that affirms the existence of those periodic revolutions by which the same things are always recurring at intervals of time. Now, whichever of these suppositions regarding the "ages of ages" be the true one, it avails nothing for the substantiating of those cycles; for whether the ages of ages be not a repetition of the same world, but different worlds succeeding one another in a regulated connection, the ransomed souls abiding in well-assured bliss without any recurrence of misery, or whether the ages of ages be the eternal causes which rule what shall be and is in time, it equally follows, that those cycles which bring round the same things have no existence; and nothing more thoroughly explodes them than the fact of the eternal life of the Saints.
20. Of the impiety of those who assert that the souls which enjoy true and perfect blessedness, must yet again and again in these periodic revolutions return to labour and misery.
BOOK XIV. - Of the punishment and results of mans first sin, and of the propagation of man without lust, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
yet we believe quite otherwise. For the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause but the punishment of the first sin; and it was not the corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible. And though from this corruption of the flesh there arise certain incitements to vice, and indeed vicious desires, yet we must not attri bute to the flesh all the vices of a wicked life, in case we thereby clear the devil of all these, for he has no flesh. For though we cannot call the devil a fornicator or drunkard, or ascribe to him any sensual indulgence (though he is the secret instigator and prompter of those who sin in these ways), yet he is exceedingly proud and envious. And this viciousness has so possessed him, that on account of it he is reserved in chains of darkness to everlasting punishment.[14] Now these vices, which have dominion over the devil, the apostle attri butes to the flesh, which certainly the devil has not. For he says "hatred, variance, emulations, strife, envying" are the works of the flesh; and of all these evils pride is the origin and head, and it rules in the devil though he has no flesh. For who shows more hatred to the Saints? who is more at[Pg 6] variance with them? who more envious, bitter, and jealous? And since he exhibits all these works, though he has no flesh, how are they works of the flesh, unless because they are the works of man, who is, as I said, spoken of under the name of flesh? For it is not by having flesh, which the devil has not, but by living according to himself,that is, according to man,that man became like the devil. For the devil too, wished to live according to himself when he did not abide in the truth; so that when he lied, this was not of God, but of himself, who is not only a liar, but the father of lies, he being the first who lied, and the originator of lying as of sin.
4. What it is to live according to man, and what to live according to God.
--
But it is a fair question, whether our first parent or first parents (for there was a marriage of two), before they sinned, experienced in their animal body such emotions as we shall not experience in the spiritual body when sin has been[Pg 21] purged and finally abolished. For if they did, then how were they blessed in that boasted place of bliss, Paradise? For who that is affected by fear or grief can be called absolutely blessed? And what could those persons fear or suffer in such affluence of blessings, where neither death nor ill-health was feared, and where nothing was wanting which a good will could desire, and nothing present which could interrupt man's mental or bodily enjoyment? Their love to God was unclouded, and their mutual affection was that of faithful and sincere marriage; and from this love flowed a wonderful delight, because they always enjoyed what was loved. Their avoidance of sin was tranquil; and, so long as it was maintained, no other ill at all could invade them and bring sorrow. Or did they perhaps desire to touch and eat the forbidden fruit, yet feared to die; and thus both fear and desire already, even in that blissful place, preyed upon those first of mankind? Away with the thought that such could be the case where there was no sin! And, indeed, this is already sin, to desire those things which the law of God forbids, and to abstain from them through fear of punishment, not through love of righteousness. Away, I say, with the thought, that before there was any sin, there should already have been committed regarding that fruit the very sin which our Lord warns us against regarding a woman: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."[84] As happy, then, as were these our first parents, who were agitated by no mental perturbations, and annoyed by no bodily discomforts, so happy should the whole human race have been, had they not introduced that evil which they have transmitted to their posterity, and had none of their descendants committed iniquity worthy of damnation; but this original blessedness continuing until, in virtue of that benediction which said, "Increase and multiply,"[85] the number of the predestined saints should have been completed, there would then have been bestowed that higher felicity which is enjoyed by the most blessed angels,a blessedness in which there should have been a secure assurance that no one would sin, and no[Pg 22] one die; and so should the Saints have lived, after no taste of labour, pain, or death, as now they shall live in the resurrection, after they have endured all these things.
11. Of the fall of the first man, in whom nature was created good, and can be restored only by its Author.
--
But he who says that there should have been neither copulation nor generation but for sin, virtually says that man's sin was necessary to complete the number of the Saints. For if these two by not sinning should have continued to live alone, because, as is supposed, they could not have begotten children had they not sinned, then certainly sin was necessary in order that there might be not only two but many righteous men. And if this cannot be maintained without absurdity, we must rather believe that the number of the Saints fit to complete this most blessed city would have been as great though no one had sinned, as it is now that the grace of God gathers its citizens out of the multitude of sinners, so long as the children of this world generate and are generated.[118]
And therefore that marriage, worthy of the happiness of Paradise, should have had desirable fruit without the shame of lust, had there been no sin. But how that could be, there is now no example to teach us. Nevertheless, it ought not to seem incredible that one member might serve the will without lust then, since so many serve it now. Do we now move our feet and hands when we will to do the things we would by means of these members? do we meet with no resistance in them, but perceive that they are ready servants of the will, both in our own case and in that of others, and especially of artisans employed in mechanical operations, by which the weakness and clumsiness of nature become, through industrious exercise, wonderfully dexterous? and shall we not believe that, like as all those members obediently serve the will, so also should the members have discharged the function of generation, though lust, the award of disobedience, had been awanting? Did not Cicero, in discussing the difference of governments in his De Republica, adopt a simile from human[Pg 40] nature, and say that we comm and our bodily members as children, they are so obedient; but that the vicious parts of the soul must be treated as slaves, and be coerced with a more stringent authority? And no doubt, in the order of nature, the soul is more excellent than the body; and yet the soul commands the body more easily than itself. Nevertheless this lust, of which we at present speak, is the more shameful on this account, because the soul is therein neither master of itself, so as not to lust at all, nor of the body, so as to keep the members under the control of the will; for if they were thus ruled, there should be no shame. But now the soul is ashamed that the body, which by nature is inferior and subject to it, should resist its authority. For in the resistance experienced by the soul in the other emotions there is less shame, because the resistance is from itself, and thus, when it is conquered by itself, itself is the conqueror, although the conquest is inordinate and vicious, because accomplished by those parts of the soul which ought to be subject to reason, yet, being accomplished by its own parts and energies, the conquest is, as I say, its own. For when the soul conquers itself to a due subordination, so that its unreasonable motions are controlled by reason, while it again is subject to God, this is a conquest virtuous and praiseworthy. Yet there is less shame when the soul is resisted by its own vicious parts than when its will and order are resisted by the body, which is distinct from and inferior to it, and dependent on it for life itself.
--
The sins of men and angels do nothing to impede the "great works of the Lord which accomplish His will."[125] For He who by His providence and omnipotence distributes to every one his own portion, is able to make good use not only of the good, but also of the wicked. And thus making a good use of the wicked angel, who, in punishment of his first wicked volition, was doomed to an obduracy that prevents him now from willing any good, why should not God have permitted him to tempt the first man, who had been created upright, that is to say, with a good will? For he had been so constituted, that if he looked to God for help, man's goodness should defeat the angel's wickedness; but if by proud self-pleasing he abandoned God, his Creator and Sustainer, he should be conquered. If his will remained upright, through leaning on God's help, he should be rewarded; if it became wicked, by forsaking God, he should be punished. But even this trusting in God's help could not itself be accomplished without God's help, although man had it in his own power to relinquish the benefits of divine grace by pleasing himself. For as it is not in our power to live in this world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our power to refuse this nourishment and cease to live, as those[Pg 47] do who kill themselves, so it was not in man's power, even in Paradise, to live as he ought without God's help; but it was in his power to live wickedly, though thus he should cut short his happiness, and incur very just punishment. Since, then, God was not ignorant that man would fall, why should He not have suffered him to be tempted by an angel who hated and envied him? It was not, indeed, that He was unaware that he should be conquered, but because He foresaw that by the man's seed, aided by divine grace, this same devil himself should be conquered, to the greater glory of the Saints. All was brought about in such a manner, that neither did any future event escape God's foreknowledge, nor did His foreknowledge compel any one to sin, and so as to demonstrate in the experience of the intelligent creation, human and angelic, how great a difference there is between the private presumption of the creature and the Creator's protection. For who will dare to believe or say that it was not in God's power to prevent both angels and men from sinning? But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by His grace.
28. Of the nature of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly.
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, "Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head."[126] In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, "I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength."[127] And therefore the wise men of the one[Pg 48] city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God "glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,"that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,"they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, "and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."[128] But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the Saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, "that God may be all in all."[129]
[Pg 49]
BOOK XIX. - A review of the philosophical opinions regarding the Supreme Good, and a comparison of these opinions with the Christian belief regarding happiness, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this work) either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the Saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds in[Pg 308] the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one of their comic writers makes one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in this matter: "I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they are additional cares."[629] What shall I say of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts"slights, suspicions, quarrels, war to-day, peace to-morrow?"[630] Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often occur even in honourable friendships? On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant of what it might be to-morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly than those who live in the same family? And yet who can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the words of Cicero so move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh: "There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine it."[631] It is also to this that allusion is made by the divine saying, "A man's foes are those of his own household,"[632]words which one cannot hear without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have always been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a malicious disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is never[Pg 309] free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?
6. Of the error of human judgments when the truth is hidden.
--
10. The reward prepared for the Saints after they have endured the trial of this life.
But not even the Saints and faithful worshippers of the one true and most high God are safe from the manifold temptations and deceits of the demons. For in this abode of weakness, and in these wicked days, this state of anxiety has also its use, stimulating us to seek with keener longing for that security where peace is complete and unassailable. There we shall enjoy the gifts of nature, that is to say, all that God the Creator of all natures has bestowed upon ours,gifts not only good, but eternal,not only of the spirit, healed now by wisdom, but also of the body renewed by the resurrection. There the virtues shall no longer be struggling against any vice or evil, but shall enjoy the reward of victory, the eternal peace which no adversary shall disturb. This is the final blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending end. Here, indeed, we are said to be blessed when we have such peace as can be enjoyed in a good life; but such blessedness is mere misery compared to that final felicity. When we mortals possess such peace as this mortal life can afford, virtue, if we are living rightly, makes a right use of the advantages of this peaceful condition; and when we have it not, virtue makes a good use even of the evils a man suffers. But this is true virtue, when it refers all the advantages it makes a good use of, and all that it does in making good use of good and evil things, and itself also, to that end in which we shall enjoy the best and greatest peace possible.
11. Of the happiness of the eternal peace, which constitutes the end or true perfection of the Saints.
And thus we may say of peace, as we have said of eternal life, that it is the end of our good; and the rather because the Psalmist says of the city of God, the subject of this laborious work, "Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion: for He hath streng thened the bars of thy gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee; who hath made thy borders peace."[638] For when the bars of her gates shall be streng thened, none shall go in or come out from her; consequently we ought to understand the peace of her borders as[Pg 315] that final peace we are wishing to declare. For even the mystical name of the city itself, that is, Jerusalem, means, as I have already said, "Vision of Peace." But as the word peace is employed in connection with things in this world in which certainly life eternal has no place, we have preferred to call the end or supreme good of this city life eternal rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says, "But now, being freed from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end life eternal."[639] But, on the other hand, as those who are not familiar with Scripture may suppose that the life of the wicked is eternal life, either because of the immortality of the soul, which some of the philosophers even have recognised, or because of the endless punishment of the wicked, which forms a part of our faith, and which seems impossible unless the wicked live for ever, it may therefore be advisable, in order that every one may readily understand what we mean, to say that the end or supreme good of this city is either peace in eternal life, or eternal life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying. So that if we dwell for a little longer on this subject, we shall not, in my opinion, be wearisome to our readers, who will attend both for the sake of understanding what is the end of this city of which we speak, and for the sake of the sweetness of peace which is dear to all.
--
20. That the Saints are in this life blessed in hope.
Since, then, the supreme good of the city of God is perfect and eternal peace, not such as mortals pass into and out of by birth and death, but the peace of freedom from all evil, in which the immortals ever abide, who can deny that that future life is most blessed, or that, in comparison with it, this life which now we live is most wretched, be it filled with all blessings of body and soul and external things? And yet, if any man uses this life with a reference to that other which he ardently loves and confidently hopes for, he may well be called even now blessed, though not in reality so much as in hope. But the actual possession of the happiness of this life, without the hope of what is beyond, is but a false happiness and profound misery. For the true blessings of the soul are not now enjoyed; for that is no true wisdom which does not direct all its prudent observations, manly actions, virtuous self-restraint, and just arrangements, to that end in which God shall be all and all in a secure eternity and perfect peace.
--
When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself to the Christians as a fatal gift, that they might be involved in error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error. But before I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give Himself to the Christians to involve them in error, did He do so willingly, or against His will? If willingly, how is He righteous? If against His will, how is He blessed? However, let us hear the causes of this error. "There are," he says, "in a certain place very small earthly spirits, subject to the power of evil demons. The wise men of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from the oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from these very wicked demons and minor spirits, and taught them rather to worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the Father. This," he said, "the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they admonish the soul to turn to God, and comm and it to worship Him. But the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not destined to receive favours from the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the gods and their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused to hate, but have venerated the prohibited demons. Professing to worship God, they refuse to do those things by which alone God is worshipped. For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing; but for us it is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, and thus to make life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating His nature. For inquiry," says he, "purifies and imitation deifies us, by moving us nearer to Him." He is right in so far as he proclaims God the Father, and the conduct by which we should worship Him. Of such precepts the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame the life of the Saints. But in speaking of the Christians he is in error,[Pg 338] and calumniates them as much as is desired by the demons whom he takes for gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and shameful actions which used to be done in the theatres and temples to please the gods, and to compare with these things what is heard in our churches, and what is offered to the true God, and from this comparison to conclude where character is edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a diabolical spirit has told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a lie, as that the Christians reverenced rather than hated the demons, whose worship the Hebrews prohibited? But that God, whom the Hebrew sages worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of heaven and divine powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and love as our most blessed fellow-citizens. For in the law which God gave to His Hebrew people He utters this menace, as in a voice of thunder: "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed."[659] And that no one might suppose that this prohibition extends only to the very wicked demons and earthly spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and inferior,for even these are in the Scripture called gods, not of the Hebrews, but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators have shown in the psalm where it is said, "For all the gods of the nations are demons,"[660]that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to these demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all or some of the celestials, it was immediately added, "save unto the Lord alone."[661] The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this renowned philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew people a law, composed in the Hebrew language, and not obscure and unknown, but published now in every nation, and in this law it is written, "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord alone, he shall be utterly destroyed." What need is there to seek further proofs in the law or the prophets of this same thing? Seek, we need not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but what need to collect[Pg 339] and apply to my argument the proofs which are thickly sown and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that sacrifice may be paid to none but the supreme and true God? Here is one brief but decided, even menacing, and certainly true utterance of that God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol. Let this be listened to, feared, fulfilled, that there may be no disobedient soul cut off. "He that sacrifices," He says, not because He needs anything, but because it behoves us to be His possession. Hence the Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings, "I have said to the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou needest not my good."[662] For we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and worthy sacrifice, and it is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices, which are well known to the faithful, as we have explained in the preceding books. For through the prophets the oracles of God declared that the sacrifices which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be would cease, and that the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun, would offer one sacrifice. From these oracles, which we now see accomplished, we have made such selections as seemed suitable to our purpose in this work. And therefore, where there is not this righteousness whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient city according to His grace, so that it sacrifices to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens of this obedient city, the soul consequently rules the body and reason the vices in the rightful order, so that, as the individual just man, so also the community and people of the just, live by faith, which works by love, that love whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbour as himself,there, I say, there is not an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of interests. But if there is not this, there is not a people, if our definition be true, and therefore there is no republic; for where there is no people there can be no republic.
24. The definition which must be given of a people and a republic, in order to vindicate the assumption of these titles by the Romans and by other kingdoms.
BOOK X. - Porphyrys doctrine of redemption, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Thus a true sacrifice is every work which is done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a reference to that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed.[385] And therefore even the mercy we show to men, if it is not shown for God's sake, is not a sacrifice. For, though made or offered by man, sacrifice is a divine thing, as those who called it sacrifice[386] meant to indicate. Thus man himself, consecrated in the name of God, and vowed to God, is a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the world that he may live to God. For this is a part of that mercy which each man shows to himself; as it is written, "Have mercy on thy soul by pleasing God."[387] Our body, too, is a sacrifice when we chasten it by temperance, if we do so as we ought, for God's sake, that we may not yield our members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but instruments of righteousness unto God.[388] Exhorting to this sacrifice, the apostle says, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."[389] If, then, the body, which, being inferior, the soul uses as a servant or instrument, is a sacrifice when it is used rightly, and with reference to God, how much more does the soul itself become[Pg 391] a sacrifice when it offers itself to God, in order that, being inflamed by the fire of His love, it may receive of His beauty and become pleasing to Him, losing the shape of earthly desire, and being remoulded in the image of permanent loveliness? And this, indeed, the apostle subjoins, saying, "And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."[390] Since, therefore, true sacrifices are works of mercy to ourselves or others, done with a reference to God, and since works of mercy have no other object than the relief of distress or the conferring of happiness, and since there is no happiness apart from that good of which it is said, "It is good for me to be very near to God,"[391] it follows that the whole redeemed city, that is to say, the congregation or community of the Saints, is offered to God as our sacrifice through the great High Priest, who offered Himself to God in His passion for us, that we might be members of this glorious head, according to the form of a servant. For it was this form He offered, in this He was offered, because it is according to it He is Mediator, in this He is our Priest, in this the Sacrifice. Accordingly, when the apostle had exhorted us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, our reasonable service, and not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed in the renewing of our mind, that we might prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God, that is to say, the true sacrifice of ourselves, he says, "For I say, through the grace of God which is given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For, as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another, having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us."[392] This is the sacrifice of Christians: we, being many, are one body in Christ. And this also is the sacrifice which the Church continually celebrates in the sacrament of the altar, known to the faithful, in which[Pg 392] she teaches that she herself is offered in the offering she makes to God.
7. Of the love of the holy angels, which prompts them to desire that we worship the one true God, and not themselves.
--
And hence that true Mediator, in so far as, by assuming the form of a servant, He became the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, though in the form of God He received sacrifice together with the Father, with whom He is one God, yet in the form of a servant He chose rather to[Pg 411] be than to receive a sacrifice, that not even by this instance any one might have occasion to suppose that sacrifice should be rendered to any creature. Thus He is both the Priest who offers and the Sacrifice offered. And He designed that there should be a daily sign of this in the sacrifice of the Church, which, being His body, learns to offer herself through Him. Of this true Sacrifice the ancient sacrifices of the Saints were the various and numerous signs; and it was thus variously figured, just as one thing is signified by a variety of words, that there may be less weariness when we speak of it much. To this supreme and true sacrifice all false sacrifices have given place.
21. Of the power delegated to demons for the trial and glorification of the Saints, who conquer not by propitiating the spirits of the air, but by abiding in God.
The power delegated to the demons at certain appointed and well-adjusted seasons, that they may give expression to their hostility to the city of God by stirring up against it the men who are under their influence, and may not only receive sacrifice from those who willingly offer it, but may also extort it from the unwilling by violent persecution;this power is found to be not merely harmless, but even useful to the Church, completing as it does the number of martyrs, whom the city of God esteems as all the more illustrious and honoured citizens, because they have striven even to blood against the sin of impiety. If the ordinary language of the Church allowed it, we might more elegantly call these men our heroes. For this name is said to be derived from Juno, who in Greek is called Hr, and hence, according to the Greek myths, one of her sons was called Heros. And these fables mystically signified that Juno was mistress of the air, which they suppose to be inhabited by the demons and the heroes, understanding by heroes the souls of the well-deserving dead. But for a quite opposite reason would we call our martyrs heroes,supposing, as I said, that the usage of ecclesiastical language would admit of it,not because they lived along with the demons in the air, but because they conquered these demons or powers of the air, and among them Juno herself, be she what she may, not[Pg 412] unsuitably represented, as she commonly is by the poets, as hostile to virtue, and jealous of men of mark aspiring to the heavens. Virgil, however, unhappily gives way, and yields to her; for, though he represents her as saying, "I am conquered by neas,"[409] Helenus gives neas himself this religious advice:
--
22. Whence the Saints derive power against demons and true purification of heart.
It is by true piety that men of God cast out the hostile power of the air which opposes godliness; it is by exorcising it, not by propitiating it; and they overcome all the temptations of the adversary by praying, not to him, but to their own God against him. For the devil cannot conquer or subdue any but those who are in league with sin; and therefore he is conquered in the name of Him who assumed humanity, and that without sin, that Himself being both Priest and Sacrifice, He might bring about the remission of sins, that is to say, might bring it about through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, by whom we are reconciled to God, the cleansing from sin being accomplished.[Pg 413] For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the divine compassion; through His indulgence, not through our own power. For, whatever virtue we call our own is itself bestowed upon us by His goodness. And we might attri bute too much to ourselves while in the flesh, unless we lived in the receipt of pardon until we laid it down. This is the reason why there has been vouchsafed to us, through the Mediator, this grace, that we who are polluted by sinful flesh should be cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh. By this grace of God, wherein He has shown His great compassion toward us, we are both governed by faith in this life, and, after this life, are led onwards to the fullest perfection by the vision of immutable truth.
--
25. That all the Saints, both under the law and before it, were justified by faith in the mystery of Christ's incarnation.
It was by faith in this mystery, and godliness of life, that purification was attainable even by the Saints of old, whether before the law was given to the Hebrews (for God and the angels were even then present as instructors), or in the periods under the law, although the promises of spiritual things, being presented in figure, seemed to be carnal, and hence the name of Old Testament. For it was then the prophets lived, by whom, as by angels, the same promise was announced; and among them was he whose grand and divine sentiment regarding the end and supreme good of man I have just now quoted, "It is good for me to cleave to God."[418] In this psalm the distinction between the Old and New Testaments is distinctly announced. For the Psalmist says, that when he saw that the carnal and earthly promises were abundantly enjoyed by the ungodly, his feet were almost gone, his steps had well-nigh slipped; and that it seemed to him as if he had served God in vain, when he saw that those who despised God increased in that prosperity which he looked for at God's hand. He says, too, that, in investigating this matter with the desire of understanding why it was so, he had laboured in vain, until he went into the sanctuary of God, and understood the end of those whom he had erroneously considered happy. Then he understood that they were cast down by that very thing, as he says, which they had made their boast, and that they had been consumed and perished for their iniquities; and that that whole fabric of temporal prosperity had become as a dream when one awaketh, and suddenly finds himself destitute of all the joys he had imaged in sleep. And, as in this earth or earthy city they seemed to themselves to be great, he says, "O Lord, in Thy city Thou wilt reduce their image to nothing." He also shows how beneficial it had been for him to seek even earthly blessings only from the one true God, in whose power are all things, for he says, "As a beast was I before Thee, and I am always with Thee." "As a beast," he says, meaning that he was stupid. For I ought to have sought from Thee such things as the ungodly could[Pg 417] not enjoy as well as I, and not those things which I saw them enjoying in abundance, and hence concluded I was serving Thee in vain, because they who declined to serve Thee had what I had not. Nevertheless, "I am always with Thee," because even in my desire for such things I did not pray to other gods. And consequently he goes on, "Thou hast holden me by my right hand, and by Thy counsel Thou hast guided me, and with glory hast taken me up;" as if all earthly advantages were left-hand blessings, though, when he saw them enjoyed by the wicked, his feet had almost gone. "For what," he says, "have I in heaven, and what have I desired from Thee upon earth?" He blames himself, and is justly displeased with himself; because, though he had in heaven so vast a possession (as he afterwards understood), he yet sought from his God on earth a transitory and fleeting happiness,a happiness of mire, we may say. "My heart and my flesh," he says, "fail, O God of my heart." Happy failure, from things below to things above! And hence in another psalm he says, "My soul longeth, yea, even faileth, for the courts of the Lord."[419] Yet, though he had said of both his heart and his flesh that they were failing, he did not say, O God of my heart and my flesh, but, O God of my heart; for by the heart the flesh is made clean. Therefore, says the Lord, "Cleanse that which is within, and the outside shall be clean also."[420] He then says that God Himself,not anything received from Him, but Himself,is his portion. "The God of my heart, and my portion for ever." Among the various objects of human choice, God alone satisfied him. "For, lo," he says, "they that are far from Thee shall perish: Thou destroyest all them that go a-whoring from Thee,"that is, who prostitute themselves to many gods. And then follows the verse for which all the rest of the psalm seems to prepare: "It is good for me to cleave to God,"not to go far off; not to go a-whoring with a multitude of gods. And then shall this union with God be perfected, when all that is to be redeemed in us has been redeemed. But for the present we must, as he goes on to say, "place our hope in God." "For that which is seen," says the apostle, "is not hope. For what[Pg 418] a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."[421] Being, then, for the present established in this hope, let us do what the Psalmist further indicates, and become in our measure angels or messengers of God, declaring His will, and praising His glory and His grace. For when he had said, "To place my hope in God," he goes on, "that I may declare all Thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion." This is the most glorious city of God; this is the city which knows and worships one God: she is celebrated by the holy angels, who invite us to their society, and desire us to become fellow-citizens with them in this city; for they do not wish us to worship them as our gods, but to join them in worshipping their God and ours; nor to sacrifice to them, but, together with them, to become a sacrifice to God. Accordingly, whoever will lay aside malignant obstinacy, and consider these things, shall be assured that all these blessed and immortal spirits, who do not envy us (for if they envied they were not blessed), but rather love us, and desire us to be as blessed as themselves, look on us with greater pleasure, and give us greater assistance, when we join them in worshipping one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, than if we were to offer to themselves sacrifice and worship.
26. Of Porphyry's weakness in wavering between the confession of the true God and the worship of demons.
--
But in order to your acquiescence in this truth, it is lowliness that is requisite, and to this it is extremely difficult to bend you. For what is there incredible, especially to men like you, accustomed to speculation, which might have predisposed you to believe in this,what is there incredible, I say, in the assertion that God assumed a human soul and body? You yourselves ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul, which is, after all, the human soul, that you maintain that it can become consubstantial with that intelligence of the Father whom you believe in as the Son of God. What incredible thing is it, then, if some one soul be assumed by Him in an ineffable and unique manner for the salvation of many?[Pg 425] Moreover, our nature itself testifies that a man is incomplete unless a body be united with the soul. This certainly would be more incredible, were it not of all things the most common; for we should more easily believe in a union between spirit and spirit, or, to use your own terminology, between the incorporeal and the incorporeal, even though the one were human, the other divine, the one changeable and the other unchangeable, than in a union between the corporeal and the incorporeal. But perhaps it is the unprecedented birth of a body from a virgin that staggers you? But, so far from this being a difficulty, it ought rather to assist you to receive our religion, that a miraculous person was born miraculously. Or, do you find a difficulty in the fact that, after His body had been given up to death, and had been changed into a higher kind of body by resurrection, and was now no longer mortal but incorruptible, He carried it up into heavenly places? Perhaps you refuse to believe this, because you remember that Porphyry, in these very books from which I have cited so much, and which treat of the return of the soul, so frequently teaches that a body of every kind is to be escaped from, in order that the soul may dwell in blessedness with God. But here, in place of following Porphyry, you ought rather to have corrected him, especially since you agree with him in believing such incredible things about the soul of this visible world and huge material frame. For, as scholars of Plato, you hold that the world is an animal, and a very happy animal, which you wish to be also everlasting. How, then, is it never to be loosed from a body, and yet never lose its happiness, if, in order to the happiness of the soul, the body must be left behind? The sun, too, and the other stars, you not only acknowledge to be bodies, in which you have the cordial assent of all seeing men, but also, in obedience to what you reckon a profounder insight, you declare that they are very blessed animals, and eternal, together with their bodies. Why is it, then, that when the Christian faith is pressed upon you, you forget, or pretend to ignore, what you habitually discuss or teach? Why is it that you refuse to be Christians, on the ground that you hold opinions which, in fact, you yourselves demolish? Is it not because Christ came in lowliness, and ye are proud? The[Pg 426] precise nature of the resurrection bodies of the Saints may sometimes occasion discussion among those who are best read in the Christian Scriptures; yet there is not among us the smallest doubt that they shall be everlasting, and of a nature exemplified in the instance of Christ's risen body. But whatever be their nature, since we maintain that they shall be absolutely incorruptible and immortal, and shall offer no hindrance to the soul's contemplation by which it is fixed in God, and as you say that among the celestials the bodies of the eternally blessed are eternal, why do you maintain that, in order to blessedness, every body must be escaped from? Why do you thus seek such a plausible reason for escaping from the Christian faith, if not because, as I again say, Christ is humble and ye proud? Are ye ashamed to be corrected? This is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a degradation for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the discipleship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think and to say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."[427] The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards bishop of Milan, used to tell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that this opening passage of the holy gospel, entitled "According to John," should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in all churches in the most conspicuous place. But the proud scorn to take God for their Master, because "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."[428] So that, with these miserable creatures, it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could heal them. And, doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more disastrous fall.
30. Porphyry's emendations and modifications of Platonism.
--
As to Porphyry's statement that the universal way of the soul's deliverance had not yet come to his knowledge by any acquaintance he had with history, I would ask, what more remarkable history can be found than that which has taken possession of the whole world by its authoritative voice? or what more trustworthy than that which narrates past events, and predicts the future with equal clearness, and in the unfulfilled predictions of which we are constrained to believe by those that are already fulfilled? For neither Porphyry nor any Platonists can despise divination and prediction, even of things that pertain to this life and earthly matters, though they justly despise ordinary soothsaying and the divination that is connected with magical arts. They deny that these are the predictions of great men, or are to be considered important, and they are right; for they are founded, either on the foresight of subsidiary causes, as to a professional eye much of the course of a disease is foreseen by certain premonitory symptoms, or the unclean demons predict what they have resolved to do, that they may thus work upon the thoughts and desires of the wicked with an appearance of authority, and incline human frailty to imitate their impure actions. It is not such things that the Saints who walk in the universal way care to predict as important, although, for the purpose of commending the faith, they knew and often predicted even such things as could not be detected by human observation, nor be readily verified by experience. But there[Pg 435] were other truly important and divine events which they predicted, in so far as it was given them to know the will of God. For the incarnation of Christ, and all those important marvels that were accomplished in Him, and done in His name; the repentance of men and the conversion of their wills to God; the remission of sins, the grace of righteousness, the faith of the pious, and the multitudes in all parts of the world who believe in the true divinity; the overthrow of idolatry and demon worship, and the testing of the faithful by trials; the purification of those who persevered, and their deliverance from all evil; the day of judgment, the resurrection of the dead, the eternal damnation of the community of the ungodly, and the eternal kingdom of the most glorious city of God, ever-blessed in the enjoyment of the vision of God,these things were predicted and promised in the Scriptures of this way; and of these we see so many fulfilled, that we justly and piously trust that the rest will also come to pass. As for those who do not believe, and consequently do not understand, that this is the way which leads straight to the vision of God and to eternal fellowship with Him, according to the true predictions and statements of the Holy Scriptures, they may storm at our position, but they cannot storm it.
And therefore, in these ten books, though not meeting, I dare say, the expectation of some, yet I have, as the true God and Lord has vouchsafed to aid me, satisfied the desire of certain persons, by refuting the objections of the ungodly, who prefer their own gods to the Founder of the holy city, about which we undertook to speak. Of these ten books, the first five were directed against those who think we should worship the gods for the sake of the blessings of this life, and the second five against those who think we should worship them for the sake of the life which is to be after death. And now, in fulfilment of the promise I made in the first book, I shall go on to say, as God shall aid me, what I think needs to be said regarding the origin, history, and deserved ends of the two cities, which, as already remarked, are in this world commingled and implicated with one another.
BOOK XVIII. - A parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
2. Of the kings and times of the earthly city which were synchronous with the times of the Saints, reckoning from the rise of Abraham.
The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own interests and lusts, while what is longed for either suffices for none, or not for all, because it is not the very thing. For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, preferring any sort of peace and safety to freedom itself; so that they who chose to die rather than be slaves have been greatly wondered at. For in almost all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that those who happen to be conquered should choose rather to be subject to their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike destruction. This does not take place without the providence of God, in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is subdued in war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to kings. Now, among the very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly interest or lust, society is divided (which we call by the general name of the city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct from each other both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the rest, first that of the Assyrians, then that of the Romans. First came the one, then the other. The former arose in the east, and, immediately on its close, the latter in the west. I may speak of other kingdoms and other kings as appendages of these.
--
Wherefore if we read of any foreigner that is, one neither born of Israel nor received by that people into the canon of the sacred bookshaving prophesied something about Christ, if it has come or shall come to our knowledge, we can refer to it over and above; not that this is necessary, even if wanting, but because it is not incongruous to believe that even in other nations there may have been men to whom this mystery was revealed, and who were also impelled to proclaim it, whether they were partakers of the same grace or had no experience of it, but were taught by bad angels, who, as we know, even confessed the present Christ, whom the Jews did not acknowledge. Nor do I think the Jews themselves dare contend that no one has belonged to God except the Israelites, since the increase of Israel began on the rejection of his elder brother. For in very deed there was no other people who were specially called the people of God; but they cannot deny that there have been certain men even of other nations who belonged, not by earthly but heavenly fellowship, to the true Israelites, the citizens of the country that is above. Because, if they deny this, they can be most easily confuted by the case of the holy and wonderful man Job, who was neither a native nor a proselyte, that is, a stranger joining the people of Israel, but, being bred of the Idumean race, arose there and died there too, and who is so praised by the divine oracle, that no man of his times is put on a level with him as regards justice and piety. And although we do not find his date in the chronicles, yet from his book, which for its merit the Israelites have received as of canonical authority, we gather that he was in the third generation after Israel. And I doubt not it was divinely provided, that from this one case we might know that among other nations also there might be[Pg 280] men pertaining to the spiritual Jerusalem who have lived according to God and have pleased Him. And it is not to be supposed that this was granted to any one, unless the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,[589] was divinely revealed to him; who was pre-announced to the Saints of old as yet to come in the flesh, even as He is announced to us as having come, that the selfsame faith through Him may lead all to God who are predestinated to be the city of God, the house of God, and the temple of God. But whatever prophecies concerning the grace of God through Christ Jesus are quoted, they may be thought to have been forged by the Christians. So that there is nothing of more weight for confuting all sorts of aliens, if they contend about this matter, and for supporting our friends, if they are truly wise, than to quote those divine predictions about Christ which are written in the books of the Jews, who have been torn from their native abode and dispersed over the whole world in order to bear this testimony, so that the Church of Christ has everywhere increased.
48. That Haggai's prophecy, in which he said that the glory of the house of God would be greater than that of the first had been,[590] was really fulfilled, not in the rebuilding of the temple, but in the Church of Christ.
BOOK XVII. - The history of the city of God from the times of the prophets to Christ, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
But whence do they receive this, except from Him of whom it is here immediately said, "Giving the vow to him that voweth?" Otherwise they would be of those mighty ones whose bow is weakened. "Giving," she saith, "the vow to him that voweth." For no one could vow anything acceptable to God, unless he received from Him that which he might vow. There follows, "And He hath blessed the years of the just," to wit, that he may live for ever with Him to whom it is said, "And Thy years shall have no end." For there the years abide; but here they pass away, yea, they perish: for before they come they are not, and when they shall have come they shall not be, because they bring their[Pg 176] own end with them. Now of these two, that is, "giving the vow to him that voweth," and "He hath blessed the years of the just," the one is what we do, the other what we receive. But this other is not received from God, the liberal giver, until He, the helper, Himself has enabled us for the former; "for man is not mighty in strength." "The Lord shall make his adversary weak," to wit, him who envies the man that vows, and resists him, lest he should fulfil what he has vowed. Owing to the ambiguity of the Greek, it may also be understood "his own adversary." For when God has begun to possess us, immediately he who had been our adversary becomes His, and is conquered by us; but not by our own strength, "for man is not mighty in strength." Therefore "the Lord shall make His own adversary weak, the Lord is holy," that he may be conquered by the Saints, whom the Lord, the Holy of holies, hath made saints. For this reason, "let not the prudent glory in his prudence, and let not the mighty glory in his might, and let not the rich glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in this,to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth." He in no small measure understands and knows the Lord who understands and knows that even this, that he can understand and know the Lord, is given to him by the Lord. "For what hast thou," saith the apostle, "that thou hast not received? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?"[369] That is, as if thou hadst of thine own self whereof thou mightest glory. Now, he does judgment and justice who lives aright. But he lives aright who yields obedience to God when He commands. "The end of the commandment," that is, to which the commandment has reference, "is charity out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." Moreover, this "charity," as the Apostle John testifies, "is of God."[370] Therefore to do justice and judgment is of God. But what is "in the midst of the earth?" For ought those who dwell in the ends of the earth not to do judgment and justice? Who would say so? Why, then, is it added, "In the midst of the earth?"[Pg 177] For if this had not been added, and it had only been said, "To do judgment and justice," this commandment would rather have pertained to both kinds of men,both those dwelling inland and those on the sea-coast. But lest any one should think that, after the end of the life led in this body, there remains a time for doing judgment and justice which he has not done while he was in the flesh, and that the divine judgment can thus be escaped, "in the midst of the earth" appears to me to be said of the time when every one lives in the body; for in this life every one carries about his own earth, which, on a man's dying, the common earth takes back, to be surely returned to him on his rising again. Therefore "in the midst of the earth," that is, while our soul is shut up in this earthly body, judgment and justice are to be done, which shall be profitable for us hereafter, when "every one shall receive according to that he hath done in the body, whether good or bad."[371] For when the apostle there says "in the body," he means in the time he has lived in the body. Yet if any one blaspheme with malicious mind and impious thought, without any member of his body being employed in it, he shall not therefore be guiltless because he has not done it with bodily motion, for he will have done it in that time which he has spent in the body. In the same way we may suitably understand what we read in the psalm, "But God, our King before the worlds, hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth;"[372] so that the Lord Jesus may be understood to be our God who is before the worlds, because by Him the worlds were made, working our salvation in the midst of the earth, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body.
Then after Hannah has prophesied in these words, that he who glorieth ought to glory not in himself at all, but in the Lord, she says, on account of the retri bution which is to come on the day of judgment, "The Lord hath ascended into the heavens, and hath thundered: He shall judge the ends of the earth, for He is righteous." Throughout she holds to the order of the creed of Christians: For the Lord Christ has ascended into heaven, and is to come thence to judge the quick and dead.[373] For, as saith the apostle, "Who hath ascended[Pg 178] but He who hath also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up above all heavens, that He might fill all things."[374] Therefore He hath thundered through His clouds, which He hath filled with His Holy Spirit when He ascended up. Concerning which the bond maid Jerusalem that is, the unfruitful vineyard is threatened in Isaiah the prophet that they shall rain no showers upon her. But "He shall judge the ends of the earth" is spoken as if it had been said, "even the extremes of the earth." For it does not mean that He shall not judge the other parts of the earth, who, without doubt, shall judge all men. But it is better to understand by the extremes of the earth the extremes of man, since those things shall not be judged which, in the middle time, are changed for the better or the worse, but the ending in which he shall be found who is judged. For which reason it is said, "He that shall persevere even unto the end, the same shall be saved."[375] He, therefore, who perseveringly does judgment and justice in the midst of the earth shall not be condemned when the extremes of the earth shall be judged. "And giveth," she saith, "strength to our kings," that He may not condemn them in judging. He giveth them strength whereby as kings they rule the flesh, and conquer the world in Him who hath poured out His blood for them. "And shall exalt the horn of His Christ." For He of whom it was said above, "The Lord hath ascended into the heavens," meaning the Lord Christ, Himself, as it is said here, "shall exalt the horn of His Christ." Who, therefore, is the Christ of His Christ? Does it mean that He shall exalt the horn of each one of His believing people, as she says in the beginning of this hymn, "Mine horn is exalted in my God?" For we can rightly call all those christs who are anointed with His chrism, forasmuch as the whole body with its head is one Christ.[376] These things hath Hannah, the mother of Samuel, the holy and much-praised man, prophesied, in which, indeed, the change of the ancient priesthood was then figured and is now fulfilled, since she that had many children is waxed feeble, that[Pg 179] the barren who hath born seven might have the new priesthood in Christ.
BOOK XVI. - The history of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
The things which then were hidden are now sufficiently revealed by the actual events which have followed. For who can carefully and intelligently consider these things without recognising them accomplished in Christ? Shem, of whom Christ was born in the flesh, means "named." And what is of greater name than Christ, the fragrance of whose name is now everywhere perceived, so that even prophecy sings of it beforehand, comparing it in the Song of Songs[224] to ointment poured forth? Is it not also in the houses of Christ, that is, in the churches, that the "enlargement" of the nations dwells? For Japheth means "enlargement." And Ham (i.e. hot), who was the middle son of Noah, and, as it were, separated himself from both, and remained between them, neither belonging to the first-fruits of Israel nor to the fulness of the Gentiles, what does he signify but the tribe of heretics, hot with the spirit, not of patience, but of impatience, with which the breasts of heretics are wont to blaze, and with which they disturb the peace of the Saints? But even the heretics yield an advantage to those that make proficiency, according to the apostle's saying, "There must also be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."[225] Whence, too, it is elsewhere said, "The son that receives instruction will be wise, and he uses the foolish as his servant."[226] For while the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of the catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly; and the question mooted by an adversary becomes the occasion of instruction. However, not only those who are openly separated from the church, but also all who glory in the Christian name, and at the same time lead abandoned[Pg 106] lives, may without absurdity seem to be figured by Noah's middle son: for the passion of Christ, which was signified by that man's nakedness, is at once proclaimed by their profession, and dishonoured by their wicked conduct. Of such, therefore, it has been said, "By their fruits ye shall know them."[227] And therefore was Ham cursed in his son, he being, as it were, his fruit. So, too, this son of his, Canaan, is fitly interpreted "their movement," which is nothing else than their work. But Shem and Japheth, that is to say, the circumcision and uncircumcision, or, as the apostle otherwise calls them, the Jews and Greeks, but called and justified, having somehow discovered the nakedness of their father (which signifies the Saviour's passion), took a garment and laid it upon their backs, and entered backwards and covered their father's nakedness, without their seeing what their reverence hid. For we both honour the passion of Christ as accomplished for us, and we hate the crime of the Jews who crucified Him. The garment signifies the sacrament, their backs the memory of things past: for the church celebrates the passion of Christ as already accomplished, and no longer to be looked forward to, now that Japheth already dwells in the habitations of Shem, and their wicked brother between them.
But the wicked brother is, in the person of his son (i.e. his work), the boy, or slave, of his good brothers, when good men make a skilful use of bad men, either for the exercise of their patience or for their advancement in wisdom. For the apostle testifies that there are some who preach Christ from no pure motives; "but," says he, "whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."[228] For it is Christ Himself who planted the vine of which the prophet says, "The vine of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel;"[229] and He drinks of its wine, whether we thus understand that cup of which He says, "Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of?"[230] and, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,"[231] by which He obviously means His passion. Or, as wine is the fruit of[Pg 107] the vine, we may prefer to understand that from this vine, that is to say, from the race of Israel, He has assumed flesh and blood that He might suffer; "and he was drunken," that is, He suffered; "and was naked," that is, His weakness appeared in His suffering, as the apostle says, "though He was crucified through weakness."[232] Wherefore the same apostle says, "The weakness of God is stronger than men; and the foolishness of God is wiser than men."[233] And when to the expression "he was naked" Scripture adds "in his house," it elegantly intimates that Jesus was to suffer the cross and death at the hands of His own household, His own kith and kin, the Jews. This passion of Christ is only externally and verbally professed by the reprobate, for what they profess they do not understand. But the elect hold in the inner man this so great mystery, and honour inwardly in the heart this weakness and foolishness of God. And of this there is a figure in Ham going out to proclaim his father's nakedness; while Shem and Japheth, to cover or honour it, went in, that is to say, did it inwardly.
--
It remains to mention the sons of Shem, Noah's eldest son; for to him this genealogical narrative gradually ascends from the youngest. But in the commencement of the record of Shem's sons there is an obscurity which calls for explanation, since it is closely connected with the object of our investigation. For we read, "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Heber, the brother of Japheth the elder, were children born."[235] This is the order of the words: And to Shem was born Heber, even to himself, that is, to Shem himself was born Heber, and Shem is the father of all his children. We are intended to understand that Shem is the patriarch of all his posterity who were to be mentioned, whether sons, grandsons,[Pg 110] great-grandsons, or descendants at any remove. For Shem did not beget Heber, who was indeed in the fifth generation from him. For Shem begat, among other sons, Arphaxad; Arphaxad begat Cainan, Cainan begat Salah, Salah begat Heber. And it was with good reason that he was named first among Shem's offspring, taking precedence even of his sons, though only a grandchild of the fifth generation; for from him, as tradition says, the Hebrews derived their name, though the other etymology which derives the name from Abraham (as if Abrahews) may possibly be correct. But there can be little doubt that the former is the right etymology, and that they were called after Heber, Heberews, and then, dropping a letter, Hebrews; and so was their language called Hebrew, which was spoken by none but the people of Israel among whom was the city of God, mysteriously prefigured in all the people, and truly present in the Saints. Six of Shem's sons then are first named, then four grandsons born to one of these sons; then it mentions another son of Shem, who begat a grandson; and his son, again, or Shem's great-grandson, was Heber. And Heber begat two sons, and called the one Peleg, which means "dividing;" and Scripture subjoins the reason of this name, saying, "for in his days was the earth divided." What this means will afterwards appear. Heber's other son begat twelve sons; consequently all Shem's descendants are twenty-seven. The total number of the progeny of the three sons of Noah is seventy-three, fifteen by Japheth, thirty-one by Ham, twenty-seven by Shem. Then Scripture adds, "These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations." And so of the whole number: "These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the isles of the nations dispersed through the earth after the flood." From which we gather that the seventy-three (or rather, as I shall presently show, seventy-two) were not individuals, but nations. For in a former passage, when the sons of Japheth were enumerated, it is said in conclusion, "By these were the isles of the nations divided in their lands, every one after his language, in their tribes, and in their nations."
[Pg 111]
--
As I said a little ago, Jacob was also called Israel, the name which was most prevalent among the people descended from him. Now this name was given him by the angel who wrestled with him on the way back from Mesopotamia, and who was most evidently a type of Christ. For when Jacob overcame him, doubtless with his own consent, that the mystery might be represented, it signified Christ's passion, in which the Jews are seen overcoming Him. And yet he besought a blessing from the very angel he had overcome; and so the imposition of this name was the blessing. For Israel means seeing God,[328] which will at last be the reward of all the Saints. The angel also touched him on the breadth of the[Pg 158] thigh when he was overcoming him, and in that way made him lame. So that Jacob was at one and the same time blessed and lame: blessed in those among that people who believed in Christ, and lame in the unbelieving. For the breadth of the thigh is the multitude of the family. For there are many of that race of whom it was prophetically said beforehand, "And they have halted in their paths."[329]
40. How it is said that Jacob went into Egypt with seventy-five souls, when most of those who are mentioned were born at a later period.
BOOK XV. - The progress of the earthly and heavenly cities traced by the sacred history, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain was the first-born, and he belonged to the city of men; after him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For as in the individual the truth of the apostle's statement is discerned, "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,"[130] whence it comes to pass that each man, being derived from a condemned stock, is first of all born of Adam evil and carnal, and becomes good and spiritual only afterwards, when he is grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the human race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their course by a series of deaths and births, the citizen of this world was the first-born, and after him the stranger in this world, the citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace a citizen above. By grace,for so far as regards himself he is sprung from the same mass, all of which is condemned in its origin; but God, like a potter (for this comparison is introduced by the apostle judiciously, and not without thought), of the same lump made one vessel to honour, another to dishonour.[131] But first the vessel to dishonour was made, and after it another to honour. For in each individual, as I have already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that from which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily remain; afterwards is that which is well-approved, to which we may by advancing attain, and in which, when we have reached it, we may abide. Not, indeed, that every wicked man shall be good, but that no one will be good who was not first of all wicked; but the sooner any one becomes a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title, and[Pg 51] abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded of Cain that he built a city,[132] but Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the Saints is above, although here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in the day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end.
2. Of the children of the flesh and the children of the promise.
--
Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man, and, as the truthful Scripture says, a man perfect in his generation,not indeed with the perfection of the citizens of the city of God in that immortal condition in which they equal the angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in their sojourn in this world,inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which he might be rescued from the destruction of the flood, along with his family, i.e. his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law, and along with the animals who, in obedience to God's command, came to him into the ark: is certainly a figure of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to say, of the church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.[217] For even its very dimensions, in length, breadth, and height, represent the human body in which He came, as it had been foretold. For the length of the human body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times its depth or thickness, measuring from back to front: that is to say, if you measure a man as he lies on his back or on his face, he is six times as long from head to foot as he is broad from side to side, and ten times as long as he is high from the ground. And therefore the ark was made 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in[Pg 99] height. And its having a door made in the side of it certainly signified the wound which was made when the side of the Crucified was pierced with the spear: for by this those who come to Him enter; for thence flowed the sacraments by which those who believe are initiated. And the fact that it was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies the immoveable steadiness of the life of the Saints; for however you turn a cube, it still stands. And the other peculiarities of the ark's construction are signs of features of the church.
But we have not now time to pursue this subject; and, indeed, we have already dwelt upon it in the work we wrote against Faustus the Manichean, who denies that there is anything prophesied of Christ in the Hebrew books. It may be that one man's exposition excels another's, and that ours is not the best; but all that is said must be referred to this city of God we speak of, which sojourns in this wicked world as in a deluge, at least if the expositor would not widely miss the meaning of the author. For example, the interpretation I have given in the work against Faustus, of the words, "with lower, second, and third storeys shalt thou make it," is, that because the church is gathered out of all nations, it is said to have two storeys, to represent the two kinds of men,the circumcision, to wit, and the uncircumcision, or, as the apostle otherwise calls them, Jews and Gentiles; and to have three storeys, because all the nations were replenished from the three sons of Noah. Now any one may object to this interpretation, and may give another which harmonizes with the rule of faith. For as the ark was to have rooms not only on the lower, but also on the upper storeys, which were called "third storeys," that there might be a habitable space on the third floor from the basement, some one may interpret these to mean the three graces commended by the apostle,faith, hope, and charity. Or even more suitably they may be supposed to represent those three harvests in the gospel, thirty-fold, sixtyfold, an hundredfold,chaste marriage dwelling in the ground floor, chaste widowhood in the upper, and chaste virginity in the top storey. Or any better interpretation may be given, so long as the reference to this city is maintained. And the same statement I would make of all the remaining[Pg 100] particulars in this passage which require exposition, viz. that although different explanations are given, yet they must all agree with the one harmonious catholic faith.
BOOK XXII. - Of the eternal happiness of the saints, the resurrection of the body, and the miracles of the early Church, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
object:BOOK XXII. - Of the eternal happiness of the Saints, the resurrection of the body, and the miracles of the early Church
author class:Saint Augustine of Hippo
--
THIS BOOK TREATS OF THE END OF THE CITY OF GOD, THAT IS TO SAY, OF THE ETERNAL HAPPINESS OF the SaintS; THE FAITH OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY IS ESTABLISHED AND EXPLAINED; AND THE WORK CONCLUDES BY SHOWING HOW the SaintS, CLOTHED IN IMMORTAL AND SPIRITUAL BODIES, SHALL BE EMPLOYED.
1. Of the creation of angels and men.
--
Thus His saints, inspired by His holy will, desire many things which never happen. They pray, e.g., for certain individuals they pray in a pious and holy manner but what they request He does not perform, though He Himself by His own Holy Spirit has wrought in them this will to pray. And consequently, when the Saints, in conformity with God's mind, will and pray that all men be saved, we can use this mode of expression: God wills and does not perform,meaning that He who causes them to will these things Himself wills them. But if we speak of that will of His which is eternal as His foreknowledge, certainly He has already done all things in heaven and on earth that He has willed,not only past and present things, but even things still future. But before the arrival of that time in which He has willed the occurrence of what He foreknew and arranged before all time, we say, It will happen when God wills. But if we are ignorant not only of the time in which it is to be, but even whether it shall be at all, we say, It will happen if God wills,not because God will then have a new will which He had not before, but because that event, which from eternity has been prepared in His unchangeable will, shall then come to pass.
3. Of the promise of eternal blessedness to the Saints, and everlasting punishment to the wicked.
Wherefore, not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see in Christ the fulfilment of that which God promised to Abraham when He said, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed,"[966] so this also shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He said by the prophet, "They that are in their sepulchres shall rise again;"[967] and also, "There shall be a new heaven and a new earth: and the former shall not be mentioned, nor come into mind; but they shall find joy and rejoicing in it: for I will make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall[Pg 476] be no more heard in her."[968] And by another prophet He uttered the same prediction: "At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust" (or, as some interpret it, "in the mound") "of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."[969] And in another place by the same prophet: " the Saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and shall possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."[970] And a little after he says, "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom."[971] Other prophecies referring to the same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book, and others still which I have not advanced are found written in the same Scriptures; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as those also have been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate. For it is the same God who promised both, and predicted that both would come to pass,the God whom the pagan deities tremble before, as even Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.
--
16. What is meant by the conforming of the Saints to the image of the Son of God.
Then, again, these words, "Predestinate to be conformed to the image of the Son of God,"[990] may be understood of the inner man. So in another place He says to us, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed in the renewing[Pg 509] of your mind."[991] In so far, then, as we are transformed so as not to be conformed to the world, we are conformed to the Son of God. It may also be understood thus, that as He was conformed to us by assuming mortality, we shall be conformed to Him by immortality; and this indeed is connected with the resurrection of the body. But if we are also taught in these words what form our bodies shall rise in, as the measure we spoke of before, so also this conformity is to be understood not of size, but of age. Accordingly all shall rise in the stature they either had attained or would have attained had they lived to their prime, although it will be no great disadvantage even if the form of the body be infantine or aged, while no infirmity shall remain in the mind nor in the body itself. So that even if any one contends that every person will rise again in the same bodily form in which he died, we need not spend much labour in disputing with him.
--
To understand what the apostle means when he says that we shall all come to a perfect man, we must consider the connection of the whole passage, which runs thus: "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love."[998] Behold what the perfect man is the head and the body, which is made up of all the members, which in their own time shall be perfected. But new additions are daily being made to this body while the Church is being built up, to which it is said, "Ye are the body of Christ and His members;"[999] and again, "For His body's sake," he says, "which is the Church;"[1000] and again, "We being many are one head, one body."[1001] It is of the edification of this body that it is here, too, said, "For the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ;" and then that passage of which we are now speaking is added, "Till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ," and so on. And he shows of what body we are to understand this to be the measure, when he says, "That we may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the[Pg 512] whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part." As, therefore, there is a measure of every part, so there is a measure of the fulness of the whole body which is made up of all its parts, and it is of this measure it is said, "To the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ." This fulness he spoke of also in the place where he says of Christ, "And gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church,[1002] which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."[1003] But even if this should be referred to the form in which each one shall rise, what should hinder us from applying to the woman what is expressly said of the man, understanding both sexes to be included under the general term "man?" For certainly in the saying, "Blessed is he who feareth the Lord,"[1004] women also who fear the Lord are included.
19. That all bodily blemishes which mar human beauty in this life shall be removed in the resurrection, the natural substance of the body remaining, but the quality and quantity of it being altered so as to produce beauty.
--
21. Of the new spiritual body into which the flesh of the Saints shall be transformed.
Whatever, therefore, has been taken from the body, either during life or after death, shall be restored to it, and, in conjunction with what has remained in the grave, shall rise again, transformed from the oldness of the animal body into the newness of the spiritual body, and clothed in incorruption and immortality. But even though the body has been all quite ground to powder by some severe accident, or by the ruthlessness of enemies, and though it has been so diligently scattered to the winds, or into the water, that there is no[Pg 517] trace of it left, yet it shall not be beyond the omnipotence of the Creator,no, not a hair of its head shall perish. The flesh shall then be spiritual, and subject to the spirit, but still flesh, not spirit, as the spirit itself, when subject to the flesh, was fleshly, but still spirit and not flesh. And of this we have experimental proof in the deformity of our penal condition. For those persons were carnal, not in a fleshly, but in a spiritual way, to whom the apostle said, "I could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal."[1008] And a man is in this life spiritual in such a way, that he is yet carnal with respect to his body, and sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind; but even in his body he will be spiritual when the same flesh shall have had that resurrection of which these words speak, "It is sown an animal body, it shall rise a spiritual body."[1009] But what this spiritual body shall be, and how great its grace, I fear it were but rash to pronounce, seeing that we have as yet no experience of it. Nevertheless, since it is fit that the joyfulness of our hope should utter itself, and so show forth God's praise, and since it was from the profoundest sentiment of ardent and holy love that the Psalmist cried, "O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house,"[1010] we may, with God's help, speak of the gifts He lavishes on men, good and bad alike, in this most wretched life, and may do our best to conjecture the great glory of that state which we cannot worthily speak of, because we have not yet experienced it. For I say nothing of the time when God made man upright; I say nothing of the happy life of "the man and his wife" in the fruitful garden, since it was so short that none of their children experienced it: I speak only of this life which we know, and in which we now are, from the temptations of which we cannot escape so long as we are in it, no matter what progress we make, for it is all temptation, and I ask, Who can describe the tokens of God's goodness that are extended to the human race even in this life?
--
Statements were made by Plato and Porphyry singly, which if they could have seen their way to hold in common, they might possibly have become Christians. Plato said that souls could not exist eternally without bodies; for it was on this account, he said, that the souls even of wise men must some time or other return to their bodies. Porphyry, again, said that the purified soul, when it has returned to the Father, shall never return to the ills of this world. Consequently, if Plato had communicated to Porphyry that which he saw to be true, that souls, though perfectly purified, and belonging to the wise and righteous, must return to human bodies; and if Porphyry, again, had imparted to Plato the truth which he saw, that holy souls shall never return to the miseries of a corruptible body, so that they should not have each held only his own opinion, but should both have held both truths, I think they would have seen that it follows that the souls return to their bodies, and also that these bodies shall be such as to afford them a blessed and immortal life. For, according to Plato, even holy[Pg 533] souls shall return to the body; according to Porphyry, holy souls shall not return to the ills of this world. Let Porphyry then say with Plato, they shall return to the body; let Plato say with Porphyry, they shall not return to their old misery: and they will agree that they return to bodies in which they shall suffer no more. And this is nothing else than what God has promised,that He will give eternal felicity to souls joined to their own bodies. For this, I presume, both of them would readily concede, that if the souls of the Saints are to be reunited to bodies, it shall be to their own bodies, in which they have endured the miseries of this life, and in which, to escape these miseries, they served God with piety and fidelity.
28. What Plato or Labeo, or even Varro, might have contri buted to the true faith of the resurrection, if they had adopted one another's opinions into one scheme.
--
And now let us consider, with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how the Saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, and when the flesh shall live no longer in a fleshly but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand the nature of that employment, or, shall I rather say, repose and ease, for it has never come within the range of my bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding, what is our understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then shall be that "peace of God which," as the apostle says, "passeth all understanding,"[1027]that is to say, all human, and perhaps all angelic understanding, but certainly not the divine. That it passeth ours there is no doubt; but if it passeth that of the angels, and he who says "all understanding" seems to make no exception in their favour,then we must understand him to mean that neither we nor the angels[Pg 535] can understand, as God understands, the peace which God Himself enjoys. Doubtless this passeth all understanding but His own. But as we shall one day be made to participate, according to our slender capacity, in His peace, both in ourselves, and with our neighbour, and with God our chief good, in this respect the angels understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though now far behind them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For we must remember how great a man he was who said, "We know in part, and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect is come;"[1028] and "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face."[1029] Such also is now the vision of the holy angels, who are also called our angels, because we, being rescued out of the power of darkness, and receiving the earnest of the Spirit, are translated into the kingdom of Christ, and already begin to belong to those angels with whom we shall enjoy that holy and most delightful city of God of which we have now written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels, as Christ is God's and also ours. They are God's, because they have not abandoned Him; they are ours, because we are their fellow-citizens. The Lord Jesus also said, "See that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always see the face of my Father which is in heaven."[1030] As, then, they see, so shall we also see; but not yet do we thus see. Wherefore the apostle uses the words cited a little ago, "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." This vision is reserved as the reward of our faith; and of it the Apostle John also says, "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."[1031] By "the face" of God we are to understand His manifestation, and not a part of the body similar to that which in our bodies we call by that name.
And so, when I am asked how the Saints shall be employed in that spiritual body, I do not say what I see, but I say what I believe, according to that which I read in the psalm, "I believed, therefore have I spoken."[1032] I say, then, they shall in the body see God; but whether they shall see Him by means[Pg 536] of the body, as now we see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth, and all that is in it, that is a difficult question. For it is hard to say that the Saints shall then have such bodies that they shall not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that every one who shuts his eyes shall lose the vision of God. For if the prophet Elisha, though at a distance, saw his servant Gehazi, who thought that his wickedness would escape his master's observation and accepted gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his foul leprosy, how much more shall the Saints in the spiritual body see all things, not only though their eyes be shut, but though they themselves be at a great distance? For then shall be "that which is perfect," of which the apostle says, "We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." Then, that he may illustrate as well as possible, by a simile, how superior the future life is to the life now lived, not only by ordinary men, but even by the foremost of the Saints, he says, "When I was a child, I understood as a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."[1033] If, then, even in this life, in which the prophetic power of remarkable men is no more worthy to be compared to the vision of the future life than childhood is to manhood, Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting gifts, shall we say that when that which is perfect is come, and the corruptible body no longer oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and offers no impediment to it, the Saints shall need bodily eyes to see, though Elisha had no need of them to see his servant? For, following the Septuagint version, these are the prophet's words: "Did not my heart go with thee, when the man came out of his chariot to meet thee, and thou tookedst his gifts?"[1034] Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered it from the Hebrew, "Was not my heart present when the man turned from his chariot to meet thee?" The prophet said that he saw this with his heart, miraculously[Pg 537] aided by God, as no one can doubt. But how much more abundantly shall the Saints enjoy this gift when God shall be all in all? Nevertheless the bodily eyes also shall have their office and their place, and shall be used by the spirit through the spiritual body. For the prophet did not forego the use of his eyes for seeing what was before them, though he did not need them to see his absent servant, and though he could have seen these present objects in spirit, and with his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant in a place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from us to say that in the life to come the Saints shall not see God when their eyes are shut, since they shall always see Him with the spirit.
But the question arises, whether, when their eyes are open, they shall see Him with the bodily eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body have no more power than the eyes which we now possess, manifestly God cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if they can look upon that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any place, but is all in every place. For though we say that God is in heaven and on earth, as He Himself says by the prophet, "I fill heaven and earth,"[1035] we do not mean that there is one part of God in heaven and another part on earth; but He is all in heaven and all on earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once, as no bodily nature can be. The eye, then, shall have a vastly superior power,the power not of keen sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they can discern nothing but bodily substances,but the power of seeing things incorporeal. Possibly it was this great power of vision which was temporarily communicated to the eyes of the holy Job while yet in this mortal body, when he says to God, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and melt away, and count myself dust and ashes;"[1036] although there is no reason why we should not understand this of the eye of the heart, of which the apostle says, "Having the eyes of your heart illuminated."[1037] But that God shall be seen with these eyes no Christian doubts who believingly accepts what our God and Master says, "Blessed[Pg 538] are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."[1038] But whether in the future life God shall also be seen with the bodily eye, this is now our question.
--
The soul, then, shall have an intellectual remembrance of its past ills; but, so far as regards sensible experience, they shall be quite forgotten. For a skilful physician knows, indeed, professionally almost all diseases; but experimentally he is ignorant of a great number which he himself has never suffered from. As, therefore, there are two ways of knowing evil things,one by mental insight, the other by sensible experience, for it is one thing to understand all vices by the wisdom of a cultivated mind, another to understand them by the foolishness of an abandoned life,so also there are two ways of forgetting evils. For a well-instructed and learned man forgets them one way, and he who has experimentally suffered from them forgets them another,the former by neglecting what he has learned, the latter by escaping what he has suffered. And in this latter way the Saints shall forget their past ills, for they shall have so thoroughly escaped them all, that they shall be quite blotted out of their experience. But their intellectual knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted not only with their own past woes, but with the eternal sufferings of the lost. For if they were not to know that they had been miserable, how could they, as the Psalmist says, for ever sing the mercies of God? Certainly that city shall have no greater joy than the celebration of the grace of Christ, who redeemed us by His blood. There shall be accomplished the words of the psalm, "Be still, and know that I am God."[1053] There shall be the great Sabbath which has no evening, which God celebrated among His first works, as it is written, "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God began to make."[1054] For we shall ourselves be the seventh day, when we shall be filled and replenished with God's blessing and sanctification. There shall we be still, and know that He is God; that He is that which we ourselves aspired to be when we fell away from Him, and listened to the voice of the seducer, "Ye shall be as gods,"[1055] and so abandoned God, who[Pg 544] would have made us as gods, not by deserting Him, but by participating in Him. For without Him what have we accomplished, save to perish in His anger? But when we are restored by Him, and perfected with greater grace, we shall have eternal leisure to see that He is God, for we shall be full of Him when He shall be all in all. For even our good works, when they are understood to be rather His than ours, are imputed to us that we may enjoy this Sabbath rest. For if we attri bute them to ourselves, they shall be servile; for it is said of the Sabbath, "Ye shall do no servile work in it."[1056] Wherefore also it is said by Ezekiel the prophet, "And I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctify them."[1057] This knowledge shall be perfected when we shall be perfectly at rest, and shall perfectly know that He is God.
This Sabbath shall appear still more clearly if we count the ages as days, in accordance with the periods of time defined in Scripture, for that period will be found to be the seventh. The first age, as the first day, extends from Adam to the deluge; the second from the deluge to Abraham, equalling the first, not in length of time, but in the number of generations, there being ten in each. From Abraham to the advent of Christ there are, as the evangelist Matthew calculates, three periods, in each of which are fourteen generations,one period from Abraham to David, a second from David to the captivity, a third from the captivity to the birth of Christ in the flesh. There are thus five ages in all. The sixth is now passing, and cannot be measured by any number of generations, as it has been said, "It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power."[1058] After this period God shall rest as on the seventh day, when He shall give us (who shall be the seventh day) rest in Himself. But there is not now space to treat of these ages; suffice it to say that the seventh shall be our Sabbath, which shall be brought to a close, not by an evening, but by the Lord's day, as an eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the resurrection of Christ, and prefiguring the eternal repose not only of the spirit, but also of the body. There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise.[Pg 545] This is what shall be in the end without end. For what other end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no end?
BOOK XXI. - Of the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell, and of the various objections urged against it, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
1. Of the order of the discussion, which requires that we first speak of the eternal punishment of the lost in company with the devil, and then of the eternal happiness of the Saints.
I propose, with such ability as God may grant me, to discuss in this book more thoroughly the nature of the punishment which shall be assigned to the devil and all his retainers, when the two cities, the one of God, the other of the devil, shall have reached their proper ends through Jesus Christ our Lord, the Judge of quick and dead. And I have adopted this order, and preferred to speak, first of the punishment of the devils, and afterwards of the blessedness of the Saints, because the body partakes of either destiny; and it seems to be more incredible that bodies endure in everlasting torments than that they continue to exist without any pain in everlasting felicity. Consequently, when I shall have demonstrated that that punishment ought not to be incredible, this will materially aid me in proving that which is much more credible, viz. the immortality of the bodies of the Saints which are delivered from all pain. Neither is this order out of harmony with the divine writings, in which sometimes, indeed, the blessedness of the good is placed first, as in the words, "They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation;"[852] but sometimes also last, as, "The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things which offend, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.[Pg 414] Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of His Father;"[853] and that, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."[854] And though we have not room to cite instances, any one who examines the prophets will find that they adopt now the one arrangement and now the other. My own reason for following the latter order I have given.
2. Whether it is possible for bodies to last for ever in burning fire.
--
Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and not to the body, affirm that the wicked, who are separated from the kingdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the anguish of a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that fire is therefore not inappropriately used to express this burning torment, as when the apostle exclaims, "Who is offended, and I burn not?"[866] The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood. For it is written, they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm the wood, so does grief consume the heart of a man."[867] But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul shall suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul shall be, as it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable,for it is absurd to suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment,yet, for my own part, I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance. For we read in the ancient Scriptures, "The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms."[868] It might have been more briefly said, "The vengeance of the ungodly." Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of the ungodly," unless because both the fire and the worm are to be the punishment of the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying, "The vengeance of the flesh," was to indicate that this shall be the punishment of those who live after the flesh (for this leads to the second death, as the apostle intimated when he said, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die"[869]), let each one make his own choice, either assigning the fire to the body and the worm to the soul,the one figuratively, the other really,or assigning both really to[Pg 434] the body. For I have already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the fire, in burning without being consumed, in pain without dying, by a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that this is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that is wonderful in all nature. For it is God Himself who has wrought all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of all. Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks that the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual things are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the soul. But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by the facts themselves, when there shall be in the Saints such knowledge as shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of these punishments, but as shall, by its own fulness and perfection, suffice to instruct them in this matter. For "now we know in part, until that which is perfect is come;"[870] only, this we believe about those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly be pained by the fire.
10. Whether the fire of hell, if it be material fire, can burn the wicked spirits, that is to say, devils, who are immaterial.
--
I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin. In respect of this matter, Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for his theory of the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and the interminable transitions from the one state to the other at fixed periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being merciful, by allotting to the Saints real miseries for the expiation of their sins, and false happiness, which brought them no true and secure joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness. Very different, however, is the error we speak of, which[Pg 445] is dictated by the tenderness of these Christians who suppose that the sufferings of those who are condemned in the judgment will be temporary, while the blessedness of all who are sooner or later set free will be eternal. Which opinion, if it is good and true because it is merciful, will be so much the better and truer in proportion as it becomes more merciful. Let, then, this fountain of mercy be extended, and flow forth even to the lost angels, and let them also be set free, at least after as many and long ages as seem fit! Why does this stream of mercy flow to all the human race, and dry up as soon as it reaches the angelic? And yet they dare not extend their pity further, and propose the deliverance of the devil himself. Or if any one is bold enough to do so, he does indeed put to shame their charity, but is himself convicted of error that is more unsightly, and a wresting of God's truth that is more perverse, in proportion as his clemency of sentiment seems to be greater.[888]
18. Of those who fancy that, on account of the Saints' intercession, no man shall be damned in the last judgment.
There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become acquainted in conversation, who, though they seem to reverence the holy Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who accordingly, in their own interest, attri bute to God a still greater compassion towards men. For they acknowledge that it is truly predicted in the divine word that the wicked and unbelieving are worthy of punishment, but they assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail. For, say they, God, having compassion on them, will give them up to the prayers and intercessions of His saints. For if the Saints used to pray for them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how much more will they do so when they see them prostrate and humble suppliants? For we cannot, they say, believe that the Saints shall lose their bowels of compassion when they have attained the most perfect and complete holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed for their[Pg 446] enemies, should now, when they are freed from sin, withhold from interceding for their suppliants. Or shall God refuse to listen to so many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged their prayers of all hindrance to His answering them? And the passage of the psalm which is cited by those who admit that wicked men and infidels shall be punished for a long time, though in the end delivered from all sufferings, is claimed also by the persons we are now speaking of as making much more for them. The verse runs: "Shall God forget to be gracious? Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies?"[889] His anger, they say, would condemn all that are unworthy of everlasting happiness to endless punishment. But if He suffer them to be punished for a long time, or even at all, must He not shut up His tender mercies, which the Psalmist implies He will not do? For he does not say, Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies for a long period? but he implies that He will not shut them up at all.
And they deny that thus God's threat of judgment is proved to be false even though He condemn no man, any more than we can say that His threat to overthrow Nineveh was false, though the destruction which was absolutely predicted was not accomplished. For He did not say, "Nineveh shall be overthrown if they do not repent and amend their ways," but without any such condition He foretold that the city should be overthrown. And this prediction, they maintain, was true because God predicted the punishment which they deserved, although He was not to inflict it. For though He spared them on their repentance, yet He was certainly aware that they would repent, and, notwithstanding, absolutely and definitely predicted that the city should be overthrown. This was true, they say, in the truth of severity, because they were worthy of it; but in respect of the compassion which checked His anger, so that He spared the suppliants from the punishment with which He had threatened the rebellious, it was not true. If, then, He spared those whom His own holy prophet was provoked at His sparing, how much more shall He spare those more wretched suppliants for whom all His saints shall intercede? And they suppose that this conjecture of theirs[Pg 447] is not hinted at in Scripture, for the sake of stimulating many to reformation of life through fear of very protracted or eternal sufferings, and of stimulating others to pray for those who have not reformed. However, they think that the divine oracles are not altogether silent on this point; for they ask to what purpose is it said, "How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee,"[890] if it be not to teach us that the great and hidden sweetness of God's mercy is concealed in order that men may fear? To the same purpose they think the apostle said, "For God hath concluded all men in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all,"[891] signifying that no one should be condemned by God. And yet they who hold this opinion do not extend it to the acquittal or liberation of the devil and his angels. Their human tenderness is moved only towards men, and they plead chiefly their own cause, holding out false hopes of impunity to their own depraved lives by means of this quasi compassion of God to the whole race. Consequently they who promise this impunity even to the prince of the devils and his satellites make a still fuller exhibition of the mercy of God.
--
First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognise why the Church has not been able to tolerate the idea that promises cleansing or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old and New Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that they could not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment, saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."[900] For here it is evident that the devil and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also that declaration in the Apocalypse, "The devil their deceiver was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet. And they shall be tormented day and night for ever."[901] In the former passage "everlasting" is used, in the latter "for ever;" and by these words Scripture is wont to mean nothing else than endless duration. And therefore no other reason, no reason more obvious and just, can be found for holding it as the fixed and immovable belief of the truest piety, that the devil and his angels shall never return to the justice and life of the Saints, than that Scripture, which deceives no man, says that God spared them not, and that they were condemned beforeh and by Him, and cast into prisons of darkness in hell,[902] being reserved to the judgment of the last day, when eternal fire shall receive them, in which they shall be tormented world without end. And if this be so, how can it be believed that all men, or even some, shall be withdrawn from the endurance of punishment after some time has been spent in it? how can this be believed without enervating our faith in the eternal punishment of the devils? For if all or some of those to whom it shall be said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting[Pg 451] fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,"[903] are not to be always in that fire, then what reason is there for believing that the devil and his angels shall always be there? Or is perhaps the sentence of God, which is to be pronounced on wicked men and angels alike, to be true in the case of the angels, false in that of men? Plainly it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than the word of God. But because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing against God, and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands. Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long-continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!"[904] If both destinies are "eternal," then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative,on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the Saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.
24. Against those who fancy that in the judgment of God all the accused will be spared in virtue of the prayers of the Saints.
And this reasoning is equally conclusive against those who, in their own interest, but under the guise of a greater tenderness of spirit, attempt to invalidate the words of God, and who assert that these words are true, not because men shall suffer those things which are threatened by God, but because they deserve to suffer them. For God, they say, will yield them to the prayers of His saints, who will then the more earnestly pray for their enemies, as they shall be more perfect in holiness, and whose prayers will be the more efficacious and the more worthy of God's ear, because now purged from all sin whatsoever. Why, then, if in that perfected holiness their prayers be so pure and all-availing, will they not use[Pg 452] them in behalf of the angels for whom eternal fire is prepared, that God may mitigate His sentence and alter it, and extricate them from that fire? Or will there, perhaps, be some one hardy enough to affirm that even the holy angels will make common cause with holy men (then become the equals of God's angels), and will intercede for the guilty, both men and angels, that mercy may spare them the punishment which truth has pronounced them to deserve? But this has been asserted by no one sound in the faith, nor will be. Otherwise there is no reason why the Church should not even now pray for the devil and his angels, since God her Master has ordered her to pray for her enemies. The reason, then, which prevents the Church from now praying for the wicked angels, whom she knows to be her enemies, is the identical reason which shall prevent her, however perfected in holiness, from praying at the last judgment for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire. At present she prays for her enemies among men, because they have yet opportunity for fruitful repentance. For what does she especially beg for them but that "God would grant them repentance," as the apostle says, "that they may return to soberness out of the snare of the devil, by whom they are held captive according to his will?"[905] But if the Church were certified who those are, who, though they are still abiding in this life, are yet predestinated to go with the devil into eternal fire, then for them she could no more pray than for him. But since she has this certainty regarding no man, she prays for all her enemies who yet live in this world; and yet she is not heard in behalf of all. But she is heard in the case of those only who, though they oppose the Church, are yet predestinated to become her sons through her intercession. But if any retain an impenitent heart until death, and are not converted from enemies into sons, does the Church continue to pray for them, for the spirits, i.e., of such persons deceased? And why does she cease to pray for them, unless because the man who was not translated into Christ's kingdom while he was in the body, is now judged to be of Satan's following?
--
But it must be admitted, that those who are thus received into the eternal habitations are not of such a character that their own life would suffice to rescue them without the aid of the Saints, and consequently in their case especially does mercy rejoice against judgment. And yet we are not on this account to suppose that every abandoned profligate, who has made no amendment of his life, is to be received into the eternal habitations if only he has assisted the Saints with the mammon of unrighteousness,that is to say, with money or wealth which has been unjustly acquired, or, if rightfully acquired, is yet not the true riches, but only what iniquity counts riches, because it knows not the true riches in which those persons abound, who even receive others also into eternal habitations. There is then a certain kind of life, which is neither, on the one hand, so bad that those who adopt it are not helped towards the kingdom of heaven by any bountiful almsgiving by which they may relieve the wants of the Saints, and make friends who could receive them into eternal habitations, nor, on the other hand, so good that it of itself suffices to win for[Pg 470] them that great blessedness, if they do not obtain mercy through the merits of those whom they have made their friends. And I frequently wonder that even Virgil should give expression to this sentence of the Lord, in which He says, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they may receive you into everlasting habitations;"[958] and this very similar saying, "He that receiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward."[959] For when that poet described the Elysian fields, in which they suppose that the souls of the blessed dwell, he placed there not only those who had been able by their own merit to reach that abode, but added,
"And they who grateful memory won By services to others done;"[960]
that is, they who had served others, and thereby merited to be remembered by them. Just as if they used the expression so common in Christian lips, where some humble person commends himself to one of the Saints, and says, Remember me, and secures that he do so by deserving well at his hand. But what that kind of life we have been speaking of is, and what those sins are which prevent a man from winning the kingdom of God by himself, but yet permit him to avail himself of the merits of the Saints, it is very difficult to ascertain, very perilous to define. For my own part, in spite of all investigation, I have been up to the present hour unable to discover this. And possibly it is hidden from us, lest we should become careless in avoiding such sins, and so cease to make progress. For if it were known what these sins are, which, though they continue, and be not abandoned for a higher life, do yet not prevent us from seeking and hoping for the intercession of the Saints, human sloth would presumptuously wrap itself in these sins, and would take no steps to be disentangled from such wrappings by the deft energy of any virtue, but would only desire to be rescued by the merits of other people, whose friendship had been won by a bountiful use of the mammon of unrighteousness. But now that we[Pg 471] are left in ignorance of the precise nature of that iniquity which is venial, even though it be persevered in, certainly we are both more vigilant in our prayers and efforts for progress, and more careful to secure with the mammon of unrighteousness friends for ourselves among the Saints.
But this deliverance, which is effected by one's own prayers, or the intercession of holy men, secures that a man be not cast into eternal fire, but not that, when once he has been cast into it, he should after a time be rescued from it. For even those who fancy that what is said of the good ground bringing forth abundant fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold, is to be referred to the Saints, so that in proportion to their merits some of them shall deliver thirty men, some sixty, some an hundred,even those who maintain this are yet commonly inclined to suppose that this deliverance will take place at, and not after the day of judgment. Under this impression, some one who observed the unseemly folly with which men promise themselves impunity on the ground that all will be included in this method of deliverance, is reported to have very happily remarked, that we should rather endeavour to live so well that we shall be all found among the number of those who are to intercede for the liberation of others, lest these should be so few in number, that, after they have delivered, one thirty, another sixty, another a hundred, there should still remain many who could not be delivered from punishment by their intercessions, and among them every one who has vainly and rashly promised himself the fruit of another's labour. But enough has been said in reply to those who acknowledge the authority of the same sacred Scriptures as ourselves, but who, by a mistaken interpretation of them, conceive of the future rather as they themselves wish, than as the Scriptures teach. And having given this reply, I now, according to promise, close this book.
[Pg 472]
BOOK XX. - Of the last judgment, and the declarations regarding it in the Old and New Testaments, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
The evangelist John has spoken of these two resurrections in the book which is called the Apocalypse, but in such a way that some Christians do not understand the first of the two, and so construe the passage into ridiculous fancies. For the Apostle John says in the foresaid book, "And I saw an angel come down from heaven.... Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."[699] Those who, on the strength of this passage, have suspected that the first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among other things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as if it were a fit thing that the Saints should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the labours of the six thousand years since man was created, and was on account of his great sin dismissed from the blessedness of paradise into the woes of this mortal life, so that thus, as it is written, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,"[700] there should follow on the completion of six thousand years, as of six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand years; and that it is for this purpose the Saints rise, viz. to celebrate this Sabbath. And this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the Saints in that Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I myself, too, once held this opinion.[701] But, as they assert that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate[Pg 357] carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed only by the carnal. They who do believe them are called by the spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians.[702] It were a tedious process to refute these opinions point by point: we prefer proceeding to show how that passage of Scripture should be understood.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man,"[703]meaning by the strong man the devil, because he had power to take captive the human race; and meaning by his goods which he was to take, those who had been held by the devil in divers sins and iniquities, but were to become believers in Himself. It was then for the binding of this strong one that the apostle saw in the Apocalypse "an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he laid hold," he says, "on the dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,"that is, bridled and restrained his power so that he could not seduce and gain possession of those who were to be freed. Now the thousand years may be understood in two ways, so far as occurs to me: either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the Saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium the part, that is, which had yet to expire before the end of the worlda thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fulness of time. For a thousand is the cube of ten. For ten times ten makes a hundred, that is, the square on a plane superficies. But to give this superficies height, and make it a cube, the hundred is again multiplied by ten, which gives a thousand. Besides, if a hundred is[Pg 358] sometimes used for totality, as when the Lord said by way of promise to him that left all and followed Him, "He shall receive in this world an hundredfold;"[704] of which the apostle gives, as it were, an explanation when he says, "As having nothing, yet possessing all things,"[705]for even of old it had been said, The whole world is the wealth of a believer,with how much greater reason is a thousand put for totality since it is the cube, while the other is only the square? And for the same reason we cannot better interpret the words of the psalm, "He hath been mindful of His covenant for ever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations,"[706] than by understanding it to mean "to all generations."
"And he cast him into the abyss,"i.e. cast the devil into the abyss. By the abyss is meant the countless multitude of the wicked whose hearts are unfathomably deep in malignity against the Church of God; not that the devil was not there before, but he is said to be cast in thither, because, when prevented from harming believers, he takes more complete possession of the ungodly. For that man is more abundantly possessed by the devil who is not only alienated from God, but also gratuitously hates those who serve God. "And shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled." "Shut him up,"i.e. prohibited him from going out, from doing what was forbidden. And the addition of "set a seal upon him" seems to me to mean that it was designed to keep it a secret who belonged to the devil's party and who did not. For in this world this is a secret, for we cannot tell whether even the man who seems to stand shall fall, or whether he who seems to lie shall rise again. But by the chain and prisonhouse of this interdict the devil is prohibited and restrained from seducing those nations which belong to Christ, but which he formerly seduced or held in subjection. For before the foundation of the world God chose to rescue these from the power of darkness, and to translate them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, as the apostle says.[707] For what Christian is not aware that he seduces nations even now, and draws them with himself to eternal punishment, but not[Pg 359] those predestined to eternal life? And let no one be dismayed by the circumstance that the devil often seduces even those who have been regenerated in Christ, and begun to walk in God's way. For "the Lord knoweth them that are His,"[708] and of these the devil seduces none to eternal damnation. For it is as God, from whom nothing is hid even of things future, that the Lord knows them; not as a man, who sees a man at the present time (if he can be said to see one whose heart he does not see), but does not see even himself so far as to be able to know what kind of person he is to be. The devil, then, is bound and shut up in the abyss that he may not seduce the nations from which the Church is gathered, and which he formerly seduced before the Church existed. For it is not said "that he should not seduce any man," but "that he should not seduce the nations"meaning, no doubt, those among which the Church exists"till the thousand years should be fulfilled,"i.e. either what remains of the sixth day which consists of a thousand years, or all the years which are to elapse till the end of the world.
--
"After that," says John, "he must be loosed a little season." If the binding and shutting up of the devil means his being made unable to seduce the Church, must his loosing be the recovery of this ability? By no means. For the Church predestined and elected before the foundation of the world, the Church of which it is said, "The Lord knoweth them that are His," shall never be seduced by him. And yet there shall be a Church in this world even when the devil shall be loosed, as there has been since the beginning, and shall be always, the places of the dying being filled by new believers. For a little after John says that the devil, being loosed, shall draw the nations whom he has seduced in the whole world to make war against the Church, and that the number of these enemies shall be as the sand of the sea. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the Saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. And the devil who seduced them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."[710] This relates to the last judgment, but I have thought fit to mention it now, lest any one might suppose that in that short time during which the devil shall be loose there shall be no Church upon earth, whether because the devil finds no Church, or destroys it by manifold persecutions. The devil, then, is not bound during the whole time which this book embraces,that is, from the first coming of Christ to the end of the world, when He shall come the second time,not bound in this sense, that during this interval, which goes by the name of a thousand years, he shall not seduce the Church, for not even when loosed shall he seduce it. For certainly if his being bound means that he is not able or not permitted to seduce the Church, what can the loosing of him mean but his being able or permitted to do so? But God forbid that such should be the case! But the binding of the[Pg 361] devil is his being prevented from the exercise of his whole power to seduce men, either by violently forcing or fraudulently deceiving them into taking part with him. If he were during so long a period permitted to assail the weakness of men, very many persons, such as God would not wish to expose to such temptation, would have their faith overthrown, or would be prevented from believing; and that this might not happen, he is bound.
But when the short time comes he shall be loosed. For he shall rage with the whole force of himself and his angels for three years and six months; and those with whom he makes war shall have power to withstand all his violence and stratagems. And if he were never loosed, his malicious power would be less patent, and less proof would be given of the stedfast fortitude of the holy city: it would, in short, be less manifest what good use the Almighty makes of his great evil. For the Almighty does not absolutely seclude the Saints from his temptation, but shelters only their inner man, where faith resides, that by outward temptation they may grow in grace. And He binds him that he may not, in the free and eager exercise of his malice, hinder or destroy the faith of those countless weak persons, already believing or yet to believe, from whom the Church must be increased and completed; and he will in the end loose him, that the city of God may see how mighty an adversary it has conquered, to the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, Deliverer. And what are we in comparison with those believers and saints who shall then exist, seeing that they shall be tested by the loosing of an enemy with whom we make war at the greatest peril even when he is bound? Although it is also certain that even in this intervening period there have been and are some soldiers of Christ so wise and strong, that if they were to be alive in this mortal condition at the time of his loosing, they would both most wisely guard against, and most patiently endure, all his snares and assaults.
Now the devil was thus bound not only when the Church began to be more and more widely extended among the nations beyond Judea, but is now and shall be bound till the end of the world, when he is to be loosed. Because even now men[Pg 362] are, and doubtless to the end of the world shall be, converted to the faith from the unbelief in which he held them. And this strong one is bound in each instance in which he is spoiled of one of his goods; and the abyss in which he is shut up is not at an end when those die who were alive when first he was shut up in it, but these have been succeeded, and shall to the end of the world be succeeded, by others born after them with a like hate of the Christians, and in the depth of whose blind hearts he is continually shut up as in an abyss. But it is a question whether, during these three years and six months when he shall be loose, and raging with all his force, any one who has not previously believed shall attach himself to the faith. For how in that case would the words hold good, "Who entereth into the house of a strong one to spoil his goods, unless first he shall have bound the strong one?" Consequently this verse seems to compel us to believe that during that time, short as it is, no one will be added to the Christian community, but that the devil will make war with those who have previously become Christians, and that, though some of these may be conquered and desert to the devil, these do not belong to the predestinated number of the sons of God: For it is not without reason that John, the same apostle as wrote this Apocalypse, says in his epistle regarding certain persons, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us."[711] But what shall become of the little ones? For it is beyond all belief that in these days there shall not be found some Christian children born, but not yet baptized, and that there shall not also be some born during that very period; and if there be such, we cannot believe that their parents shall not find some way of bringing them to the laver of regeneration. But if this shall be the case, how shall these goods be snatched from the devil when he is loose, since into his house no man enters to spoil his goods unless he has first bound him? On the contrary, we are rather to believe that in these days there shall be no lack either of those who fall away from, or of those who attach themselves to the Church; but there shall be such resoluteness, both in parents to seek[Pg 363] baptism for their little ones, and in those who shall then first believe, that they shall conquer that strong one, even though unbound,that is, shall both vigilantly comprehend, and patiently bear up against him, though employing such wiles and putting forth such force as he never before used; and thus they shall be snatched from him even though unbound. And yet the verse of the Gospel will not be untrue, "Who entereth into the house of the strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound the strong one?" For in accordance with this true saying that order is observed the strong one first bound, and then his goods spoiled; for the Church is so increased by the weak and strong from all nations far and near, that by its most robust faith in things divinely predicted and accomplished, it shall be able to spoil the goods of even the unbound devil. For as we must own that, "when iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold,"[712] and that those who have not been written in the book of life shall in large numbers yield to the severe and unprecedented persecutions and stratagems of the devil now loosed, so we cannot but think that not only those whom that time shall find sound in the faith, but also some who till then shall be without, shall become firm in the faith they have hitherto rejected, and mighty to conquer the devil even though unbound, God's grace aiding them to understand the Scriptures, in which, among other things, there is foretold that very end which they themselves see to be arriving. And if this shall be so, his binding is to be spoken of as preceding, that there might follow a spoiling of him both bound and loosed; for it is of this it is said, "Who shall enter into the house of the strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound the strong one?"
9. What the reign of the Saints with Christ for a thousand years is, and how it differs from the eternal kingdom.
But while the devil is bound, the Saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years, understood in the same way, that is, of the time of His first coming.[713] For, leaving out of account that kingdom concerning which He shall say in the end, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the[Pg 364] kingdom prepared for you,"[714] the Church could not now be called His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven unless His saints were even now reigning with Him, though in another and far different way; for to His saints He says, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world."[715] Certainly it is in this present time that the scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God, and of whom we have already spoken, brings forth from his treasure things new and old. And from the Church those reapers shall gather out the tares which He suffered to grow with the wheat till the harvest, as He explains in the words, "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered together and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all offences."[716] Can He mean out of that kingdom in which are no offences? Then it must be out of His present kingdom, the Church, that they are gathered. So He says, "He that breaketh one of the least of these commandments, and teacheth men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth and teacheth thus shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."[717] He speaks of both as being in the kingdom of heaven, both the man who does not perform the commandments which He teaches,for "to break" means not to keep, not to perform, and the man who does and teaches as He did; but the one He calls least, the other great. And He immediately adds, "For I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees,"that is, the righteousness of those who break what they teach; for of the scribes and Pharisees He elsewhere says, "For they say and do not;"[718]unless, therefore, your righteousness exceed theirs, that is, so that you do not break but rather do what you teach, "ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."[719] We must understand in one sense the kingdom of heaven in which exist together both he who breaks what he teaches and he who does it, the one being least, the other great, and in another sense the kingdom of heaven into which only he who does what he teaches shall enter. Consequently,[Pg 365] where both classes exist, it is the Church as it now is, but where only the one shall exist, it is the Church as it is destined to be when no wicked person shall be in her. Therefore the Church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him, though otherwise than as they shall reign hereafter; and yet, though the tares grow in the Church along with the wheat, they do not reign with Him. For they reign with Him who do what the apostle says, "If ye be risen with Christ, mind the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Seek those things which are above, not the things which are on the earth."[720] Of such persons he also says that their conversation is in heaven.[721] In fine, they reign with Him who are so in His kingdom that they themselves are His kingdom. But in what sense are those the kingdom of Christ who, to say no more, though they are in it until all offences are gathered out of it at the end of the world, yet seek their own things in it, and not the things that are Christ's?[722]
It is then of this kingdom militant, in which conflict with the enemy is still maintained, and war carried on with warring lusts, or government laid upon them as they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom in which we shall reign without an enemy, and it is of this first resurrection in the present life, that the Apocalypse speaks in the words just quoted. For, after saying that the devil is bound a thousand years and is afterwards loosed for a short season, it goes on to give a sketch of what the Church does or of what is done in the Church in those days, in the words, "And I saw seats and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given." It is not to be supposed that this refers to the last judgment, but to the seats of the rulers and to the rulers themselves by whom the Church is now governed. And no better interpretation of judgment being given can be produced than that which we have in the words, "What ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."[723] Whence the apostle says, "What have I to do[Pg 366] with judging them that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?"[724] "And the souls," says John, "of those who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God,"understanding what he afterwards says, "reigned with Christ a thousand years,"[725]that is, the souls of the martyrs not yet restored to their bodies. For the souls of the pious dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ; otherwise there would be no remembrance made of them at the altar of God in the partaking of the body of Christ, nor would it do any good in danger to run to His baptism, that we might not pass from this life without it; nor to reconciliation, if by penitence or a bad conscience any one may be severed from His body. For why are these things practised, if not because the faithful, even though dead, are His members? Therefore, while these thousand years run on, their souls reign with Him, though not as yet in conjunction with their bodies. And therefore in another part of this same book we read, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: and now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works do follow them."[726] The Church, then, begins its reign with Christ now in the living and in the dead. For, as the apostle says, "Christ died that He might be Lord both of the living and of the dead."[727] But he mentioned the souls of the martyrs only, because they who have contended even to death for the truth, themselves principally reign after death; but, taking the part for the whole, we understand the words of all others who belong to the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ.
--
"And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea." This, then, is his purpose in seducing them, to draw them to this battle. For even before this he was wont to use as many and various seductions as he could continue. And the words "he shall go out" mean, he shall burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent, shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the world, the whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on earth. For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world, whether the Get and Massaget, as some conclude from the initial letters, or some other foreign nations not under the Roman government. For John marks that they are spread over the whole earth, when he says, "The nations which are in the four corners of the earth," and he added that these are Gog and Magog. The meaning of these names we find to be, Gog, "a roof," Magog, "from a roof,"a house, as it were, and he who comes out of the house. They are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil was shut up as in an abyss, and the devil himself coming out[Pg 370] from them and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from the roof. Or if we refer both words to the nations, not one to them and one to the devil, then they are both the roof, because in them the old enemy is at present shut up, and as it were roofed in; and they shall be from the roof when they break forth from concealed to open hatred. The words, "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the Saints and the beloved city," do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the Saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be,and it shall be in all nations, as is signified by "the breadth of the earth,"there also shall be the camp of the Saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all its enemies; for they too shall exist along with it in all nations,that is, it shall be straitened, and hard pressed, and shut up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its military duty, which is signified by the word "camp."
12. Whether the fire that came down out of heaven and devoured them refers to the last punishment of the wicked.
The words, "And fire came down out of heaven and devoured them," are not to be understood of the final punishment which shall be inflicted when it is said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire;"[737] for then they shall be cast into the fire, not fire come down out of heaven upon them. In this place "fire out of heaven" is well understood of the firmness of the Saints, wherewith they refuse to yield obedience to those who rage against them. For the firmament is "heaven," by whose firmness these assailants shall be pained with blazing zeal, for they shall be impotent to draw away the Saints to the party of Antichrist. This is the fire which shall devour them, and this is "from God;" for it is by God's grace the Saints become unconquerable, and so torment their enemies. For as in a good sense it is said, "The zeal of Thine house hath consumed me,"[738] so in a bad sense it is said, "Zeal hath possessed the uninstructed people,[Pg 371] and now fire shall consume the enemies."[739] "And now," that is to say, not the fire of the last judgment. Or if by this fire coming down out of heaven and consuming them, John meant that blow wherewith Christ in His coming is to strike those persecutors of the Church whom He shall then find alive upon earth, when He shall kill Antichrist with the breath of His mouth,[740] then even this is not the last judgment of the wicked; but the last judgment is that which they shall suffer when the bodily resurrection has taken place.
13. Whether the time of the persecution of Antichrist should be reckoned in the thousand years.
This last persecution by Antichrist shall last for three years and six months, as we have already said, and as is affirmed both in the book of Revelation and by Daniel the prophet. Though this time is brief, yet not without reason is it questioned whether it is comprehended in the thousand years in which the devil is bound and the Saints reign with Christ, or whether this little season should be added over and above to these years. For if we say that they are included in the thousand years, then the Saints reign with Christ during a more protracted period than the devil is bound. For they shall reign with their King and Conqueror mightily even in that crowning persecution when the devil shall now be unbound and shall rage against them with all his might. How then does Scripture define both the binding of the devil and the reign of the Saints by the same thousand years, if the binding of the devil ceases three years and six months before this reign of the Saints with Christ? On the other hand, if we say that the brief space of this persecution is not to be reckoned as a part of the thousand years, but rather as an additional period, we shall indeed be able to interpret the words, "The priests of God and of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years; and when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison;" for thus they signify that the reign of the Saints and the bondage of the devil shall cease simultaneously, so that the time of the persecution we speak of should be contemporaneous neither with the reign of the Saints nor with the imprisonment of Satan,[Pg 372] but should be reckoned over and above as a superadded portion of time. But then in this case we are forced to admit that the Saints shall not reign with Christ during that persecution. But who can dare to say that His members shall not reign with Him at that very juncture when they shall most of all, and with the greatest fortitude, cleave to Him, and when the glory of resistance and the crown of martyrdom shall be more conspicuous in proportion to the hotness of the battle? Or if it is suggested that they may be said not to reign, because of the tribulations which they shall suffer, it will follow that all the Saints who have formerly, during the thousand years, suffered tribulation, shall not be said to have reigned with Christ during the period of their tribulation, and consequently even those whose souls the author of this book says that he saw, and who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God, did not reign with Christ when they were suffering persecution, and they were not themselves the kingdom of Christ, though Christ was then pre-eminently possessing them. This is indeed perfectly absurd, and to be scouted. But assuredly the victorious souls of the glorious martyrs, having overcome and finished all griefs and toils, and having laid down their mortal members, have reigned, and do reign, with Christ till the thousand years are finished, that they may afterwards reign with Him when they have received their immortal bodies. And therefore during these three years and a half the souls of those who were slain for His testimony, both those which formerly passed from the body and those which shall pass in that last persecution, shall reign with Him till the mortal world come to an end, and pass into that kingdom in which there shall be no death. And thus the reign of the Saints with Christ shall last longer than the bonds and imprisonment of the devil, because they shall reign with their King the Son of God for these three years and a half during which the devil is no longer bound. It remains, therefore, that when we read that "the priests of God and of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years; and when the thousand years are finished, the devil shall be loosed from his imprisonment," that we understand either that the thousand years of the reign of the Saints does not[Pg 373] terminate, though the imprisonment of the devil does,so that both parties have their thousand years, that is, their complete time, yet each with a different actual duration appropriate to itself, the kingdom of the Saints being longer, the imprisonment of the devil shorter,or at least that, as three years and six months is a very short time, it is not reckoned as either deducted from the whole time of Satan's imprisonment, or as added to the whole duration of the reign of the Saints, as we have shown above in the sixteenth book[741] regarding the round number of four hundred years, which were specified as four hundred, though actually somewhat more; and similar expressions are often found in the sacred writings, if one will mark them.
14. Of the damnation of the devil and his adherents; and a sketch of the bodily resurrection of all the dead, and of the final retri butive judgment.
--
"And I saw," he says, "a great city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned[Pg 378] for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but neither shall there be any more pain: because the former things have passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new."[750] This city is said to come down out of heaven, because the grace with which God formed it is of heaven. Wherefore He says to it by Isaiah, "I am the Lord that formed thee."[751] It is indeed descended from heaven from its commencement, since its citizens during the course of this world grow by the grace of God, which cometh down from above through the laver of regeneration in the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. But by God's final judgment, which shall be administered by His Son Jesus Christ, there shall by God's grace be manifested a glory so pervading and so new, that no vestige of what is old shall remain; for even our bodies shall pass from their old corruption and mortality to new incorruption and immortality. For to refer this promise to the present time, in which the Saints are reigning with their King a thousand years, seems to me excessively barefaced, when it is most distinctly said, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no more pain." And who is so absurd, and blinded by contentious opinionativeness, as to be audacious enough to affirm that in the midst of the calamities of this mortal state, God's people, or even one single saint, does live, or has ever lived, or shall ever live, without tears or pain,the fact being that the holier a man is, and the fuller of holy desire, so much the more abundant is the tearfulness of his supplication? Are not these the utterances of a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem: "My tears have been my meat day and night;"[752] and "Every night shall I make my bed to swim; with my tears shall I water my couch;"[753] and "My groaning is not hid from Thee;"[754] and[Pg 379] "My sorrow was renewed?"[755] Or are not those God's children who groan, being burdened, not that they wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life?[756] Do not they even who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their body?[757] Was not the Apostle Paul himself a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, and was he not so all the more when he had heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for his Israelitish brethren?[758] But when shall there be no more death in that city, except when it shall be said, "O death, where is thy contention?[759] O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin."[760] Obviously there shall be no sin when it can be said, "Where is"But as for the present it is not some poor weak citizen of this city, but this same Apostle John himself who says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."[761] No doubt, though this book is called the Apocalypse, there are in it many obscure passages to exercise the mind of the reader, and there are few passages so plain as to assist us in the interpretation of the others, even though we take pains; and this difficulty is increased by the repetition of the same things, in forms so different, that the things referred to seem to be different, although in fact they are only differently stated. But in the words, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no more pain," there is so manifest a reference to the future world and the immortality and eternity of the Saints,for only then and only there shall such a condition be realized,that if we think this obscure, we need not expect to find anything plain in any part of Scripture.
18. What the Apostle Peter predicted regarding the last judgment.
Let us now see what the Apostle Peter predicted concerning this judgment. "There shall come," he says, "in the last days scoffers.... Nevertheless we, according to His promise,[Pg 380] look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."[762] There is nothing said here about the resurrection of the dead, but enough certainly regarding the destruction of this world. And by his reference to the deluge he seems as it were to suggest to us how far we should believe the ruin of the world will extend in the end of the world. For he says that the world which then was perished, and not only the earth itself, but also the heavens, by which we understand the air, the place and room of which was occupied by the water. Therefore the whole, or almost the whole, of the gusty atmosphere (which he calls heaven, or rather the heavens, meaning the earth's atmosphere, and not the upper air in which sun, moon, and stars are set) was turned into moisture, and in this way perished together with the earth, whose former appearance had been destroyed by the deluge. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Therefore the heavens and the earth, or the world which was preserved from the water to stand in place of that world which perished in the flood, is itself reserved to fire at last in the day of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men. He does not hesitate to affirm that in this great change men also shall perish: their nature, however, shall notwithstanding continue, though in eternal punishments. Some one will perhaps put the question, If after judgment is pronounced the world itself is to burn, where shall the Saints be during the conflagration, and before it is replaced by a new heavens and a new earth, since somewhere they must be, because they have material bodies? We may reply that they shall be in the upper regions into which the flame of that conflagration shall not ascend, as neither did the water of the flood; for they shall have such bodies that they shall be wherever they wish. Moreover, when they have become immortal and incorruptible, they shall not greatly dread the blaze of that conflagration, as the corruptible and mortal bodies of the three men were able to live unhurt in the blazing furnace.
[Pg 381]
--
But, on the other hand, there meets us the saying of the same apostle when he was speaking to the Corinthians about the resurrection of the body, "We shall all rise," or, as other mss. read, "We shall all sleep."[771] Since, then, there can be no resurrection unless death has preceded, and since we can in this passage understand by sleep nothing else than death, how shall all either sleep or rise again if so many persons whom Christ shall find in the body shall neither sleep nor rise again? If, then, we believe that the Saints who shall be found alive at Christ's coming, and shall be caught up to meet Him, shall in that same ascent pass from mortal to immortal bodies, we shall find no difficulty in the words of the apostle, either when he says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die," or when he says, "We shall all rise," or "all sleep," for not even the Saints shall be quickened to immortality unless they first die, however briefly; and consequently they shall not be exempt from resurrection which is preceded by sleep, however brief. And why should it seem to us incredible that that multitude of bodies should[Pg 386] be, as it were, sown in the air, and should in the air forthwith revive immortal and incorruptible, when we believe, on the testimony of the same apostle, that the resurrection shall take place in the twinkling of an eye, and that the dust of bodies long dead shall return with incomprehensible facility and swiftness to those members that are now to live endlessly? Neither do we suppose that in the case of these saints the sentence, "Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return," is null, though their bodies do not, on dying, fall to earth, but both die and rise again at once while caught up into the air. For "Thou shalt return to earth" means, Thou shalt at death return to that which thou wert before life began. Thou shalt, when exanimate, be that which thou wert before thou wast animate. For it was into a face of earth that God breathed the breath of life when man was made a living soul; as if it were said, Thou art earth with a soul, which thou wast not; thou shalt be earth without a soul, as thou wast. And this is what all bodies of the dead are before they rot; and what the bodies of those saints shall be if they die, no matter where they die, as soon as they shall give up that life which they are immediately to receive back again. In this way, then, they return or go to earth, inasmuch as from being living men they shall be earth, as that which becomes cinder is said to go to cinder; that which decays, to go to decay; and so of six hundred other things. But the manner in which this shall take place we can now only feebly conjecture, and shall understand it only when it comes to pass. For that there shall be a bodily resurrection of the dead when Christ comes to judge quick and dead, we must believe if we would be Christians. But if we are unable perfectly to comprehend the manner in which it shall take place, our faith is not on this account vain. Now, however, we ought, as we formerly promised, to show, as far as seems necessary, what the ancient prophetic books predicted concerning this final judgment of God; and I fancy no great time need be spent in discussing and explaining these predictions, if the reader has been careful to avail himself of the help we have already furnished.
[Pg 387]
--
But because he said, "Your heart shall rejoice," lest we should suppose that the blessings of that Jerusalem are only spiritual, he adds, "And your bones shall rise up like a herb," alluding to the resurrection of the body, and as it were supplying an omission he had made. For it will not take place when we have seen; but we shall see when it has taken place. For he had already spoken of the new heavens and the new earth, speaking repeatedly, and under many figures, of the things promised to the Saints, and saying, "There shall be new heavens, and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind; but they shall find in it[Pg 389] gladness and exultation. Behold, I will make Jerusalem an exultation, and my people a joy. And I will exult in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her;"[776] and other promises, which some endeavour to refer to carnal enjoyment during the thousand years. For, in the manner of prophecy, figurative and literal expressions are mingled, so that a serious mind may, by useful and salutary effort, reach the spiritual sense; but carnal sluggishness, or the slowness of an uneducated and undisciplined mind, rests in the superficial letter, and thinks there is nothing beneath to be looked for. But let this be enough regarding the style of those prophetic expressions just quoted. And now, to return to their interpretation. When he had said, "And your bones shall rise up like a herb," in order to show that it was the resurrection of the good, though a bodily resurrection, to which he alluded, he added, "And the hand of the Lord shall be known by His worshippers." What is this but the hand of Him who distinguishes those who worship from those who despise Him? Regarding these the context immediately adds, "And He shall threaten the contumacious," or, as another translator has it, "the unbelieving." He shall not actually threaten then, but the threats which are now uttered shall then be fulfilled in effect. "For behold," he says, "the Lord shall come as a fire, and as a whirlwind His chariots, to execute vengeance with indignation, and wasting with a flame of fire. For with fire of the Lord shall all the earth be judged, and all flesh with His sword: many shall be wounded by the Lord." By fire, whirlwind, sword, he means the judicial punishment of God. For he says that the Lord Himself shall come as a fire, to those, that is to say, to whom His coming shall be penal. By His chariots (for the word is plural) we suitably understand the ministration of angels. And when he says that all flesh and all the earth shall be judged with His fire and sword, we do not understand the spiritual and holy to be included, but the earthly and carnal, of whom it is said that they "mind earthly things,"[777] and "to be carnally minded is death,"[778] and whom the Lord calls simply flesh when He says, "My Spirit shall[Pg 390] not always remain in these men, for they are flesh."[779] As to the words, "Many shall be wounded by the Lord," this wounding shall produce the second death. It is possible, indeed, to understand fire, sword, and wound in a good sense. For the Lord said that He wished to send fire on the earth.[780] And the cloven tongues appeared to them as fire when the Holy Spirit came.[781] And our Lord says, "I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword."[782] And Scripture says that the word of God is a doubly sharp sword,[783] on account of the two edges, the two Testaments. And in the Song of Songs the holy Church says that she is wounded with love,[784]pierced, as it were, with the arrow of love. But here, where we read or hear that the Lord shall come to execute vengeance, it is obvious in what sense we are to understand these expressions.
After briefly mentioning those who shall be consumed in this judgment, speaking of the wicked and sinners under the figure of the meats forbidden by the old law, from which they had not abstained, he summarily recounts the grace of the new testament, from the first coming of the Saviour to the last judgment, of which we now speak; and herewith he concludes his prophecy. For he relates that the Lord declares that He is coming to gather all nations, that they may come and witness His glory.[785] For, as the apostle says, "All have sinned and are in want of the glory of God."[786] And he says that He will do wonders among them, at which they shall marvel and believe in Him; and that from them He will send forth those that are saved into various nations, and distant islands which have not heard His name nor seen His glory, and that they shall declare His glory among the nations, and shall bring the brethren of those to whom the prophet was speaking, i.e. shall bring to the faith under God the Father the brethren of the elect Israelites; and that they shall bring from all nations an offering to the Lord on beasts of burden and waggons (which are understood to mean the aids furnished by God in the shape of angelic or human ministry), to the holy city Jerusalem, which at present is scattered over the[Pg 391] earth, in the faithful saints. For where divine aid is given, men believe, and where they believe, they come. And the Lord compared them, in a figure, to the children of Israel offering sacrifice to Him in His house with psalms, which is already everywhere done by the Church; and He promised that from among them He would choose for Himself priests and Levites, which also we see already accomplished. For we see that priests and Levites are now chosen, not from a certain family and blood, as was originally the rule in the priesthood according to the order of Aaron, but as befits the new testament, under which Christ is the High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, in consideration of the merit which is bestowed upon each man by divine grace. And these priests are not to be judged by their mere title, which is often borne by unworthy men, but by that holiness which is not common to good men and bad.
--
But in what way shall the good go out to see the punishment of the wicked? Are they to leave their happy abodes by a bodily movement, and proceed to the places of punishment, so as to witness the torments of the wicked in their bodily presence? Certainly not; but they shall go out by knowledge. For this expression, go out, signifies that those who shall be punished shall be without. And thus the Lord also calls these places "the outer darkness,"[790] to which is opposed that entrance concerning which it is said to the good servant, "Enter into the joy of thy Lord," that it may not be supposed that the wicked can enter thither and be known, but rather that the good by their knowledge go out to them, because the good are to know that which is without. For those who shall be in torment shall not know what is going on within in the joy of the Lord; but they who shall enter into that joy shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. Therefore it is said, "They shall go[Pg 393] out," because they shall know what is done by those who are without. For if the prophets were able to know things that had not yet happened, by means of that indwelling of God in their minds, limited though it was, shall not the immortal saints know things that have already happened, when God shall be all in all?[791] The seed, then, and the name of the Saints shall remain in that blessedness,the seed, to wit, of which John says, "And his seed remaineth in him;"[792] and the name, of which it was said through Isaiah himself, "I will give them an everlasting name."[793] "And there shall be to them month after month, and Sabbath after Sabbath," as if it were said, Moon after moon, and rest upon rest, both of which they shall themselves be when they shall pass from the old shadows of time into the new lights of eternity. The worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched, which constitute the punishment of the wicked, are differently interpreted by different people. For some refer both to the body, others refer both to the soul; while others again refer the fire literally to the body, and the worm figuratively to the soul, which seems the more credible idea. But the present is not the time to discuss this difference, for we have undertaken to occupy this book with the last judgment, in which the good and the bad are separated: their rewards and punishments we shall more carefully discuss elsewhere.
23. What Daniel predicted regarding the persecution of Antichrist, the judgment of God, and the kingdom of the Saints.
Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first come, and to carry on his description to the eternal reign of the Saints. For when in prophetic vision he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered by a certain king, who is recognised as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of man, that is to say, of Christ, he says, "My spirit was terrified, I Daniel in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me,"[794] etc. Some have interpreted these four kingdoms as signifying those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to[Pg 394] understand the fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome's book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency of care and erudition. But he who reads this passage, even half-asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the Saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say, three years and a half. Sometimes in Scripture the same thing is indicated by months. For though the word times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is only because the Latins have no dual, as the Greeks have, and as the Hebrews also are said to have. Times, therefore, is used for two times. As for the ten kings, whom, as it seems, Antichrist is to find in the person of ten individuals when he comes, I own I am afraid we may be deceived in this, and that he may come unexpectedly while there are not ten kings living in the Roman world. For what if this number ten signifies the whole number of kings who are to precede his coming, as totality is frequently symbolized by a thousand, or a hundred, or seven, or other numbers, which it is not necessary to recount?
In another place the same Daniel says, "And there shall be a time of trouble, such as was not since there was born a nation upon earth until that time: and in that time all Thy people which shall be found written in the book shall be delivered. And many of them that sleep in the mound of earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting confusion. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and many of the just as the stars for ever."[795] This passage is very similar to the one we have quoted from the Gospel,[796] at least so far as regards the resurrection of dead bodies. For those who are there said to be "in the graves" are here spoken of as "sleeping in the mound of earth," or, as others translate, "in the dust of earth." There it is said, "They shall come forth;" so here, "They shall arise." There, "They that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection[Pg 395] of judgment;" here, "Some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting confusion." Neither is it to be supposed a difference, though in place of the expression in the Gospel, "All who are in their graves," the prophet does not say "all," but "many of them that sleep in the mound of earth." For many is sometimes used in Scripture for all. Thus it was said to Abraham, "I have set thee as the father of many nations," though in another place it was said to him, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed."[797] Of such a resurrection it is said a little afterwards to the prophet himself, "And come thou and rest: for there is yet a day till the completion of the consummation; and thou shalt rest, and rise in thy lot in the end of the days."[798]
--
It is the last judgment of God which is referred to also in the 50th Psalm in the words, "God shall come manifestly, our God, and shall not keep silence: fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call the heaven above, and the earth, to judge His people. Gather His saints together to Him; they who make a covenant with Him over sacrifices."[807] This we understand of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we look for from heaven to judge the quick and the dead. For He shall come manifestly to judge justly the just and the unjust, who before came hiddenly to be unjustly judged by the unjust. He, I say, shall come manifestly, and shall not keep silence, that is, shall[Pg 398] make Himself known by His voice of judgment, who before, when He came hiddenly, was silent before His judge when He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and, as a lamb before the shearer, opened not His mouth, as we read that it was prophesied of Him by Isaiah,[808] and as we see it fulfilled in the Gospel.[809] As for the fire and tempest, we have already said how these are to be interpreted when we were explaining a similar passage in Isaiah.[810] As to the expression, "He shall call the heaven above," as the Saints and the righteous are rightly called heaven, no doubt this means what the apostle says, "We shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."[811] For if we take the bare literal sense, how is it possible to call the heaven above, as if the heaven could be anywhere else than above? And the following expression, "And the earth to judge His people," if we supply only the words, "He shall call," that is to say, "He shall call the earth also," and do not supply "above," seems to give us a meaning in accordance with sound doctrine, the heaven symbolizing those who will judge along with Christ, and the earth those who shall be judged; and thus the words, "He shall call the heaven above," would not mean, "He shall catch up into the air," but "He shall lift up to seats of judgment." Possibly, too, "He shall call the heaven," may mean, He shall call the angels in the high and lofty places, that He may descend with them to do judgment; and "He shall call the earth also" would then mean, He shall call the men on the earth to judgment. But if with the words "and the earth" we understand not only "He shall call," but also "above," so as to make the full sense be, He shall call the heaven above, and He shall call the earth above, then I think it is best understood of the men who shall be caught up to meet Christ in the air, and that they are called the heaven with reference to their souls, and the earth with reference to their bodies. Then what is "to judge His people," but to separate by judgment the good from the bad, as the sheep from the goats? Then he turns to address the angels: "Gather His saints together unto Him." For certainly a[Pg 399] matter so important must be accomplished by the ministry of angels. And if we ask who the Saints are who are gathered unto Him by the angels, we are told, "They who make a covenant with Him over sacrifices." This is the whole life of the Saints, to make a covenant with God over sacrifices. For "over sacrifices" either refers to works of mercy, which are preferable to sacrifices in the judgment of God, who says, "I desire mercy more than sacrifices;"[812] or if "over sacrifices" means in sacrifices, then these very works of mercy are the sacrifices with which God is pleased, as I remember to have stated in the tenth book of this work;[813] and in these works the Saints make a covenant with God, because they do them for the sake of the promises which are contained in His new testament or covenant. And hence, when His saints have been gathered to Him and set at His right hand in the last judgment, Christ shall say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat,"[814] and so on, mentioning the good works of the good, and their eternal rewards assigned by the last sentence of the Judge.
25. Of Malachi's prophecy, in which he speaks of the last judgment, and of a cleansing which some are to undergo by purifying punishments.
--
26. Of the sacrifices offered to God by the Saints, which are to be pleasing to Him, as in the primitive days and former years.
And it was with the design of showing that His city shall[Pg 401] not then follow this custom, that God said that the sons of Levi should offer sacrifices in righteousness,not therefore in sin, and consequently not for sin. And hence we see how vainly the Jews promise themselves a return of the old times of sacrificing according to the law of the old testament, grounding on the words which follow, "And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the Lord, as in the primitive days, and as in former years." For in the times of the law they offered sacrifices not in righteousness but in sins, offering especially and primarily for sins, so much so that even the priest himself, whom we must suppose to have been their most righteous man, was accustomed to offer, according to God's commandments, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. And therefore we must explain how we are to understand the words, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years;" for perhaps he alludes to the time in which our first parents were in paradise. Then, indeed, intact and pure from all stain and blemish of sin, they offered themselves to God as the purest sacrifices. But since they were banished thence on account of their transgression, and human nature was condemned in them, with the exception of the one Mediator and those who have been baptized, and are as yet infants, "there is none clean from stain, not even the babe whose life has been but for a day upon the earth."[820] But if it be replied that those who offer in faith may be said to offer in righteousness, because the righteous lives by faith,[821]he deceives himself, however, if he says that he has no sin, and therefore he does not say so, because he lives by faith,will any man say this time of faith can be placed on an equal footing with that consummation when they who offer sacrifices in righteousness shall be purified by the fire of the last judgment? And consequently, since it must be believed that after such a cleansing the righteous shall retain no sin, assuredly that time, so far as regards its freedom from sin, can be compared to no other period, unless to that during which our first parents lived in paradise in the most innocent happiness before their transgression. It is this period, then, which is properly understood when it is said, "as in the primitive days, and as in former[Pg 402] years." For in Isaiah, too, after the new heavens and the new earth have been promised, among other elements in the blessedness of the Saints which are there depicted by allegories and figures, from giving an adequate explanation of which I am prevented by a desire to avoid prolixity, it is said, "According to the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people."[822] And who that has looked at Scripture does not know where God planted the tree of life, from whose fruit He excluded our first parents when their own iniquity ejected them from paradise, and round which a terrible and fiery fence was set?
But if any one contends that those days of the tree of life mentioned by the prophet Isaiah are the present times of the Church of Christ, and that Christ Himself is prophetically called the Tree of Life, because He is Wisdom, and of wisdom Solomon says, "It is a tree of life to all who embrace it;"[823] and if they maintain that our first parents did not pass years in paradise, but were driven from it so soon that none of their children were begotten there, and that therefore that time cannot be alluded to in words which run, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years," I forbear entering on this question, lest by discussing everything I become prolix, and leave the whole subject in uncertainty. For I see another meaning, which should keep us from believing that a restoration of the primitive days and former years of the legal sacrifices could have been promised to us by the prophet as a great boon. For the animals selected as victims under the old law were required to be immaculate, and free from all blemish whatever, and symbolized holy men free from all sin, the only instance of which character was found in Christ. As, therefore, after the judgment those who are worthy of such purification shall be purified even by fire, and shall be rendered thoroughly sinless, and shall offer themselves to God in righteousness, and be indeed victims immaculate and free from all blemish whatever, they shall then certainly be "as in the primitive days, and as in former years," when the purest victims were offered, the shadow of this future reality. For there shall then be in the body and soul of the Saints the purity which was symbolized in the bodies of these victims.
[Pg 403]
City of God - BOOK I, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
26 In certain peculiar cases, the example of the Saints to be
is
COSA - BOOK IX, #The Confessions of Saint Augustine, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Thou art, of what sort the eternal life of the Saints was to be, which
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of
COSA - BOOK VI, #The Confessions of Saint Augustine, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Churches built in memory of the Saints, certain cakes, and bread and
wine, and was forbidden by the door-keeper; so soon as she knew that the
ENNEAD 06.05 - The One and Identical Being is Everywhere Present In Its Entirety.345, #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
1328 It is, of course, among mystics that Plotinos has been accorded the greater honor. His practical influence descended through the visions and ecstasies of the Saints down to Swedenborg, who attempted to write the theology of the ecstasy; and the relation between these two, Swedenborg and Plotinos should prove a fertile field for investigation.
CULTURAL IMPORTANCE.
Epistle to the Romans, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the Saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God,
--
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; 11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, 13 contributing to the needs of the Saints, practicing hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly do not be wise in your own estimation. 17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," says the Lord. 20 "But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
CHAPTER 13
--
20 And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man's foundation; 21 but as it is written, "they who had no news of him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand." 22 For this reason I have often been prevented from coming to you; 23 but now, with no further place for me in these regions, and since I have had for many years a longing to come to you 24 whenever I go to Spain - for I hope to see you in passing, and to be helped on my way there by you, when I have first enjoyed your company for a while - 25 but now, I am going to Jerusalem serving the Saints.
26 For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Saints in Jerusalem. 27 Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things. 28 Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain. 29 I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. 30 Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, 31 that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the Saints; 32 so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and find refreshing rest in your company. 33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
CHAPTER 16
--
1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea; 2 that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the Saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you; for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well. 3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, 4 who for my life risked their own necks, to whom not only do I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles; 5 also greet the church that is in their house Greet Epaenetus, my beloved, who is the first convert to Christ from Asia. 6 Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. 7 Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. 8 Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9 Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. 10 Greet Apelles, the approved in Christ. Greet those who are of the household of Aristobulus. 11 Greet Herodion, my kinsman. Greet those of the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord. 12 Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord. Greet Persis the beloved, who has worked hard in the Lord. 13 Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine. 14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the brethren with them. 15 Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the Saints who are with them. 16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
17 Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.
Guru Granth Sahib first part, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Listen, my friends, I beg of you: now is the time to serve the Saints!
In this world, earn the profit of the Lord's Name, and hereafter, you shall dwell in peace. ||1||
--
Nanak, Your slave, begs for this happiness: let me be the dust of the feet of the Saints. ||4||5||
One Universal Creator God. By The Grace Of The True Guru:
--
In the Society of the Saints, the Guru is found. He is the Treasure of Liberation, the Source of all good fortune. ||1||Pause||
Upon that Highest Plane of Sublime Beauty, stands the Mansion of the Lord.
--
All comforts and peace, and the Essence of the Lord, are enjoyed by acquiring spiritual wisdom in the Society of the Saints.
Day and night, continually serve the Lord God; the True Guru has given the Naam. ||2||
--
Remain united with the Society of the Saints; chant the Name of the Lord, and find peace. ||1||Pause||
The Gurmukh is the happy and pure soul-bride forever. She keeps her Husband Lord enshrined within her heart.
--
Embellished and immaculate is that place where the Saints gather together.
He alone finds shelter, who has met the Perfect Guru.
--
Become the dust of the Saints; renounce your selfishness and conceit.
Give up all your schemes and your clever mental tricks, and fall at the Feet of the Guru.
--
In the Society of the Saints, meditate in remembrance on the Lord, and wash off the filth of countless incarnations. ||1||
O my mind, chant and meditate on the Name of the Lord.
--
In the Society of the Saints, God, the Beloved, the Forgiver, comes to dwell within the mind.
One who has served his God is the emperor of kings||2||
--
Seek the Sanctuary of the Saints, and fall at their feet; your suffering and darkness shall be removed. ||2||
Practice truth, contentment and kindness; this is the most excellent way of life.
--
Nanak has obtained the gift of the dust of the feet of the Saints. ||4||26||96||
Siree Raag, Fifth Mehl, Seventh House:
--
In the Society of the Saints, He is found, if the Uniter unites us.
One whose heart is filled with His Infinite Light meets with Him, and shall never again be separated from Him.
--
In the Society of the Saints, peace wells up; the Gurmukhs take the Support of the Naam. ||4||
In an instant, one is born, and in an instant, one dies. In an instant one comes, and in an instant one goes.
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
lantern that tradition gives to the images of the Saint. For, in the
old books, {167} St Genevieve is always represented with a medal on her
Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
enjoys, as it were, His own transcendent sweetness. In the Saints, God manifests Himself only in part,
like the honey in a flower. You suck the flower, and get a little honey. In the Incarnations, it is all 'honey'
Tablets of Baha u llah text, #Tablets of Baha u llah, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
concerneth good character. A good character is, verily, the best mantle for men from God. With it He adorneth the temples of His loved ones. By My life! The light of a good character surpasseth the light of the sun and the radiance thereof. Whoso attaineth unto it is accounted as a jewel among men. The glory and the upliftment of the world must needs depend upon it. A goodly character is a means whereby men are guided to the Straight Path and are led to the Great Announcement. Well is it with him who is adorned with the Saintly attributes and character of the Concourse on High.
It beseemeth you to fix your gaze under all conditions upon justice and fairness. In the Hidden Words this exalted utterance hath been revealed from Our Most August Pen:
Talks 001-025, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
M.: It can be so. Realisation of the Self is the greatest help that can be rendered to humanity. Therefore, the Saints are said to be helpful, though they remain in forests. But it should not be forgotten that solitude is not in forests only. It can be had even in towns, in the thick of worldly occupations.
D.: It is not necessary that the Saints should mix with people and be helpful to them?
M.: The Self alone is the Reality; the world and the rest of it are not. The realised being does not see the world as different from himself.
D.: Thus then, the Saints realisation leads to the uplift of humanity without the latter being aware of it. Is it so?
M.: Yes. The help is imperceptible but is still there. A saint helps the whole of humanity, unknown to the latter.
Talks 026-050, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A visitor: the Saints Sri Chaitanya and Sri Ramakrishna wept before
God and achieved success. Is that not the path to follow?
Talks 600-652, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
M.: The state of the child is meant. No one can take lessons from the child for the Realisation of the Self. The Master's state is like the state of the child. There is a difference between the two. The ego is potential in the child, whereas it is totally destroyed in the Saint.
D.: Yes, I see, I understand it now.
--
Gautama is prominent in Arunachala as well as in Tiruchuzhi. Shiva showed Himself to the Saint in the dancing posture and also re-enacted the wedding of Gauri Sankar.
Kaundinya was another rishi for whose sake the sacred river began to flow there. It goes by the name of the rishi i.e., Kaundinya river which in Tamil was corrupted into Kundaru. It is otherwise called Papahari i.e., the destroyer of sins. There lies a story behind it: A King's daughter was hysterical (i.e., possessed). She was taken on a pilgrimage to various sacred places and tirthas. On one occasion the party heard the name of
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
spiritual men remain above in the higher spiritual consciousness. the Saints
are Bhaktas.
--
time and date. According to the prediction he was to die at night. the Saint
said, "Unless my consciousness is clouded he will die at night." the man
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
whole of life and brought in a new current everywhere. the Saints and Bhaktas can't exert that kind of influence because their urge doesn't pervade the
whole of life. It is confined to religion and hence degeneration may come in
--
you like but not lust." So he kept a preference there. Among the Saints, there
is the egoism of the Bhakta. Besides, one may say that the ego-sense has
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
the spirit; and if the spirit commands the Saint to bend his head back
and gaze rapturously into the sky, the artist has no qualms in breaking
--
Gallery). the Saint stands with his naked feet on the sawn-off stumps
of two branches of a dead tree, his hands tied behind his back, looking
--
in the composition of the picture: the figure of the Saint forms the
apex of a solid, well-balanced triangle. The sides of the triangle are
--
figures are the Saint's executioners, shooting their murderous arrows
into him, belongs to a different level of awareness.
--
magic that emanates from Napoleon's inkpot, the relic of the Saint
carried in the annual procession, the rope by which a famous
The Book of Certitude - P1, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
The term "suns" hath many a time been applied in the writings of the "immaculate Souls" unto the Prophets of God, those luminous Emblems of Detachment. Among those writings are the following words recorded in the "Prayer of Nudbih": 1 "Whither are gone the resplendent Suns? Whereunto have departed those shining Moons and sparkling Stars?" Thus, it hath become evident that the terms "sun," "moon," and "stars" primarily signify the Prophets of God, the Saints, and their companions, those Luminaries, the light of Whose knowledge hath shed illumination upon the worlds of the visible and the invisible. 1. "Lamentation" attributed to the Twelfth Imám.
In another sense, by these terms is intended the divines of the former Dispensation, who live in the days of the subsequent Revelations, and who hold the reins of religion in their grasp. If these divines be illumined by the light of the latter Revelation they will be acceptable unto God, and will shine with a light everlasting. Otherwise, they will be declared as darkened, even though to outward seeming they be leaders of men, inasmuch as belief and unbelief, guidance and error, felicity and misery, light and darkness, are all dependent upon the sanction of Him Who is the Day-star of Truth. Whosoever among the divines of every age receiveth, in the Day of Reckoning, the testimony of faith from the Source of true knowledge, he verily becometh the recipient of learning, of divine favour, and of the light of true understanding. Otherwise, he is branded as guilty of folly, denial, blasphemy, and oppression. ["In another sense..."] The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh vol. 1 p. 167
The Book of Certitude - P2, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
Notwithstanding the divinely-inspired admonitions of all the Prophets, the Saints, and Chosen ones of God, enjoining the people to see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, they have disdainfully rejected their counsels and have blindly followed, and will continue to follow, the leaders of their Faith. Should a poor and obscure person, destitute of the attire of men of learning, address them saying: "Follow ye, O people! the Messengers of God," 1 they would, greatly surprised at such a statement, reply: "What! Meanest thou that all these divines, all these exponents of learning, with all their authority, their pomp and pageantry, have erred, and failed to distinguish truth from falsehood? Dost thou, and people like thyself, pretend to have comprehended that which they have not understood?" If numbers and excellence of apparel be regarded as the criterions of learning and truth, the peoples of a bygone age, whom those of today have never surpassed in numbers, magnificence and power, should certainly be accounted a superior and worthier people. 1. Qur'án 36:20.
165
The Book of Job, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
and to which of the Saints wilt thou turn?
2 For wrath killeth the foolish man,
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
has disappeared. If we believe the Epigraphy from the Saintonge Region, it represented "a
hand holding a pike". All that is left today is the phylactery and its inscription reduced by the
The Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the Saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
--
15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the Saints, 16 cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 20 which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
22 and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
--
19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the Saints, and of the household of God; 20 and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22 in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
CHAPTER 3
--
12 for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: 2 grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving
--
20 Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 21 Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you. 22 All the Saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household. 23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
11) Take delight in questioning; hearken in silence to the word of the Saints. ~ Imitation of Christ
12) Happy is he who nourishes himself with these good words and shuts them up in his heart. He shall always be one of the wise. ~ Ecclesiasticus
--
6) Thence comes it that the Saint occupies himself with his inner being and not with the objects of his eyes. ~ Lao- Tse
7) How canst thou seize by the senses that which is neither solid nor liquid...that which is conceived only in power and energy? ~ Hermes: On Rebirth
--
9) All other vanities can be gradually extinguished, but the vanity of the Saint in his saintliness is difficult indeed to banish. ~ Ramakrishna
10) This is a great fault in men, to love to be the models of others. ~ Meng-tse
--
15) the Saint does good and makes not much of it. He accomplishes great things and is not attached to them. He does not wish to let his wisdom appear. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King
16) the Saint does not seek to do great things; that is why he is able to accomplish them. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King
17) When one has done great things and made a reputation, one should withdraw out of view. ~ Lao-Tse: Tao-te-King
--
36) Keep thyself from all evil in thought, in word, in act. If thou transgress not these three frontiers of wisdom, thou shalt find the way pursued by the Saints. ~ Magghima Nikaya
Ed. N.-We are obliged to discontinue the series of the "Eternal Wisdom" for a time as the next instalment has reached us mutilated in transit, with all the references cut out as well as the close of one section,-elegant censorial corrections, the object of which we are unable to discover
--
7) So long as the mind is inconstant and inconsequent, it will avail nothing, even though one have a good instructor and the company of the Saints. ~ Ramakrishna
8) Like a chariot drawn by wild horses is the mind, the man of knowledge should hold it in with an unswerving attention. ~ CwetawataraUpanishad. II. 9
--
33) the Saintly disciple who applies himself in silence to right meditation, has surmounted covetousness, negligence, wrath, the inquietude of speculation and doubt; he contemplates and enlightens all beings friendly or hostile, with a limitless compassion, a limitless sympathy, a limitless serenity. He recognises that all internal phenomena are impermanent, subjected to sorrow and without substantial reality, and turning from these things he concentrates his mind on the permanent. ~ Buddhist Texts
34) He should sanctify his soul, for it is there that there sits the eternal Beloved; he should deliver his mind from all that is the water and mire of things without reality, vain shadows, so as to keep in himself no trace of love or hatred; for love may lead into the evil way and hatred prevents us from following the good path. ~ Bahu-ullah
--
17) Four roads to perfection: the way of the novice, the way of the warrior, the way of the conqueror, the way of the Saint. Four conditions that we may enter into the way: the society of the just, an ear given to instruction, vigilance, a life of righteousness. ~ Anguttara Nikaya
18) Two kinds of joy are there, O my brothers, and what are they? The noisy and the silent joy; but nobler is the joy that is silent. ~ Sangiti Sutta
--
23) The pure shall not die, but he who leads not the spiritual life dies without ceasing. The wise man knows this difference and takes pleasure in purity and spirituality; it is his joy to live like the Saints. ~ Udanavarga
24) When one follows the Way, there is no death upon the earth. ~ Lao-Tse
--
9) the Saint who has arrived at a perfect contemplation, sees the All as one only spirit and his soul loses itself in this spirit, as water is dissolved in water, as fire is united to fire, as air is made one with air. ~ Shankaracharya
10) He sees the one Spirit in all beings and he sees all beings in the one Spirit. ~ Bhagavad Gita
--
16) For the Saint there is no death. ~ Tolstoy
17) Here is a man to whom all others are not-self: at bottom his own personality alone is real to him, the others in truth only phantasms: he recognises an existence in them, but it is relative, they can serve him as instruments of his designs or can come in his way and that is all: in short between his own personality and all of them there is a deep gulf, an immense distance. Look upon this man confronted by death: it seems to him as if with him all reality, the whole world were disappearing. Then look upon this other who recognises in all that are his like, more, in all that lives, himself, his own essence : he casts his existence into the existence of all living beings and by death he loses only a feeble portion of that existence, for he subsists in all the others in whom he has always recognised, has always loved his own being, his own essence, and it is only the illusion that is now about to fall away from him, the illusion which separated his consciousness from all others. ~ Schopenhauer
The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
1 Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the Saints? 2 Or do you not know that the Saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 4 So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, 6 but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?
7 Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren.
--
29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. 30 But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted; 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; 33 for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the Saints. 34 The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. 35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church. 36 Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only? 37 If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord's commandment. 38 But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. 39 Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. 40 But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.
CHAPTER 15
--
1 Now concerning the collection for the Saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. 2 On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. 3 When I arrive, whomever you may approve, I will send them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem; 4 and if it is fitting for me to go also, they will go with me.
Paul's Upcoming Plans
--
13 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love. 15 Now I urge you, brethren (you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the Saints), 16 that you also be in subjection to such men and to everyone who helps in the work and labors. 17 I rejoice over the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have supplied what was lacking on your part. 18 For they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men.
19 The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Prisca greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.
The First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
3 Honour widows that are widows indeed. 4 But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God. 5 Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. 6 But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. 7 And these things give in charge, that they may be blameless. 8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 9 Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man, 10 Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the Saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work. 11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; 12 Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. 13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. 14 I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. 15 For some are already turned aside after Satan. 16 If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.
Directions for Presbyters
The Gospel According to Matthew, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; 52 the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the Saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"
55 There were also many women there, looking on from afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him; 56 among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
The Letter to the Hebrews, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
9 But, my dearly beloved, we trust better things of you, and nearer to salvation; though we speak thus. 10 For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work, and the love which you have shewn in his name, you who have ministered, and do minister to the Saints. 11 And we desire that every one of you shew forth the same carefulness to the accomplishing of hope unto the end: 12 That you become not slothful, but followers of them, who through faith and patience shall inherit the promises.
God's Promise to Abraham is Unchangeable
--
24 Salute all your prelates, and all the Saints. The brethren from Italy salute you. 25 Grace be with you all. Amen.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ or the Apocalypse, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the Saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. 5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
The First Four Trumpets
--
We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. 18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the Saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament:
--
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. 6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. 7 And it was given unto him to make war with the Saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear. 10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the Saints.
The Land Beast
--
12 Here is the patience of the Saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
--
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. 6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Meaning of the Beast and Harlot
--
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the Saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
The Throne and The Book of Life
Thus Spoke Zarathustra text, #Thus Spoke Zarathustra, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
"Why," asked the Saint, "did I go into the forest and
the desert? Was it not because I loved man all-toomuch? Now I love God; man I love not. Man is for me
--
"Give them nothing!" said the Saint. "Rather, take
part of their load and help them to bear it-that will
--
"And what is the Saint doing in the forest?" asked
Zarathustra.
--
words of the Saint in the forest, sighed, and spoke thus
to his heart: "That I might be wiserl That I might be
Verses of Vemana, #is Book, #unset, #Zen
To the Sainted Bards, to the nine poets, to the Siva creed, to his essence, and to the boon-granting Gem, to those who attend in the heaven of Siva, to the god himself and to thy teacher--pray for aid of Vema.
The unborn (see 556) the slayer of sharabha endowed with the qualities of Siva and the lord of a thousand millions of demigods; the servants of Siva who sitteth at the root of the sacred Banyan, He that is endowed with the mind of Siva, the sage Somasekhara is my teacher.
--
Who ever learneth the verses uttered by the Sainted, this man shall attain to that object which is emphatically Incomprehensible.
p. 8
Wikipedia - Anthem of the Bulgarian Education -- Official anthem of the Saints Cyril and Methodius' Day in Bulgaria
Wikipedia - Butler's Lives of the Saints
Wikipedia - Calendar of the saints
Wikipedia - Canute the Saint
Wikipedia - Category:Discoveries by the Saint-Sulpice Observatory
Wikipedia - Centennial Range -- Subrange of the Saint Elias Mountains in Yukon, Canada
Wikipedia - Champlain Bridge, Montreal (2019-present) -- Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal, Quebec
Wikipedia - Conditional preservation of the saints -- Arminian religious doctrine
Wikipedia - Congregation for the Causes of the Saints
Wikipedia - Eric the Saint
Wikipedia - For All the Saints -- Song
Wikipedia - Friends of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra -- Non-profit cultural and educational organization
Wikipedia - Gulf of Saint Lawrence -- The outlet of the North American Great Lakes via the Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean
Wikipedia - Henckelia -- Genus of flowering plants in the saintpaulia family Gesneriaceae
Wikipedia - History of the Saints (TV series) -- television documentary about Mormon Pioneers
Wikipedia - Just Like Fire Would -- 1986 single by The Saints
Wikipedia - List of crossings of the Saint John River -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of crossings of the Saint Lawrence River and the Great Lakes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of The Saint episodes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Litany of the Saints -- Formal prayer of the Catholic Church
Wikipedia - Lives of the Saints (miniseries) -- 2004 film by Jerry Ciccoritti
Wikipedia - Lorenzo Ruiz: The Saint... A Filipino
Wikipedia - Mariology of the saints
Wikipedia - Miracles of the Saints (Islam)
Wikipedia - Montreal Saint-Hubert Longueuil Airport -- Airport in the Saint-Hubert borough of Longueuil, Quebec, Canada
Wikipedia - Mount Maxwell -- Summit of the Saint Elias Mountains in Kluane National Park of Yukon, Canada
Wikipedia - On the Resting-Places of the Saints
Wikipedia - Perseverance of the saints -- Calvinist doctrine that the elect will continue in faith until the end
Wikipedia - Pranchiyettan and the Saint
Wikipedia - Pranchiyettan > the Saint
Wikipedia - Reversing Falls -- Series of rapids on the Saint John River located in central eastern Canada
Wikipedia - RMS Empress of Ireland -- Ocean liner which sank near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River after a collision
Wikipedia - Saint Lawrence rift system -- A seismically active zone paralleling the Saint Lawrence River
Wikipedia - The Camp of the Saints -- 1973 French anti-immigration novel by Jean Raspail
Wikipedia - The Hall of the Saints (Pinturicchio) -- Room in the Borgia Apartment of the Vatican Palace
Wikipedia - The Lives of the Saints (Baring-Gould)
Wikipedia - The Lost Villages -- Communities submerged by the Saint Lawrence Seaway
Wikipedia - The Saint (2017 film) -- 2017 film by Simon West
Wikipedia - The Saint and Her Fool -- 1928 film
Wikipedia - The Saint (Edwin Astley song) -- Theme of British television programme The Saint
Wikipedia - The Saint in London -- 1939 film by John Paddy Carstairs
Wikipedia - The Saint in New York (film) -- 1938 film by Ben Holmes
Wikipedia - The Saint in Palm Springs -- 1941 film by Jack Hively
Wikipedia - The Saint of Bleecker Street -- Opera by Gian Carlo Menotti
Wikipedia - The Saint of Fort Washington -- 1993 US drama film by Tim Hunter
Wikipedia - The Saint Olav Drama
Wikipedia - The Saints (Australian band) -- Australian rock band
Wikipedia - The Saint (Simon Templar) -- Fictional character invented by Leslie Charteris
Wikipedia - The Saint Strikes Back -- 1939 film by John Farrow
Wikipedia - The War of the Saints -- novel by the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado
Wikipedia - Thousand Islands -- Archipelago in the Saint Lawrence River on the Canada-US border
Wikipedia - Veneration of the saints
Wikipedia - When the Saints Go Marching In
Wikipedia - Woodstock, New Brunswick -- Town on the Saint John River, western New Brunswick, Canada
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1035919.The_Magical_Power_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1052303.The_Saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1162534.The_Saint_Germain_Chronicles
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1181058.The_Camp_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12120268-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12672812-the-saint-who-stole-my-heart
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1273092.The_Way_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129057.The_Saints_of_the_Sword
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13455515-the-saint-of-mt-koya
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1394406.The_Saint_and_the_Sinner
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1399831.Coconuts_for_the_Saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14385610-the-soldier-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15757382.The_Devil_s_Thief__The_Saint_s_Devils___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16117368-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16207344-the-saints-of-the-cross
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16280108-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/163362.My_Life_With_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169965.The_Saintly_Buccaneer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17074984-when-the-saints-go-marching-in
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1807014.The_Saint_Meets_the_Tiger
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1807017.The_Saint_Plays_with_Fire
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1906599.Saint_Juan_Diego_and_Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe_Encounter_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19210253-the-saint-of-lost-things
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19250912-the-saint-of-petersburg
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198833.The_Cult_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1988609.The_Saint_In_New_York
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1988637.Vendetta_for_the_Saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1999880.The_City_of_the_Saints_and_Across_the_Rocky_Mountains_to_California
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214841.The_War_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21485825-enter-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21927525-enter-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21927526-the-saint-closes-the-case
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22428866-the-head-of-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2269088.Alias_the_Saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22775271-the-saints-favorite-books
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22812831.When_The_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24685155-the-cult-of-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/248735.The_Saint_of_Incipient_Insanities
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25081237-the-triune-god-speaks-to-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25109421-the-private-lives-of-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25395908-the-saint-francis-de-sales-collection-16-books
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2771511-my-cousin-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28047498-the-saints-of-the-lost-and-found
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289030.The_Saint_the_Surfer_and_the_CEO
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3069471-between-the-monster-and-the-saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32932265-the-tannenbaum-tailors-and-the-brethren-of-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33350775-the-saints-of-rattlesnake-mountain
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/351089.Leaving_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35340667-the-saint-of-wolves-and-butchers
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/390252.The_Saint_and_Mr_Teal
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42397653.The_Saint
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43546935-the-saint-paddy-s-promise
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4454725-the-killing-of-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5409692-on-the-saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6093115-the-magickal-power-of-the-saint-s-ritual-book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/661547.Hotel_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/671181.The_Saint_of_Lost_Things
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7866264-the-saints-of-egypt
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/844853.The_Revolution_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/846353.Lives_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9168577-the-saint-valentine-s-day-murders
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/952705.Lies_of_the_Saints
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/987442.The_Saints_Everlasting_Rest
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Beliefs#The_Theotokos_and_the_saints
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church#Mary_and_the_saints
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Conditional_Preservation_of_the_Saints
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Conditional_preservation_of_the_saints
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Litany_of_the_Saints
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mariology_of_the_saints
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Perseverance_of_the_saints
Integral World - The Enchanted Land, A Journey with the Saints of India, Introduction, David Lane
Integral World - The Enchanted Land, The Saint: Sawan Singh, David Lane
The Saint (1962 - 1969) - When "The Saint" plays with fire...other people get burned! Roger Moore is Simon Templar, a 20th Century Robin Hood, alias The Saint. Also spawned into a 1997 film adaptation starring Val Kilmer as Templar.
The Saint(1997) - Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) is a theif. His next operation is to steal the formula for Cold Fusion, made by scientist Dr. Emma Russel (Elisabet
Beethoven's 3rd(2000) - Beethoven the Saint Bernard is back in this comedy for the whole family, in which the Newton Family (with their rather large pet in tow) hops into their camper for a cross-country vacation. Along the way, they encounter a gang of bad guys. Can Beethoven help bring them to justice? Beethoven's 3rd st...
https://the-saints-magic-power-is-omnipotent.fandom.com/
https://ancardia.fandom.com/wiki/Shirt_of_the_Saints
https://beer.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint_Louis_Brewery
https://dreamfiction.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint_in_El_Kadsre
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Lives_of_the_Saints
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Tending_to_the_Saints
https://fury.fandom.com/wiki/Grace_of_the_Saint
https://guildopedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saints
https://nanoha.fandom.com/wiki/Shroud_of_the_Saint_King
https://nanoha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint's_Cradle
https://preacher.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint_of_Killers
https://saintseiya.fandom.com/wiki/The_Life_That_Was_Saved_by_Seiya!_Revive,_Legend_of_the_Saints!
https://saintsrow.fandom.com/wiki/How_the_Saints_Save_Christmas
https://summonermaster.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint
https://summonermaster.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint_Extended
https://summonermaster.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint_Final
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saint
https://tokyoghoul.fandom.com/wiki/The_Saints
Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya -- -- Toei Animation -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Fantasy Shounen -- Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya -- Zeus had a daughter named Athena, the goddess of war. A group of youths flocked to Athena fighting to protect her amidst heroic battles as her "Saints". Their proof of being a Saint laid with the battle protector known as Sacred Cloth. -- -- After a virtual eternity, a new struggle is about to unfold now again over the Cloth. A boy named Seiya has crossed way over to Greece to undergo the training to become a Saint and obtained the Cloth, Bronze cloth, the lowest position among Saints. Every Saint takes a constellation as their tutelary god. And Seiya's guardian star is Pegasus. Now, the saints gather together from all over the world to participate in the "Galatic War" - championship of Saints, aiming at the Gold Cloth, the symbol of ruler of the Saints. The curtain for Galatic War has been cut open. During the death battle between the Saints, Phoenix, the Black Saint, suddenly appeared on the scene and runs off with Gold Cloth in front of a full house in his ambition to become ruler of the world. Seiya and his fellow bronze cloth warriors go after Phoenix and his "Shadow Army" to retrieve the lost Gold Cloth... -- -- The battles waged among the saints, the strongest young men on earth, begin now! -- -- (Source: Toei Animation) -- ONA - Jul 19, 2019 -- 13,627 5.11
Saint Seiya -- -- Toei Animation -- 114 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Fantasy Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya Saint Seiya -- In ancient times, a group of young men devoted their lives to protecting Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. These men were capable of fighting without weapons—a swing of their fist alone was powerful enough to rip the very sky apart and shatter the earth beneath them. These brave heroes became known as Saints, as they could summon up the power of the Cosmos from within themselves. -- -- Now, in present day, a new generation of Saints is about to come forth. The young and spirited Seiya is fighting a tough battle for the Sacred Armor of Pegasus, and he isn't about to let anyone get in the way of him and his prize. Six years of hard work and training pay off with his victory and new title as one of Athena's Saints. -- -- But Seiya's endeavor doesn't end there. In fact, plenty of perils and dangerous enemies face him and the rest of the Saints throughout the series. What new quests await the heroes of the epic Saint Seiya saga? -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, DiC Entertainment, Flatiron Film Company -- TV - Oct 11, 1986 -- 149,298 7.76
Saint Seiya -- -- Toei Animation -- 114 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Fantasy Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya Saint Seiya -- In ancient times, a group of young men devoted their lives to protecting Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. These men were capable of fighting without weapons—a swing of their fist alone was powerful enough to rip the very sky apart and shatter the earth beneath them. These brave heroes became known as Saints, as they could summon up the power of the Cosmos from within themselves. -- -- Now, in present day, a new generation of Saints is about to come forth. The young and spirited Seiya is fighting a tough battle for the Sacred Armor of Pegasus, and he isn't about to let anyone get in the way of him and his prize. Six years of hard work and training pay off with his victory and new title as one of Athena's Saints. -- -- But Seiya's endeavor doesn't end there. In fact, plenty of perils and dangerous enemies face him and the rest of the Saints throughout the series. What new quests await the heroes of the epic Saint Seiya saga? -- TV - Oct 11, 1986 -- 149,298 7.76
Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Fantasy Shounen -- Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary -- From the dawn of time, there have been warriors who protected the Goddess Athena. Once forces of evil appear, these warriors, called the Saints will present themselves. -- -- A young woman, Saori Kido, learns about this force known as "Cosmos" and that she is the reincarnation of Athena, protector of love and peace on Earth. However, the Pope of the Sanctuary, who is in the charge of all the Saints, does not take kindly to Saori, and targets her for usurping the identity of Athena. An assassin is sent out to kill her. Fortunately, one of the Bronze Saints, Seiya, manages to protect her. But will Seiya be able to protect Saori through to the end in the gripping saga of Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary? -- Movie - Jun 21, 2014 -- 22,689 6.24
Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Josou - Overture -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Adventure Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Josou - Overture Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Josou - Overture -- After the Saints' victory against Hades, Seiya is left wounded and motionless in a wheel chair with no possible chance of recovery. Athena's sister Artemis, the Virgin Goddess of the Moon and twin sister of Apollo, makes an elaborate proposal - to restore Seiya's physical health in exchange for the supremacy of Sanctuary. Athena accepts and Artemis and her "Knights of the Sky" swiftly take control of Sanctuary. Now Seiya and his fellow Bronze Saints combat the forces of Zeus to regain their homeland but it will not be so easy. Bronze Saints Hydra Ichi and Unicorn Jabu, and Silver Saint Ophiuchus Shaina have join forces with Artemis and Apollo. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Feb 14, 2004 -- 19,915 7.22
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olaf-the-Saint's-Axe-Teiknib
Alias the Saint
Avenue of the Saints
Battle of the Saintes
Battle of the Saints
Bet on the Saint
Blood of the Saints
Book:The Saint (Simon Templar)
Call for the Saint
Capture the Saint
Catch the Saint
Chorus of the Saints
Conditional preservation of the saints
Count On the Saint
Draft:The Saint (upcoming film)
Enter the Saint
Featuring the Saint
Flixton, The Saints
Follow the Saint
For All the Saints
Getaway (The Saint)
History of the Saints (TV series)
I Sing a Song of the Saints of God
Knight Templar (The Saint)
La Mothe-Saint-Hray
List of presidents of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montreal
List of The Saint episodes
Litany of the Saints
Lives of the Saints (disambiguation)
Lives of the Saints (miniseries)
Mariology of the saints
Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece
Master of the Saint Lambrecht Votive Altarpiece
Museum of the Saints, Olot
Once More the Saint
On the Resting-Places of the Saints
Perseverance of the saints
Pranchiyettan & the Saint
Return of the Saint
Salvage for the Saint
Send for the Saint
Seneschal of the Saintonge
Songs for the Saints
S.W.O.R.D. (The Saint)
Thanks to the Saint
The Camp of the Saints
The Last Hero (The Saint)
The life of the Saints of Zalka Zsihovics Debreczeni
The Lives of the Saints
The Rhythm of the Saints
The Saint
The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent
The Saint's Return
The Saint (1997 film)
The Saint (2017 film)
The Saint and Her Fool
The Saint and the Fiction Makers
The Saint and the Hapsburg Necklace
The Saint (club)
The Saint Consulting Group
The Sainte Catherines
The Saint (Edwin Astley song)
The Saint (film series)
The Saint John's Bible
The Saint (music venue)
The Saint of Bleecker Street
The Saint of Gamblers
The Saint Olav Drama
The Saint on Guard
The Saint Patrick's Day Four
The Saints Are Coming
The Saints (British band)
The Saint (Simon Templar)
The Saint (soundtrack)
The Saints, Suffolk
The Saint, the Surfer, and the CEO
The Saint (TV series)
The Saint Who Forged a Country
The Saint Zita Society
The War of the Saints
Time Is the Sulphur in the Veins of the Saint An Excursion on Satan's Fragmenting Principle
When the Saints Go Marching In
When the Saints Go Marching In (sports anthem)
convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favoritesSavitri --Savitri extended toc Savitri Section Map --1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa -Aurobindo -Ramakrishna - Maharshi -Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School -Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration -Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - studysubjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null -Savitri - SA O TAOC -SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel -TLD -TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs