Scriptor Ignotus > Recent Status Updates

"The world's beauty is changed into a delectable object of the individual's senses, serving individual self-containedness. The senses...do not recognize the true beauty of the world; [but] merely a 'phantasm' of this beauty ... 'The contemplation of creatures,' says Isaac the Syrian, 'even if it is sweet, is only a shadow of knowledge, and its sweetness is not set apart from the fantasy of dreams.'"

2/

"Through the senses that bring us into contact with the world we are informed of...the world's beauty. But at the same time the senses express and make specific the irrational desires of biological individuality: the insatiable thirst of the senses for absolute pleasure is the rebellious tendency of physical individuality to be absolutized as an end in itself."

1/

Greek East = apophaticism of the person (existential, relational, actual)

Latin West = apophaticism of essence (intellectual, theoretical)

Western mysticization of essence, bordering on nihilism in the modern age

Heidegger as the last "essence mystic" of the West

Why am I reading this lmao

Phenomenal priority of the person over the conscious intellect and its perception of things in "ontic individuality"

Personhood as absolute otherness, experienced only as an existential fact, incapable of definition, prediction, or intellectual comprehension

Movement from theoretical perception of reality to existential-actual universal relation as ecstasy or eros of the Greek Fathers

1/2

"Platonic ideas are in reality angels of the Word, and Plato's sagacity, which compels us to recognize him as 'a Christian before Christ' (according to ecclesiastical literature) is that he recognized the necessity of grounding the earthly world in the heavenly, becoming in being, things in ideas. And with this he transferred to the language of philosophy the revelation of paganism . . . all is full of gods."

"This is your divine plan, your advent,
your compassion, and your benevolence
which has come into being for all us human beings, O Logos,
for the faithful, the unfaithful, the heathens, the sinners, and
for the saints.
For your manifestation has become common to all,
salvation and redemption of the living and the dead.
That which has secretly occurred in me, the profligate,
[...][is] fearful and beyond telling."

-13

"We are made members of Christ, and Christ becomes our
members[...]
I move my hand and my hand is Christ entire.
For, understand me, the divine divinity is indivisible!
I put my foot in motion and behold, it flashes as Himself.
Do not say that I blaspheme, but accept these things
and fall down and worship Christ Who makes you like this!"

"You make each person a home and You dwell within
everyone,
and You become a home to all, and in You we dwell,
each one of us entirely, Savior, with you Entirely,
You along are with each one alone,
and You are entirely above us[...]"

- Hymn 15

https://youtu.be/_0itTpuzzcQ?t=42

"For if this sun which we all see,
someone saw going down within [him]
and in like manner all of it shining and swelling,
would they not be speechless as a corpse at this marvel,
and would not all who saw this be out of their senses?
And one seeing the Maker of the sun like a torch
shining out, operating, speaking within them [. . .]
How shall they not love the One Who gives life?"

- Hymn 8

(c.1725) "Bourgmont took a delegation of Osage, Otoe, Missouria, and Illini leaders to France, where they saw Versailles, the Paris opera house, the Hotel des Invalides, and the fifteen-year-old king Louis XV. The Indigenous visitors were not impressed. One of them was taken aback by men 'who were half women, with curled hair, earrings, and corsages on their chest.' He said they 'smelled like alligators.'"

lol owned

Lex Fridman should make a Goodreads account if he doesn't have one already.

One more book before New Year's. Push it, push it, push it!

Finishing the year with readings of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation is pretty intense.

2spooky

I've been waiting all year to say this:

We in Revelations

"Among stories there are some that are useful to everyone, some not to everyone. Take, for example, the story of Lot and his daughters: if it teaches something useful in an elevated sense, God knows, as does that person who has received the gift of grace to expound these matters. As for the usefulness of the story itself, it would take quite a search to find it!" -Hom.5, 1 Samuel


Well, the man had a sense of humor.

1 John 4:16: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
    
...

For the Lord will not
    cast off forever,
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion
    according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not afflict from his heart
    or grieve the children of men."

- Lamentations 3:22, 31-33



Lamentations and Baruch are both very moving texts

The analogy isn't perfect, of course, since the other stars don't actually reflect the light of our sun, but it's a lovely image nonetheless. It endows the Church, which is the world itself as transfigured by divine kenosis, with the moon's feminine mystery and allure.

Origen is now going to discuss the significance of Christ's most-venerated title, "Word", in light of all His other titles.

Discussing Christ's title, "light of the world", Origen makes the radically simple move of comparing Him to the "light of the sensible world" - the sun. If Christ is the source of light, he says, then "the bride, the church, and the disciples [are] analogous to the moon and the stars...they possess...light acquired from the true sun in order to enlighten those who cannot construct in themselves a source of light."

"By each room is placed a key, but not the one that corresponds to it, so that the keys are scattered about beside the rooms, none of them matching the room by which it is placed...We therefore know the Scriptures that are obscure only by [referring to other Scriptures] because they have their interpretive principle scattered among them." - Origen, Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms

"As we are about to begin the interpretation of the Psalms, we shall disclose a very beautiful tradition handed on to us by the Hebrew [an unknown Jewish teacher in Alexandria] which applies generally to the entire divine Scripture. For the Hebrew said that the whole divinely inspired Scripture may be likened, because of its obscurity, to many locked rooms in one house. . . ." 1/2

Jer.40:6-8: "Behold, I bring her health and healing for her wounds...Yes, I will heal this city...I shall return the captives of Judah and Israel and will restore them, even as before. I will cleanse them from all their wrongdoings..."

Salvation history is a series of judgments/dispersals and redemptions, the most definitive being the passion and resurrection. Every cataclysm followed by a greater mercy.

"..., of the Church, in an unbroken relationship of love when we live united in Christ, that is, when we experience unity in His Church with a sense of oneness. This is why Christ prays to His Father saying, that they may be one. . . . This is the most profound aspect, the most exalted meaning, of the Church. This is where the secret is to be found: for all to be united as one person in God."

"No one should wish to be saved alone without all others being saved. It is a mistake for someone to pray for himself, that he himself may be saved. We must love others and pray that no soul be lost, that all may enter into the Church. . . . When we set ourselves apart from others, we are not Christians. We are true Christians when we have a profound sense that we are members of the mystical body of Christ..." 1/2

"In every epoch the Christian world needs to be reminded of [the] universal love of God for his creation, because in every epoch there is a strong tendency within Christianity to replace the religion of love and freedom taught by Jesus with a religion of slavery and fear."

- Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

2Ti 3:1-4:

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God . . ."

Hard to imagine...

I'm enjoying this immensely so far. The Seven Years' War was the most consequential war of the eighteenth century. It completely reshaped the balance of power in Europe and North America, and it's unlikely that the American and French Revolutions would have developed as they did if it hadn't happened. The Revolutionary War was to the Seven Years' War as the Korean War was to WW2: an aftershock of a much larger event.

1 Ti 2:1-4: "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

The perfection of charity