Scriptor Ignotus > Recent Status Updates

In Judges, the common refrain is that "every man did what was right in his own eyes." Once Saul becomes king, the people tell him to "do whatever you think is good." The problem of anarchy is resolved by subsuming every individual will under one man's will. But that will, when not directed towards God, becomes no less arbitrary and tyrannical. It is the people who stop Saul from putting the heroic Jonathan to death.

Dante to St. Peter:

"If without miracles the world
was turned to Christianity, that is
so great a miracle that all the rest
are not its hundredth part: for you were poor
and hungry when you found the field and sowed
the good plant - once a vine and now a thorn."

Jdg. 14:16-17: "[Samson's wife said] 'You hate me! You do not love me! You told the sons of my people a riddle, but you have not explained it to me.' And Samson said to her, 'If I have not explained it to my father or my mother, why should I explain it to you?' Now she wept before him for seven days...And on the seventh day he told her, because she annoyed him so much."

This translation is GOLD.

Judges 13:17-18: "Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord, 'What is Your name, so when Your words come to pass we may honor You?' And the Angel of the Lord said to him, 'Why do you ask my name, is it extraordinary?'"

I found this funny for some reason.

"You are my father;
you hearten me to speak with confidence;
you raise me so that I am more than I."

Dante to Cacciaguida the crusader, his great-great-grandfather, in the Sphere of Mars

Mk 14:51-52: Mark's Gospel is the only one that mentions the young man who left his linen cloth in the hands of the soldiers and fled naked into the night. This young man may be Mark himself - not a very flattering self-portrayal! But significantly, Mark also describes Jesus being wrapped in a linen cloth for His burial, and the angel at the empty tomb is described as a "young man" and wearing a white garment.

"The wax of such things and what shapes that wax
are not immutable; and thus, beneath
Idea's stamp, light shines through more or less.

. . .

For were the wax appropriately readied,
and were the heaven's power at its height,
the brightness of the seal would show completely;
but Nature always works defectively -
she passes on that light much like an artist
who knows his craft but has a hand that trembles."

Deu 15:9-11 provides some context for Jesus's statement that "the poor you always have with you, but you will not always have me." Deuteronomy warns its readers not to use the year of remission as an excuse to avoid giving to the poor. Judas, scolding Mary, does the opposite, using the poor as an excuse not to honor God. He then "sells" Jesus for a sum that is insufficient to provide the remission that Christ offers.

Canto X: In the Sphere of the Sun, Dante and Beatrice are wreathed by a luminous ring of twelve spirits: Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Siger of Brabant, Solomon, Boethius, Gratian (the benedictine monk, not the emperor), Peter Lombard, Dionysius the Areopagite, Paulus Orosius, Isidore of Seville, Bede, and Richard of St. Victor.

Deu 7:17-19: "If you should say in your mind, 'This nation is greater than I; how will I be able to destroy them?' you shall not be afraid of them, but shall remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the Egyptians: the great trials your eyes saw, those great signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out . . ."

Num 26:65: "[None of the Israelites who had left Egypt were among those counted after 40 years,] For the Lord said of them, 'They shall surely die in the desert.' So there was not left a man of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun."

Caleb and Joshua as the Baptist and Christ, the pre-eternal faithful: one proclaims the conquest of Canaan/Hades, the other carries it out.

"The wise will hide perception,
But the mouth of a rash man
approaches destruction." - Proverbs 10:15

The story of Balaam and the Angel in Numbers 22 is one of my favorites from the Hebrew Bible. The commentary insists that the Angel is the Son of God, but says nothing about the donkey, who to my mind is a clear type of Christ and the prophets. The donkey tries to steer Balaam (Israel) away from divine wrath, but Balaam doesn't see the danger, so he abuses the messenger. The donkey's protest is invoked in John 18:23

In the "lowest" heaven, the Sphere of the Moon, are the souls of the nun Piccarda Donati and the empress Constance of Sicily. They're assigned to this sphere because their vows of chastity were violated against their will; they were sexually assaulted. While Donati explains that no one in any sphere of heaven has a greater desire than is fulfilled by grace, her relegation through no fault of her own is a bit jarring.

I like to think of Barabbas as the version of Jesus who DID turn the stones into bread; who DID bow down to Satan in return for worldly power and glory. Pilate is presenting these two parallel figures to the crowd and asking, "What kind of savior do you want?" The crowd's answer is tragically typical. 2/2

Mat. 15-26: Some of the oldest manuscripts of this passage give the rebel Barabbas's full name as "Jesus Barabbas" - literally, "Jesus, Son of the Father". This has caused all sorts of consternation; Origen assumed this name must have been inserted by a heretic, while some scholars have claimed that the two Jesuses were the same person. 1/2

The light of celestial bodies as the "shining through" of the Divine Mind, just as the movements of the human soul "shine through" the eyes.

"And as the soul within your dust is shared
by different organs, each most suited to
a different potency, so does that Mind
unfold and multiply its bounty through
the varied heavens, though that Intellect
itself revolves upon its unity.

[. . .]

Because of the glad nature of its source,
the power mingled with a sphere shines forth,
as gladness, through the living pupil, shines."

"Since 1215, when the Fourth Lateran Council issued the canon Omnis utriusque sexus, annual confession had been mandatory for all Christians. Luther rejected this as a human invention. The papal command, he wrote, should be regarded no more highly than 'the poop in front of you on the street.'"

One has to admire Luther's way with words.

Mat. 23:24: "Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"

Underrated saying of Jesus. Pharisees would put strainers on their decanters to avoid consuming anything ritually impure. Jesus criticizes them for being meticulous about trivial things while ignoring "the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith." [23]

I'm still not sure about Massing's overall thesis, but this has so far been a stimulating and engaging read; not only about Luther and Erasmus, but the whole Reformation era and its theological precursors as well. Jerome, Augustine, Pelagius, James, Paul, Aquinas, Thomas More, John Colet, Henry VIII, Julius II (a warrior-Pope who took his Papal name from Julius Caesar), Abelard, Lombard - what an assemblage!

". . . 'I am left with less than one drop of my blood that does not tremble: I recognize the signs of the old flame.' But Virgil had deprived us of himself, Virgil, the gentlest father, Virgil, he to whom I gave my self for my salvation; an even all our ancient mother lost was not enough to keep my cheeks, though washed with dew, from darkening again with tears."

2/2

[Dante, on seeing Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise:] "Within her presence, I had once been used to feeling—trembling—wonder, dissolution; but that was long ago. Still...by way of hidden force that she could move, I felt the mighty power of old love...I turned around and to my left—just as a little child, afraid or in distress, will hurry to his mother—anxiously, to say to Virgil: . . ." 1/2

Ex 20-21: "Behold, I send My Angel before your face, to keep you in the way and to bring you into the land I prepared for you. Listen to Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions: for My name is in Him."

The same "Angel" who revealed Himself to Moses as "the Existing One" in the burning bush. Both images invoked in the Transfiguration.

Ex 16:17-18: "Then the children of Israel did so and gathered [manna], some more, some less. So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack. Each one gathered according to the need of those sharing the tent with him."

Sounds like commie talk to me, but alright.

Rammstein starts playing

Mt. 10:35: "[I bring not peace, but a sword.]For I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'"

Jesus quotes Micah 7, but reverses the context. Micah warns his audience not to confide even to family for fear of betrayal, but Jesus asks his followers to "preach on the housetops" and confess Him before men, inviting conflict.