Scriptor Ignotus > Recent Status Updates

Mat. 8:34: I hadn't appreciated the humor of Jesus' visit to the Gergesenes. He gets off the boat after crossing the Sea of Galilee, is immediately accosted by two demon-possessed men, exorcises them, watches a herd of pigs run into the sea, is "begged" to leave by the whole city, then gets right back on the boat and sails away!

refuses to elaborate further

leaves

In each case, the host is a foreigner: Lot the Canaanite, the elder from Ephraim, and Pilate the Roman. Each is sufficiently aloof from the community to not be overtaken by its pathology; but each accedes, at least in part, to the mob's demands. What are we supposed to make of the fact that the rebel Barabbas is linked to two innocent women, or that Jesus suffered the concubine's fate? 2/2

In Genesis 19, Judges 19, and John 19, the lives of innocent men are demanded from their hosts by depraved mobs. Each host offers a substitute - Lot's daughters, the Levite's concubine, and Barabbas - but the mob rejects it. The Sodomites are denied both the target and the substitute, the men of Gibeah brutalize the concubine in one of the grisliest passages of scripture, and the Jerusalemites get their target.

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Virgil on love: "The soul, which is created quick to love,
responds to everything that pleases, just
as soon as beauty wakens it to act.
Your apprehension draws an image from
a real object and expands upon
that object until soul has turned toward it;
and if, so turned, the soul tends steadfastly,
then that propensity is love - it's nature
that joins the soul in you, anew, through beauty."

Gen. 13-15: "Then the Lord said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh within herself, saying, "Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?" Is anything impossible with God? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.' But Sarah denied she had laughed, for she was afraid, saying, 'I did not laugh'; but He said, 'No, but you did laugh.'"

Classic.

Gen. 5:3: "Now Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and begot a son according to his form and image, and named him Seth."

Adam, Eve, and Seth, in their interrelation, may be said to typify the Holy Trinity. Adam (Father) is unbegotten, Eve (Holy Spirit) proceeded from Adam, and Seth was begotten by Adam in Eve.

"How shall I, who am unworthy, enter into the splendor of Your saints? If I dare to enter into the bridal chamber, my clothing will accuse me, since it is not a wedding garment; and being bound up, I shall be cast out by the angels. In Your love, Lord, cleanse my soul and save me."

- Orthodox Communion Prayer

Origen thought the "garments of skin" referred to the body itself; but Gregory of Nyssa thought them to represent the trappings of mortality: childbirth, toil, hunger, old age, and death. Others point out that these skins must have come from the animals Adam had named, making them the first sacrifice: an offering from God to Man, through which Man might make his way back to God.

Zoe mothered life by bringing death.

Gen 1-3: "Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made garments of skin, and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. Now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—' therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of pleasure to cultivate the ground from which he was taken." - GN 3:21-23

"'Don't wonder if you are still dazzled by
the family of Heaven: a messenger
has come, and he invites us to ascend.
Soon, in the sight of such things, there will be
no difficulty for you, but delight -
as much as nature fashioned you to feel.'"

Purgatorio Canto XV

Canto XV: "'That Good, ineffable and infinite,
which is above, directs Itself toward love
as light directs Itself to polished bodies.
Where ardor is, that Good gives of Itself;
and where more love is, there that Good confers
a greater measure of eternal worth.
And when there are more souls above who love,
there's more to love well there, and they love more,
and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.'"

"[The] Illuminati were perhaps the first to propose that a revolutionary vanguard, trained in the correct interpretation of doctrine, would be able to understand the overall direction of human history - and, therefore, be capable of intervening to speed up its progress."

Indigenous American critiques of European society, as presented in dialogues like those between Kandiaronk and Lahontan, and responses to those critiques, like that of A.R.J. Turgot, which argued for a theory of social evolution that necessitated tradeoffs between equality and civilization, were combined in Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins of Social Inequality, giving birth to the modern political left.

". . . [T]he Christian form of government is in no way the Tatar-Turkish type of despotic autocracy, which has been elevated to its rank by Byzantium and the cringing official Church, but rather the federative democratic republic, as the English dissidents who emigrated to America understood so well in their time."

- Sergius Bulgakov, Pilgrim Respecter

"Your kingdom's peace come unto us, for if
it does not come, then though we summon all
our force, we cannot reach it of our selves.
Just as Your angels, as they sing Hosanna,
offer their wills to You as sacrifice,
so may men offer up their wills to You.
Give unto us this day the daily manna . . .
Even as we forgive all who have done
us injury, may You, benevolent,
forgive, and do not judge us by our worth."

"...to keep Christmas, they could do so privately. In this instance, Bradford termed it a conflict 'rather of mirth than of weight.' Still, with satisfaction he noted that since then there had been no repeat outbreaks of Christmas merriment." 3/3

"...take the day off 'till they were better informed.' When he and the other colonists returned from the day's tasks at noon, they discovered the observers of Christmas pitching bars (to see who could throw a piece of wood or metal the farthest) and playing stool-ball. The governor impounded the bars and ball and told them 'that was against his conscience, that they should play and others work.' If they wanted..." 2/

"A majority of the Fortune passengers were not separatists from Leiden. On December 25, according to Bradford, most of the 'new company excused themselves and said it went against their consciences to work on that day.' Like other puritans, separatists did not think the Bible authorized the holiday and associated it with unseemly revelry, but Bradford told the newcomers that they could . . . " 1/

Canto II of the Purgatorio is one of my favorites: Dante recognizes a friend, the singer Casella, on the shores of purgatory. He tries to hug him, but he can't because he's a ghost. Casella charms Dante and the other new arrivals with his singing, but then an ornery Cato of Utica shows up and starts berating them like a crusty drill instructor, scattering them like a flock of birds.

"The two candidates for the highest office in the land showered each other with tokens of mutual respect, took turns expressing their immense love of France, and agreed about more or less everything. And yet, at the same time, clashes broke out in Montfermeil between right-wing extremists and a group of young Africans of no declared political affiliation."

Have to admit I almost missed the satire here.

"[Dante says:] 'If you'd have me help you,
then tell me who you are; if I don't free you,
may I go to the bottom of the ice.'

He answered then: 'I am Fra Alberigo[...]'"

[One Minute Later]

"[Alberigo says:] 'But now reach out your hand; open my eyes.'
And yet I did not open them for him;
and it was a courtesy to show him rudeness."

I forgot how much of a SAVAGE Dante is.

"Just as the Garisenda seems when seen
beneath the leaning side, when clouds run past
and it hangs down as if about to crash,
so did Antaeus seem to me as I
watched him bend over me - a moment when
I'd have preferred to take some other road.
But gently - on the deep that swallows up
both Lucifer and Judas - he placed us;
nor did he, so bent over, stay there long,
but, like a mast above a ship, he rose."

Books you read when the boys aren't around.

"And then I asked the poet: 'Was there ever
so vain a people as the Sienese?
Even the French can't match such vanity.'"

This has been freaking fantastic so far.

According to Aristotle, effective tyrants should suppress civil society, outlaw humane education, place their subjects under constant surveillance, sow quarrels among them to keep them divided, fight neverending wars to keep them occupied and fearful, "prefer bad men and foreigners to good citizens, as the former are more easily controlled", and attack the "natural family".

Imagine living under a regime like that!

"Be Sensible of your Wants, that you may be sensible of your Treasures." [45]

"Infinite Wants Satisfied Produce infinite Joys . . . You must Want like a GOD, that you may be Satisfied like GOD . . . His Wants put a Lustre upon His Enjoyments, and make them infinite. His Enjoyments being infinite Crown his Wants, and make them Beautiful even to GOD Himself." [43, 44]

"As Nothing is more Easy than to Think, so nothing is more Difficult than to Think Well. The Easiness of Thinking we received from God, the Difficulty of thinking Well, proceedeth from our selves. Yet in Truth, it is far more Easy to think well than Ill, because Good Thoughts be sweet and Delightful: Evil Thoughts are full of Discontent and Trouble...For by Nature, nothing is so Difficult as to Think amiss." 8