On the unity of antonymy

The first pendulum clock, 1656

Upon the bench I will so handle 'em,

That the vibration of this pendulum

Shall make all taylors yards of one

Unanimous opinion.

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras (c. 1662)

My heart shall be my own

 

By thrift my sinking fortune to repair,

Though late, yet is at last become my care;

My heart shall be my own, my vast expence

Reduc'd to bounds, by timely providence.

-- John Dryden

"Merry Christmas!": The mocking shout of the drunken anti-Puritans

Discussed here:

For most of its history, the Christian church regarded Christmas as a small event on its calendar not requiring much observation. Puritans in England and later the American colonies went one step further, banning the holiday altogether since they could find no biblical support for celebrating the day. As the historian Stephen Nissenbaum has explained, the Puritans imposed fines on anyone caught celebrating and designated Christmas as a working day. These strict rules were necessary since so many men and women engaged in the drunken carousing that accompanied winter solstice festivities, an ancient tradition that the church had failed to stamp out when it appropriated Dec. 25 as a Christian holiday.

In this setting, “Merry Christmas” was born. The greeting was an act of revelry and religious rebellion, something the uncouth masses shouted as they traveled in drunken mobs. Troubled by such behavior, the New Haven Gazette in 1786 decried the “common salutation” of “Merry Christmas.” “So merry at Christmas are some,” the paper lamented, “they destroy their health by disease, and by trouble their joy.”

Another Christmas, and the same old story of the rich suckering the poor

 

 

It is no news for the weak and poor to be a prey to the strong and rich.

-- Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704)

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic Satanist?

He sold his soul to Santa, ha ha!

God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.

Merry Christmas!

Maybe Christmas observance is on the wane because we have become the rich it offends

Madonna of the Magnificat by Jean-baptiste Jouvenet

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

-- Luke 1:53

'Hallmark is offering 376 Christmas cards this year. By my count, only five are religious: three featuring Mary and Joseph in the stable and two Madonnas with child. Admittedly, Hallmark’s best-seller is called “little angels”, but they are simpering cherubs in a picture that carries no reference to the Christian story.

'In November, the peak time for buying Advent calendars, I checked the stock on Amazon. Once again, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and wise men had disappeared to the margins. There were more Star Wars than religious calendars – apparently, the Force is more powerful than the Holy Spirit today. If you were prepared to spend hundreds of pounds, you could buy calendars with doors which open to reveal gin miniatures, jewellery, make-up, sex toys … Everything and anything except a nativity scene.'

Read the rest here.

Between two foes

Johann Heinrich Füssli's Odysseus between the two foes Scylla and Charybdis, circa 1795

 

 

 But as a barque, that, in foul weather,

Toss'd by two adverse winds together,

Is bruis'd and beaten to and fro,

And knows not which to turn him to;

So far'd the knight between two foes,

And knew not which of them t' oppose.

-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras

The mad folks are too many for us

"The Butterfly Dream" by Chinese painter Lu Zhi, circa 1550

 

 

A fellow in a madhouse being asked how he came there? Why, says he, the mad folks abroad are too many for us, and so they have mastered all the sober people, and cooped them up here.

-- Roger L'Estrange

Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

-- Chuang tzu, circa 300 BC

People consumed by a passion for something, violating proportion, used to be considered kind of crazy

 

 

He that eagerly pursues any thing, is no better than a madman.

-- Roger L’Estrange (1616-1704)

A Roman Catholic wants you to believe "sinless Mary" is biblical

Here:

Grace is presented (esp. in Paul) as the antithesis of sin.

To be full of such grace (simple logic) is to be without sin.

Mary was proclaimed by an angel as “full of grace” (Lk 1:28); therefore, she is without sin.

You will search in vain for the translation "full of grace" in Luke 1:28 in the King James Version, the New King James Version, the New Living Translation, the New International Version, the English Standard Version, the Christian Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Translation, the Revised Standard Version and the American Standard Version. Most of these say Mary is "highly favored".

Evidently the translators of these editions all must have been either a bunch of dummies, or a pack of anti-Catholic Protestant heretics to a man to get it so wrong, for so long.

The birth narratives of Jesus in Matthew and Luke were most likely composed to counter the calumny (to Christians) that Jesus was born of fornication (John 8:41). This became a bone of contention once Jesus' reputation had risen above mere "prophet" to deity. The solution to the charge of being a product of fornication was a miraculous birth to a virgin involving no human father at all.

But, of course, Mary then becomes the problem. She herself participated in sinful human nature, did she not, and therefore must have communicated it to her son, did she not?

So in Catholic theology a sinless Mary becomes necessary to stop the communication of sinful human nature to Jesus, based on tenous arguments such as above.

But then how did Mary escape the great chain of being? And if she did why was the birth of Jesus even necessary?

The whole thing quickly descends into more absurdity.

Minos, the final arbiter of the two ways in the afterlife

On Minos' right hand Rhadamanthys, and on his left Aeacus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minos, the strict inquisitor, appears,

And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears;

Round in his urn the blended balls he rowls,

Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.

-- John Dryden's Aeneid 

 

Then spake Zeus: ... 'Now I, knowing all this before you, have appointed sons of my own to be judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthys, and one from Europe, Aiakos (Aeacus). These, when their life is ended, shall give judgement in the meadow at the dividing of the road, whence are the two ways leading, one to the Isles of the Blest (Nesoi Makaron), and the other to Tartaros. And those who come from Asia shall Rhadamanthys try, and those from Europe, Aiakos; and to Minos I will give the privilege of the final decision, if the other two be in any doubt; that the judgement upon this journey of mankind may be supremely just . . .’

-- Plato, Gorgias 523ff.

 

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

-- Matthew 7:13f.

 

There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death; but there is a great difference between the two Ways.

-- Didache I.1

 

But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

-- Matthew 18:16

The fate of the damned: Taken where, Lord? Wherever the corpse is, there the eagles will be gathered together

 

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

-- Matthew 24:27f.

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

-- Luke 17:33ff.

Some seed fell among the cockle

 

 

Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys

The soil's disease, and into cockle strays.

-- John Donne

David Bentley Hart admits that "on the whole, the Gospel is probably not a very good formula for protecting public safety"

Ya think?

Here in Commonweal:

The Sermon on the Mount’s prohibitions of retaliation are absolutely binding on Christians, in both the private and the public spheres, for on the cross Christ at once perfected the refusal of violence and exhausted the Law’s wrath.

This simply begs the question, not only of present injustice, but of final judgment, which Christianity nevertheless teaches. The wrath of God has been hardly exhausted and will be meted out, according to the clear Christian teaching. This makes no sense if the Law's wrath has been "exhausted". The only conclusion to be drawn from that, if it is true, is that there will be no final judgment. This, of course, is where universalism comes from. And the doctrine of purgatory is its halfway house.

The ordinance not to retaliate, like all of the teaching, for example on poverty, is part of the wider message that the world is soon coming to an end. Take that end away, and the teaching becomes utterly obscurantist. It is only intelligible as an explicitly interim ethic in an eschatological time. But even at that, as Schweitzer correctly pointed out, it really represents the negation of ethics and is no ethic at all because all traditional human relationships under it have come to an end ("For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother").

That is why Tacitus correctly called the Christians haters of humanity.

 

It's also why Christians themselves at length gave it up.

People will not persist in an interminable state of poverty and undergo injustice in very large numbers or for a very long period. The history of the church tells us so. It is the history of the compromise and defeat of the original eschatological message. It is a history of degeneration.

Early in the essay Hart deflects the charge of sentimentality saying that he thinks there are very few opponents of capital punishment who do not realize the heinousness of many crimes. But in its place Hart advocates for his own sunny form of unrealism:

[I]f Newman was right—and believing Catholics had better hope he was, for the sake of the intelligibility of their faith—it is not only doctrine but also the church’s understanding of its teachings that is clarified over time by the Spirit. There may be slight missteps, of course, but the general view of development tacitly taken by the magisterium is that there are no violent retreats from clearly stated new discoveries; there is only a relentless narrowing and intensification of focus. This suggests, among other things, that the teachings of the magisterium under the current pontificate are probably more trustworthy than those under the pontificate of, say, Leo X.

I expect Mary to be declared part of the godhead any day now.

Samuel Johnson channels Aeschylus: Each new felicity is purchased by pain, so it might as well be voluntary

 

Our sense of delight is in a great measure comparative, and arises at once from the sensations which we feel, and those which we remember: thus ease after torment is pleasure for a time, and we are very agreeably recreated when the body, chilled with the weather, is gradually recovering its tepidity; but the joy ceases when we have forgot the cold; we must fall below ease again if we desire to rise above it, and purchase new felicity by voluntary pain.

-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #80 (December 22, 1750)

Zeus, who sets mortals on the path to understanding, Zeus, who has established as a fixed law that “wisdom comes by suffering.” But even as trouble, bringing memory of pain, drips over the mind in sleep, [180] so wisdom comes to men, whether they want it or not. Harsh, it seems to me, is the grace of gods enthroned upon their awful seats.

-- Aeschylus, Agamemnon 176 

 

τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.
στάζει δ᾽ ἔν θ᾽ ὕπνῳ πρὸ καρδίας
180 μνησιπήμων πόνος: καὶ παρ᾽ ἄ-
κοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν.
δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος
σέλμα σεμνὸν ἡμένων.

The Synoptic tradition places the start of Jesus' ministry in Galilee after John's imprisonment, but the Fourth Gospel disagrees

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ... Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.

-- Matthew 3:1f., 5f.

Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; ... From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

-- Matthew 4:12, 17

John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. ... Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

-- Mark 1:4f., 14f.

And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. ... And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching. And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; ... And they went out, and preached that men should repent.

-- Mark 6:1, 6f., 12

After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into prison. Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him.

-- John 3:22ff.

When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee.

-- John 4:1ff.

Mother and father are both dead and know nothing of my troubles, nor care

And someday I shall be just like them.

The smell of spring, I will miss you

Whistling winds like organs play'd

Until their voluntaries made

The waken'd earth in odours rise,

To be her morning sacrifice.

-- John Cleaveland (1613-1658)

Words to share in every hospital's cardiac care unit

 

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

-- Psalm 73:25f.

So, did IME leave off the "t" just to tick everyone off?

Who's Chris?