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There was a woman at
Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made
such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the
philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato
and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her
auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her
instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner,
which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind,
she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the
magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of
men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue
admired her the more. All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final. [During the reign of Christian Emperor Theodosius] bands of wandering monks attacked synagogues, pagan temples, heretics' meeting places, and the homes of wealthy non-believers in Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, and North Africa. The bishop of Alexandria incited local vigilantes to destroy the Temple of Serapis [also known as the Serapeum], one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the ancient world that also housed a library...Alexandrian Christians whipped up by Bishop Cyril rioted against the Jews in 415, and then murdered Hypatia, a wise and beloved Platonic philosopher. The decrees of the senate, which proscribed the worship of idols, were ratified by the general consent of the Romans: the splendour of the capitol was defaced, and the solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. Rome submitted to the yoke of the Gospel; and the vanquished provinces had not yet lost their reverence for the name and authority of Rome. |
Hypatia, 1885, by Charles William Mitchell (1854 - 1903) |
Here the desolation might have stopped: and the naked edifices which were no longer employed in the service of idolatry, might have been protected from the destructive rage of fanaticism. Many of those temples were the most splendid and beautiful monuments of Grecian architecture: and the emperor himself was interested not to deface the splendour of his own cities, or to diminish the value of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be suffered to remain, as so many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ. In the decline of the arts, they might be usefully converted into magazines, manufactories, or places of public assembly and perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been sufficiently purified by holy rites, the worship of the true Deity might be allowed to expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry. But as long as they subsisted, the Pagans fondly cherished the secret hope, that an auspicious revolution, a second Julian, might again restore the altars of the gods; and the earnestness with which they addressed their unavailing prayers to the throne, increased the zeal of the Christian reformers to extirpate, without mercy, the root of superstition.
Edward Gibbon, ibid
In Gaul, the holy Martin, bishop of
Tours, marched at the head of his faithful monks, to destroy the idols, the temples, and the consecrated trees of his extensive diocese; and, in the execution of this arduous task, the prudent reader will judge whether Martin was supported by the aid of miraculous powers, or of carnal weapons. In Syria, the divine and excellent
Marcellus
[St Marcellus the Righteous, Abbot of the Acaemetes – PW], as he is styled by Theodoret, a bishop animated with apostolic fervour, resolved to level with the ground the stately temples within the diocese of Apamea. His attack was resisted, by the skill and solidity with which the temple of
Jupiter had been constructed. The building was seated on an eminence: on each of the four sides, the lofty roof was supported by 15 massy columns, 16 feet in circumference; and the large stones of which they were composed, were firmly cemented with lead and iron. The force of the strongest and sharpest tools had been tried without effect. It was found necessary to undermine the foundations of the columns, which fell down as soon as the temporary wooden props had been consumed with fire; and the difficulties of the enterprise are described under the allegory of a black daemon, who retarded, though he could not defeat, the operations of the Christian engineers.
Edward Gibbon, ibid
In the support of this cause, the monks, who rushed, with tumultuous fury, from the desert, distinguished themselves by their zeal and diligence. They deserved the enmity of the Pagans; and some of them might deserve the reproaches of avarice and intemperance; of avarice, which they gratified with holy plunder, and of intemperance, which they indulged at the expence of the people, who foolishly admired their tattered garments, loud psalmody, and artificial paleness. A small number of temples was protected by the fears, the venality, the taste, or the prudence, of the civil and ecclesiastical governors. The temple of the celestial Venus at Carthage whose sacred precincts formed a circumference of two miles, was judiciously converted into a Christian church; and a similar consecration has preserved inviolate the majestic dome of the Pantheon at Rome.
Edward Gibbon, ibid
But in almost every province of the Roman
world, an army of fanatics, without authority, and without discipline,
invaded the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest
structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those
Barbarians, who alone had time and inclination to execute such
laborious destruction.
Edward Gibbon, ibid
The valuable library of
Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and, near twenty years
afterwards, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and
indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by
religious prejudice.
Edward Gibbon,
ibid More
on the Library of Alexandria
The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Rufinius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human mind.
Edward Gibbon, ibid (XXVIII)
... it must ingenuously be confessed, that the ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model, which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves, that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.
Edward Gibbon, ibid
When on high, the heaven had not
been named,
Firm ground below had not been
called by name,
nought but primordial Apsu, their begetter,
[And] Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,
Their waters commingling as a single body ...
From the opening stanzas of Enûma Elish
Babylonian epic creation epic; Marduk (below) slew the dragon Tiamat
And the lord stood upon Tiamat's hinder
parts,
And with his merciless club he smashed her skull.
He cut through the channels of her blood,
And he made the North wind bear it away into secret places.
From Enûma Elish
When you fall into a man's conversation, the first
thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you,
or that you should hear him.
Sir Richard Steele, Irish writer, born on March 12, 1672;
The Spectator,
No. 49 (April 26,
1711)
Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which
makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.
Sir Richard Steele; The Spectator, No. 153 (August
25, 1711)
Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more
pernicious than the love of flattery.
Sir Richard Steele; The Spectator, No. 238 (December
3, 1711)
I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
(1769 - 1852), as his troops
occupied Bordeaux, France, on
March 12, 1813
Appearing to be outwardly exalted, I am really fallen. My endeavours were to banish corporeal objects from my mind, that I might spiritually behold heavenly joys ... I am come into the depths of the sea, and the tempest has drowned me.
St Gregory the Great, whose day this is, on the occasion of his being made Pope, writing to the sister of the Roman emperor
Goe plow in the stubble
for now is the season
For sowing of fitches,
of beanes, and of peason.
Sow runciuals timely,
and all that be gray,
But sow not the white,
till St Gregory's day.
Thomas
Tusser, English poet (1524 -
1580)
If it will satisfy you that I should know you, love you, love you – when then indeed … You should have my soul to stand on if it could make you stand higher.
Elizabeth Barrett (1806
- 1861) wrote these words to fellow poet (and later, husband)
Robert
Browning (1812 - 1889), on March 12, 1846
Once I was young and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won't do -- just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out ...
Jack Kerouac, American beat novelist, born on March 12, 1922, Subterraneans
I'd rather be thin than famous.
Jack Kerouac
I'm not a beatnik, I'm a Catholic.
Jack Kerouac, American beat novelist, born on March 12, 1922
I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Jack Kerouac
Mankind is like dogs, not gods – as long as you don't get mad they'll bite you – but stay mad and you'll never be bitten. Dogs don't respect humility and sorrow.
Jack Kerouac
My witness is the empty sky.
Jack Kerouac
All things are like visions beyond the reach of the human mind.
Jack Kerouac
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
Jack Kerouac
As early pioneers in the knowing, that when you lose your reason, you attain highest perfect knowing.
Jack Kerouac
The fact was I had the vision ... I think everyone has ... what we lack is the method.
Jack Kerouac
They got nothing on me
at the university
Them clever poets
of immensity
With charcoal suits
and charcoal hair
And green armpits
and heaven air
Jack Kerouac; from Mexico City Blues, 49th Chorus
March
12
is
the 71st
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (72nd
in leap years), with 294
days remaining.
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Feast day of Saint Gregory the Great,
pope
(Channelled ixia, Ixia bulbocodium,
is
today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
If you were to go to the old Runic
calendars of Britain, you would find that today, St Gregory's feast day,
is marked with a dove – one of his symbols.
In Ireland, a feast on this day was called 'a Gregory', not to be confused
with an English 'Gregory', which was a slang term for a hangman, named
after Gregory Brandon, executioner from the time of
James I to
1649 (the
'Gregorian tree' being the gallows).
Gregory the Great (540 -
604) was the first Pope of this name. "The
outstanding figure of his age, notable for church and monastic reform, for
dealing with heresies, for wise administration and kindness to the
poor."
(Ivor
H Evans, Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988)
It's said that he
introduced the custom of saying "God bless you" when people
sneeze, at a time when sneezing was a sign of a particular plague, though
Aristotle refers to a similar custom in Greece.
Saint Gregory was a major influence on church music (for example, the
Gregorian chant, so named because of his reform and elaboration).
It was he who sent St Augustine on his mission to the Anglo-Saxons,
earning Gregory the title Apostle of
England.
The son of a Roman
senator, Gregory would have preferred obscurity but the office of pope was
thrust on him on death of Pelagius II in
590.
One day (before he was pope) he was in a market in Rome, when he saw a
group of beautiful young people being sold as slaves. He asked who they were,
and was told "Angli,
from the heathen island of Britain". "Verily, Angeli", he said, punning on
the name, "How lamentable that the prince of darkness should rule
such beautiful people!"
Another version of the story goes thus: in the slave market in Rome he
showed concern for three blond, blue-eyed boy slaves. On being told that
they were British, and pagans, he said how sad it was that faces so full
of light should be in the power of the Prince of Darkness. When told that
they were Angles (English), he said "Well said, rightly they are
called Angles, for they have the faces of angels." He was then
informed that they were Deirans, from the land of Deira (the land of wild
deer), the land between the rivers Tyne and Humber. "Well said
again," he said, "rightly they are called Deirans, plucked as
they are from God's ire (Latin: de ira Dei), and called to the mercy of heaven." Then he asked,
"What is the name of the king of their country?" He was told
"Ella". "Allelujah!" he cried, "The praise of God
their Creator shall be sung in those parts."
He went straight away to the Pope and got permission to be a missionary to
the English. On the third day of the journey of Gregory and his
companions, as they rested in the heat of the day, a locust leaned against
the book that Greg was reading. "Rightly it is called locusta,"
he said, "because it seems to say to us loco sta – stay in
your place. I see that we shall be unable to finish our journey." As
he spoke, messengers arrived, commanding his immediate return to Rome,
because a furious popular tumult had taken place on account of his
absence. Years later, when he was Pope, he selected Augustine to go as his
missionary.
Signs and wonders
He feared becoming
pope and was carried out of Rome in a basket and hid in woods and caves
for three days. Once when he was blessing a church, he placed some relics
on the altar, whereupon a hog ran out of the church; it was said to be the
devil. Sometimes the lamps were mysteriously lit; one day a cloud
descended on the altar, with a heavenly odour, so that from reverence no
one dared enter the church. Once when consecrating the host and a woman
scoffed at transubstantiation, he made the bread become visibly flesh.
On one occasion some
envoys coming to Rome received from him a box containing a cloth which he
said was a saint's relic. When they left Rome they opened the box and
found only a cloth, so they brought it back to the pope. He pricked it
with a knife and it bled.
It is said that the deacon Peter swore that he had seen Gregory with the
Holy Spirit descending on him as a dove many times, and that if it were
true he would be struck down. He did indeed die so Gregory is often
represented with a dove at his ear. (Perhaps
Peter meant to say he would die if it wasn't true! – PW)
When Gregory fled from Rome to avoid the dignity of being a pope, a bright
pillar of fire from heaven glittered above his head, with angels
descending and ascending it; this gave his escape away.
Another of Gregory's symbols is a strip of land, perhaps to remind farmers to fertilize land on this day. Because Gregory is the patron saint of scholars, in Belgium it is traditional for schoolchildren to hold their teachers captive today and demand concessions. In medieval times, Danish and English children commenced their studies on Gregory's day.
[Note: This Pope Gregory is
not to be confused with Pope Gregory XIII who, about one millennium later,
commissioned the calendar we know as the Gregorian. March 12 is an older date
for St Gregory's commemoration; September 3 is the newer.]
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