Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
Well said Siricius of Rome of such men "Can the Holy Spirit of God dwell in other than holy bodies?" No wonder that such a one as Synesius grovels at the feet of Orestes' mistress! 'Then she is profligate? asked Philammon. 'She must be. Has a heathen faith and grace? And without faith and grace, are not all our righteousnesses as filthy rags? What says St. Paul?
'Not so, cried Synesius, in his turn; 'it is a noble and a holy fear. You fear her goodness. Could you see her goodness, much less fear it, were there not a Divine Light within you which showed you what, and how awful, goodness was? Tell me no more, Raphael Aben-Ezra, that you do not fear God; for he who fears Virtue, fears Him whose likeness Virtue is.
Synesius was still silent. 'And what do you think I saw in my dream that that man did when he found these Christians enforcing, as a necessary article of practice, as well as of faith, a baseless and bombastic metaphor, borrowed from that very Neo-Platonism out of which he had just fled for his life?
They developed, by a free and healthy life, those figures which remain everlasting and unapproachable models of human beauty: but to come to my third point they wore no stays. The first mention of stays that I have ever found is in the letters of dear old Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene, on the Greek coast of Africa, about four hundred years after the Christian era.
'Thank God rather that you have been kept from the shedding of blood, said the stranger bishop, in a soft, deliberate voice, with a peculiarly clear and delicate enunciation. 'If God have given us the victory, why grudge His having spared any other of His creatures besides ourselves? 'Because there are so many the more of them left to ravish, burn, and slay, answered Synesius.
And thus at least I should have his advice. If he thinks it my duty to return to Carthage, I can but do so, after all. But the soldiers! 'Excellent sir, said Raphael, 'Synesius and the Pentapolitan landlords who can hardly call their lives their own, thanks to the Moors will be glad enough to feed and pay them, or any other brave fellows with arms in their hands, at this moment.
'Let me help you, said Synesius with a sweet smile, 'to solve it for yourself. You need not try to deceive me. You have a love, an undefiled, who is but one. When you possess her, you will be able to judge better whether your interpretation of the Song is the true one; and if you still think that it is, Synesius, at least, will have no quarrel against you.
He chuckled, smote his hand on his thigh, and nodded approval at every pause perhaps to give the speaker courage perhaps because he really thought that Raphael's prospects were considerably less desperate than he fancied.... 'If you laugh at me, Synesius, I am silent. It is quite enough to endure the humiliation of telling you that I am confound it! like any boy of sixteen.
What matter? but unless I possess her by fair means, God do so to me, and more also, if I attempt base ones! 'God be with you, my son, in the noble warfare! said Synesius, his eyes filling with kindly tears. 'It is no noble warfare at all. It is a base coward fear, in one who never before feared man or devil, and is now fallen low enough to be afraid of a helpless girl!
Now for this matter, which is really important-at least to Gentiles. Heraclian will certainly rebel. Synesius let out as much to me. He has fitted out an armament for Ostia, stopped his own wheat-ships, and is going to write to you to stop yours, and to starve out the Eternal City, Goths, senate, emperor, and all.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking