Numa – it’s rare to see a link to EIR these days. What do you think LaRouche and his crew were really up to on the big-picture view. Thanks

That I try to walk with the Lord under the guidance of the Holy Spirit should not be a matter for you to denigrate, as He is an integral part of the Holy Trinity. You just posted this above, forget already?:

All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men

The Lord has told us repeatedly what His mind would be when it comes to the Judgement Day. Better listen to Him than to the ‘spirit’. But if you want to take your salvation in your hand…

I don’t pretend to know the Lord’s mind when it comes to the judgement day, like you do Seraphim. You have a rather exalted opinion of yourself if you think that you do. I try to concentrate on working out my own salvation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and try not to judge others. Have you been very successful as of late in spreading some seed?

These were not the last words of Christ on the Cross. They were: ”Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost”. Like the ‘Eli, lama sabachtani’, which is the quotation of the Psalm 20, that prophesied His Resurrection, his last words are a also a quotation from a psalm: ”Thou shalt bring me out of the snare which they have hidden for me; for thou, O Lord, art my defender. 6 Into thine hands I will commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. 7 Thou has hated them that idly persist in vanities: but I have hoped in the Lord 8 I will exult and be glad in thy mercy: for thou hast looked upon mine affliction; thou hast saved my soul from distresses….25 Be of good courage, and let your heart be strengthened, all ye that hope in the Lord. ” (Psalm 30). He again announces his Resurrection.
Jesus asked His Father to forgive those who didn’t know what they were doing, like the Roman officials who condemned him on trumped charges out of cowardice and the soldiers who were driving the nails into his hands and feet, those who said: ”Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man”. It was not a blanket forgiveness. Does He say anything about forgiving those who knew what they were doing and ‘persisting in their vanities’: ”the people [who] stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God”?
There is a sin that will not be forgiven: ”He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. 31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come”.
God does not forgive those who do not repent, who do not ask for forgivness.

I think that we should. Jesus’ words and actions are always to be used as guides as to how we should act and lead our lives. His last words on the cross were:

“Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.� (Luke 23:34)

“Hanging on the cross and near-death Jesus spoke these profound words. Who was Jesus alluding to when He spoke these words? Jesus was alluding to those who persecuted Him which led Him on the cross. They were His critics like the Pharisees, Scribes, High priest and so forth. Included also were the Soldiers who brought Him to the mountain of Calvary to nail Him on the cross.

Here we see that Jesus is full of mercy, love and forgiveness towards those who made life very difficult for Him. Jesus did not bear any hatred towards those who hated and killed Him.”

Have you experienced persecution more severe than what Christ did on Calvary?

‘Let us love one another that with one mind we may confess the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity consubstantial and undivided’. Should you love the ones who not only do not confess that but condemn and abuse (and even kill) the ones who do?

I do. What makes you think that I don’t? Perhaps it’s your own hatred of certain individuals that clouds your vision and you mistakenly think that some people hate you when in reality they don’t. I actually admire the deep breadth of knowledge that you bring to this blog. That doesn’t mean that I’ll always agree with your points of view.

So, why don’t you love me?

In the article it says that it is a modern icon of St Seraphim reworked into an Old Believer style and used in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

The justification being that the Sarov ascetic community was formed by monks who have kept some Old Believer practices after the Raskol and have functioned as a kind of Edinoverie monastery before the concept became more mainstream.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinoverie

BTW I didn’t know that some early Valaam monks and St Herman of Alaska were also related to Sarov community.

More information at the link that I provided in the comment above. You can read Russian, right?

It was John and not I that implores us to love (not “luv” as you mockingly try to insinuate) our brother, irrespective of their personal relationship with the Lord (John 2:9 – 2:11 and John 4:20) and not related to any self conceived litmus test that you’ve devised, including some strange and unknown timeframe only known to yourself.

You may tell the Hacks and APs (and understand for yourself) that I have no ‘luv’ (and I wouldn’t have any) for anyone who denies, out of principle (atheistic, buddhistic, ‘Corded Ware YR1A haplogroup’ or just ‘anti-Moskaly’), the truth of the very words of Saint John: �There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

Are you sure that the icon is of St. Seraphim? It is no clearly readable. Anyway, the ‘two finger’ gesture is the way the priests bless, not as they cross themselves.

In the face of this kind of summons (that sound like a subpoena), it would rather be never.

I never did read the “Philokalia” all the way through from start to finish like I did the “Orthodox Psychotherapy”, however, the selected parts that I read were quite beneficial. I do hope that you find some of the answers that you are looking for, especially as regards the “mind”.

This will undoubtedly be a long “labor of love�, but well worth the effort.

https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/prochee/dobrotoljubie_tom_1/

I will write my impressions once I finish it.

So on your reconsideration, is it really “not yet”? A time to “strive for kindness and compassion as the fruit we show to every person we encounter.”

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

Saint Seraphim was without any doubt a great ascetic. Interestingly enough, he was sometimes accused of being perhaps a bit too close to the Old Believers.

‘The kingdom of god is at hand’. It was John the Forerunner who proclaimed that. He was bringing the ‘good news’ that the Holy Spirit, withdrawn temporarily from the world because of the sins of Israel, is about to return, brought back by Jesus Christ and whoever is baptized acquires the Holy Spirit.

”In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight… I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire… And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: 17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:1-3; 11-12; 16-17).
And after that ”Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the the evangelion (=good news) of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23)
”Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the evangelion (=good news) of the kingdom of God, 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the evangelion (=good news).

Kingdom of God /basileia tou theou, or ‘of heaven’ (which is only a periphrasis) means ‘kingship, sovereignty, authority, rule’, the power of God to rule and judge. It is not of this world as Jesus said: ‘MY basileia, my power, is not of this world. ‘For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). But when Christ will come again to bring ”the kingdom that shall have no end” He will also ”judge the quick and the dead”.

”The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, and vigils, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for Christ’s sake, they are only means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God”, said a great spiritual Father of the Church of the ‘snitches’, Saint Seraphim of Sarov. His ‘The acquisition of the Holy Spirit’ is perhaps the best introduction to the “Philokalia’.

And film stars of those days would have seemed like gods, at least in our unconscious perception – when you go from the 20 centimeter television in your home, to see a 10 metre tall projection of Elizabeth Taylor or Charlton Heston on the city’s main cinema screen.

Imagine how it would have felt to see “Ben-Hur” at the cinema, for children who had been used to watching on the 1950s black and white television.

This might indicate to us that the cinema will never recover to the level it had from the 1940s-1980s – as those historical conditions where the cinema screen would have seemed incredible are constantly being eroded by our improvement in television technology, and the prestige of cinema has to inevitably decline due to that.

An “owl of minerva” of our time is that it’s never been easier to watch (and really enjoy) the old films on your television, and yet the same improvement in our televisions might mean that cinema can never reattin the prestigious role that had been a key reason for the fertility of the artform in the 20th century.

This will undoubtedly be a long “labor of love”, but well worth the effort. The second book that I’ve suggested is more accessible (and shorter too) and is well adopted to reaching the modern mind. You may want to start there first…. The link that I provided only offers introductory material and perhaps the first chapter, but you may still be able to locate the whole edition somewhere for free too. I read both books long ago in hardbound editions.

https://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/orthodox_psychotherapy.html

among these is NOUS, which refers to the `eye of the heart’ and is often translated as mind or intellect.

What a coincidence: the Chinese character used to describe mind in Ch’an/Zen literature is also translated as “mind-heart”

Literally, xin (心) refers to the physical heart, though it is sometimes translated as “mind” as the ancient Chinese believed the heart was the center of human cognition. For this reason, it is also sometimes translated as “heart-mind”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_(philosophy)

Philokalia

I did hear about it, but didn’t read it. Now I will certainly take the time to go through it because I want to know how the Orthodox Church sees the functions of the mind.

I’ll definitely put the Gospel of St Thomas on my reading list. I’m currently reading the “Master and Margarita” that both you and AP have highly recommended.

Mind, spirit, soul and heart (nous) are all interconnected, however, all have slightly different functions according to Orthodox theology. All of these concepts are more fully defined within the gem of Orthodox literary tradition and collection of texts known as the “Philokalia”.

I found the text “Orthodox Psychotherapy” by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos extremely enlightening and helpful in answering these sorts of questions too. Highly recommended:

https://www.greekorthodoxchurch.org/orthodox_psychotherapy.html

For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.� – Luke 17:20,21

From the Gospel of Thomas (third paragraph) :

Yeshua said,
If your leaders tell you, “Look, the kingdom is in heaven,�
then the birds of heaven will precede you.
If they say to you, “It’s in the sea,�
then the fish will precede you.
But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.

When you know yourselves, then you will be known,
and you will understand that you are children of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves,
then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom-meyer.html

If someone doesn’t even know what his own mind is, then how can this someone truly know God?

It’s like trying to understand what’s is happening in the Andromeda Galaxy before cleaning one’s own backyard.

Take heed and be grateful, for the time of the Kingdom is now at hand:

Jesus came into Galilee , preaching the gospel of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel� (Mk 1:15).

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.� – Luke 17:20,21

The Kingdom of God is at hand means God’s reign should rule over our lives. We must allow divine love to be the guiding principle in all we do. We must cultivate mercy and forgiveness to be the spirit that governs all our relationships. We must strive for kindness and compassion as the fruit we show to every person we encounter.

Prose fiction did exist in Antiquity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_novel

You see, you can offer hundreds of erudite and deeply moved citations, but when I ask you: “what is the nature of your mind”, then you don’t even understand what I am asking you about.

When you experience anything, perceive anything – that’s your mind. If you had no mind, then there would be no experience possible, no perception of any form of reality, no thought, emotion, vision, no concept of anything at all.

What’s the nature of this mind?

What do you mean by ‘nature of the mind’?

Ok great.

I get it – it’s exalting.

But what is the nature of your mind?

What does the Gospel of John tells you?
” Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48 I am that bread of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever” (John 6:47-58).
And the other Gospels?
”And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. 27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; 28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28).
”And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. 23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. 24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many” (Mark 14:22-24).
”And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. 23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. 24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many”(Luke 22:22-24).
And the Apostle:
”For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body” (1 Corinthians 11:23-29).

Whoever partakes worthily in the Mystery of the Eucharist has Jesus in the body by his side, even inside.

No, it’s not yet.

I was thinking of the way in which the analytical tradition originated in interest in the philosophy of mathematics and logic (with Frege) and in the implications for philosophy of progress in the natural sciences, this would be the more empiricist tendency. There was a big emphasis on the scientific method, clarity and realism about the external world. Later on challenges to the ultra-empiricist and scientistic approach of the logical positivists (and weird philosophy of mind positions like eliminative materialism) led to interest in rationalism and a renewal of metaphysics. There was also an increasing interest in Darwinian and evolutionary approaches to understanding human psychology and social relations.

In politics this seemed to translate to ‘Enlightenment’ values, liberalism, individualism, universalism about science. More rigorous quantitative approaches in the social sciences. Philosophy of Religion had a small renaissance in new more sophisticated forms. There seemed to be limits to the kind of traction identity politics could get in this context.

Woke is in some way more like the opposite of all of this, the revenge of ‘Continental Philosophy’ and qualitative, politically engaged sociology on the other tradition. Everything is about power relations, subjective experience (‘lived experience’), oppression and liberation, voluntarism and so on. The analytical approach is considered more a manifestation of patriarchy, white supremacy and other systems of oppression.

I have re-read some favorite books, some of them many times. With these, I sometimes noticed novel layers of meaning appearing as I age. It only happens with the best literature, all the other books age rather poorly.

This becomes a good way of telling the better or more important books from the others. There are a few that I have kept going back to, others there has been a big gap. Sometimes this is really appreciable, the book takes you back to another period in your life.

Poetry, especially spiritual or religious one is very subjective…

Pessoa did have some quite eclectic religious views, a number of his alternate personalities are neo-pagan poets and he was very interested in rosicrucianism and things like that.

This verse was a case for me of re-reading changing my understanding in the light of knowledge I picked up in between. When I first read it it didn’t make much sense, but around a decade later after learning more about Classical Theism and the theology around the incarnation of Christ, it can be read as close to traditional Catholic teaching.

While he seems to engage with it, I don’t know if Pessoa accepted the Church teaching of his era on the incarnation, probably not, but this idea of transcendence through arduous deeds, struggle, sometimes defeat recurs though out the poems in that series. Given the role of the Church in Portuguese education and culture in the 1910s and 20s Scholastic philosophy and theology must have been more mainstream and much better known than nowadays (when it is niche).

Speaking of which, are you familiar with:

I wasn’t familiar with him but I like reading about monks and hermits, thanks for that!

I’m not sure it’s fair to call Nietzsche “elitist�; at least he was not elitist in the most idiotic, superficial way, of judging people according to arbitrary things like social class, that we are randomly assigned at birth.

Of course, his elitism involved “moral” terms but it was elitism nonetheless. I hope I didn’t imply otherwise. Leontiev was similar, he also thought it terms of beauty and those who appreciate it. He despised the bourgeoisie. Leontiev was older than Nietzsche, he anticipated him.

Atari 2600:

But it would have seemed a revolutionary change when it was new, as you could control the movement on the television – which is a paradigm reversal from the television’s use as a passive receiver until that time.

Excellent observation, and this was indeed the case at the time, at the beginning of the 80s.

Probably children of the time experienced the first video games as an almost religious experience.

I wouldn’t go that far. We were still spending time outside, building forts in the woods, shooting stuff, etc. I think modern kids are much more tied to their screens.

One huge change from 1970s, will be that there must have seemed an unsurpassable difference of experience between the cinema, and the television, as the televisions of 1970s were so bad.

Cinema must have seemed an amazing experiences, as in normal life you were exposed only to those small, low resolution, screens.

This is true.

I remember how in a coronavirus lockdown, how wonderful and peaceful it was when the city was artificially emptied of other people. I was in a beautiful historical city, that is usually overcrowded with tourists and students.

In non-coronavirus times, this is the kind of experience of emptiness is a luxury that often usually can only buy when they are top 0,1% in personal wealth – empty beaches, private islands, historical country estates (without people, unlike in former times when they would be full of peasants and serfs).

The environment can become more accessible to the soul, when nature, or historical architecture and cities, are emptied of people. You lose the weight and self-consciousness created by being in society, and feel connected to historical times and the natural world.

One of the most alienating and disillusioning things about our overpopulated modern world, is that a sense of our own mass reproducibility, replaceability and lack of uniqueness, is constantly forced upon us in the experience of crowds.

If you go for cheap package holiday in Turkey or Spain, you will see a hundred families exactly like your one, and can you start to feel like you were mass produced in a factory.

When you saw fifty other couples just like you, then you are forced to realize the uninteresting reality of your relationship, and the replicability of you and your girlfriend for either of each other (why mass weddings are popular in dictatorships and religious cults).

But if you can spend enough money, to vacation in a private beach – you feel like you are a unique part of world, as our ancestors had before the overpopulation created by agriculture.

In this perspective, the preference for more trees and less people, is a very natural one – if viewed from the individual’s selfish point of view.

Atari 2600:

But it would have seemed a revolutionary change when it was new, as you could control the movement on the television – which is a paradigm reversal from the television’s use as a passive receiver until that time.

So it could have seemed more impressive when you are first experiencing it, than new videos games of today. Probably children of the time experienced the first video games as an almost religious experience.

I remember when I was quite young at the beginning of the century, and first trying Gamecube and PS2, that these had seemed to have amazing graphics to our eyes back then. But when more recently bought a PS4, and Nintendo Switch, as an adult, I was completely not impressed by the graphics – even though objectively the improvement is vast when you compare to the old systems; there has been no revolutionary change yet this century.

–

One huge change from 1970s, will be that there must have seemed an unsurpassable difference of experience between the cinema, and the television, as the televisions of 1970s were so bad.

Cinema must have seemed an amazing experiences, as in normal life you were exposed only to those small, low resolution, screens.

Whereas nowadays, we are incrementally narrowing each decade the difference between television screens and cinema, and in the last couple years OLED television are falling under $1500.

Cinema can never seem so amazing nowadays to us, as middle class families can afford good quality screens in the home, that provide a somewhat cinema-like experience.

–

In the audio world – there is far less difference. You could already be listening to good hi-fi music in the 1970s. The difference today is that the cost has fallen, and even cheap active studio monitors can make almost a lifelife hi-fi affordable for any middle class income people. But while the cost has fallen for hi-fi, the revealed preference of most people is to listen to worse music on lower quality formats.

Some things from youth, like your old music collections – should become more beautiful when you re-listened to them. As the intervening years added additional layers of memory, sadness and nostalgia to those old CDs (or vinyl, tapes or mp3s, or whichever you listened to – I even had minidiscs).

–

Then there are some music which you didn’t understand in your youth, which you mightrealize now are amazing, if you could play the music on $3000 studio monitors – well I lol guess here the analogy isn’t the same with books, as music fans can age more easily than literature fans, as literature can’t upgrade their appreciation through better equipment in the same ways as can the music fans.

I’m not sure it’s fair to call Nietzsche “elitist”; at least he was not elitist in the most idiotic, superficial way, of judging people according to arbitrary things like social class, that we are randomly assigned at birth.

Logically, Nietzsche’s theory needed to emphasize a concept of rank order, however, in the context of his rebellion against Schopenhauer’s pessimism.

If Schopenhauer said that all life is evil, and that man can only be good to the extent that he realizes the evil of existence, and turns against existence in Buddhist/Christian quietude.

Nietzsche’s rebellion was to accept that “yes life is awful and terrible, but yet we see moments of tragic beauty – and this tragic beauty has been occasionally be affirmed by man, such as we saw in the mountain peaks of human history, among the Ancient Greeks, Old Testament prophets, or quattrocento and cinquecento Florence”.

But for Nietzsche to affirm life despite its terror and pain, entails logically that whole epochs of history have sacrificed themselves as preparatory epochs for our rare moments when we could see the mountain topics, and transfigure the horror of our existence in beauty.

To affirm that life is beautiful despite its cruelty, logically requires that he accepts a rank order, where epochs of man can be justified as a sacrifice to those rare mountain peaks.

–

Rank order is a logically necessary part of Nietzsche’s theory of the affirmation of life, and it resulted in his infamous support for the “Law of Manu”.

But this doesn’t mean that Nietzsche was some kind of idiot who wants to judge people by their superficial social status (which is the concept of elitism in a normal sense).

Without the acceptance of rank order in terms of historical epochs, and peoples’ ability to appreciate them, then Nietzsche’s theory wouldn’t function. It’s part of a consistently thought philosophical system.

Leontiev is nothing like Nietzsche and stated that he reflects true and proper Christian

Although he sometimes portrays himself as an idiot buffoon as part of his literary identity (and later inspired many real idiot buffoons), Nietzsche can be described as a philosopher and is now part of the history of European philosophy, and it’s surely more offensive for Nietzsche to be compared to some mediocre writers which almost nobody has heard of, than vice-versa.

“a simple one century old majestic tree is worth more than two dozen faceless people; I shall not cut it down to purchase medicine for peasants suffering from cholera.�

Sounds a bit like some 1%-ers today that like nature a lot, but poor people not that much.

We are not alone

So you have Jesus by your side in the flesh in this very moment ?

“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling� (1 John 2:9–10).
– 1 John 2:9–11

1 John 4:20
If anyone says, “I love God,� and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Brother Seraphim – isn’t it time that you fully emerge from your dark cave and come more into the light? 🙂

‘But He is not here right now to ask. As was written in the Gospels, a time has come when we might seek for Him, but we cannot find Him in this World’.

Isn’t He? Is that was written in the Gospels? What Gospels? Not the ones read in the Church.
”Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, THERE AM I IN THE MIDST OF THEM” (Matthew 18:19-20).
”And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying: All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN ONTO THE END OF THIS WORLD. Amen” (Mathew 28:18-20).
” Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. 15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. 16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you… But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: 27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning” (John 15: 14-16; 26-27).
”Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:29-31).
We are not alone.

I respect fully your dedication to Orthodox Faith. Your Духовна� Брань is certainly worthy of much consideration.

I would take his faith with a bit of a grain of salt. It has led him to conclude that Church hierarchs who built their careers as snitches and collaborators of the atheist Soviet system (creatures like Kirill, Sawka, Alexei) are the ultimate and highest Christian authorities. So much so, that when Churches that have been uncorrupted by Soviet filth cross those hierarchs, in “Seraphim’s� world those uncorrupted Churches or hierarchs have fallen.

He has also proclaimed that K. Leontiev is nothing like Nietzsche and stated that he reflects true and proper Christian thought. Here is an example of this totally not-Nietzsche’s writing: “a simple one century old majestic tree is worth more than two dozen faceless people; I shall not cut it down to purchase medicine for peasants suffering from cholera.�

Contrast this with the charming autobiographical story “Peasant Marey� by Dostoyevsky (whom Leontiev despised).

Leontiev’s disregard for egalitarianism and his unabashed focus on aesthetics are refreshing compared to the levelling nonsense everywhere, but even such sentiments have their limits. And, actually, they contrast with “Seraphim’s� loyalty to the servants of the incredibly ugly Soviet system. Perhaps Balkanoid reverence for cruelty is the unifying factor in his thought.

I respect fully your dedication to Orthodox Faith. Your Духовна� Брань is certainly worthy of much consideration.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God

This is certainly an important aspect of the teachings of Jesus; that if we follow in his footsteps and do exactly as He did, then we will become what He is.

Don’t you realize that the Gospel of John simply ‘annuls’ the ‘Gospel’ of Thomas (and all apocryphal writings)? That the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’, the witness of the Epiphany and of the Glory of God on Mount Tabor, made by Him ‘son of the Mother of God’ and singled out with a special ‘Revelation’, wrote his testimony to assert the ‘right doctrine’ against those who ‘will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths”?
”This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:24-25).

You may tell the Hacks and APs (and understand for yourself) that I have no ‘luv’ (and I wouldn’t have any) for anyone who denies, out of principle (atheistic, buddhistic, ‘Corded Ware YR1A haplogroup’ or just ‘anti-Moskaly’), the truth of the very words of Saint John: ”There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. 19 And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? (John 1:6-19).
The same who said: ”Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:1-3) and ”For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:7-9).
So, beware that ”as you make your bed, so you must lie on it”. If you prefer to be ‘reincarnated’ in a rat, so be it. It’s your problem (and the Hacks and APs also). We make our choice, don’t we?

Like I wrote above, there are so many great comments at this thread, not the least being your own. I wish that I would spend more time researching so many of your thoughts for which you often leave explanatory links. Perhaps even more, I appreciate the honesty and humbleness that you display with your comments, letting it “all hang out”, bearing your soul to everybody that reads this blog. One of the Christian participants here, who is so very dogmatic in his responses, would do well to try and incorporate some love into his responses, even to those with whom he disagrees, like you so often seem to do. Keep it up, you have many fans here. This particular comment of yours surely encapsulates what I mean about your writing style.

Gospel of John is also my favorite among the synoptic Gospels. I also like re-reading the (apocryphal) Gospel of Thomas.

http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom-meyer.html

I’m realising that now I would probably appreciate more in these works, but have less time and available energy to read them.

I have re-read some favorite books, some of them many times. With these, I sometimes noticed novel layers of meaning appearing as I age. It only happens with the best literature, all the other books age rather poorly.

It was with misfortune and baseness
That God defined Christ
In that way he made him opposed to Nature
And anointed him a son.

Poetry, especially spiritual or religious one is very subjective…

Speaking of which, are you familiar with:

https://www.hermitary.com/articles/stonehouse.html

??

Something I have been thinking about lately is if another way of seeing one aspect of the recent Woke explosion in the Anglosphere is as a counter to the position that the analytical and scientific worldview was gaining in wider culture, because in a weird, circuitous way this tradition was rehabilitating parts of traditional metaphysics and pre-Kantian philosophy. If it had continued I think this would have started to influence politics and culture, probably in ways against the previous the previously dominant 20th century trends.

Could you elaborate on this, please?

It depends on how modern. Something went wrong in the early to mid 20th century.

What went wrong was the occurrence of two world wars that unleashed the absolute terrors of the mechanized destruction of humanity. This of course left a corrosive edge to much of art that followed and unfortunately the largescale abandonment of Christianity throughout much of Europe.

I’ve been following this very interesting thread laced with so much heavy commentary and haven’t been able to find much time to comment myself as I find myself on a long overdue vacation visiting my family in Minnesota. My family’s home is nestled among large oak trees including 160 feet of shoreline on a large lake in a small town surrounded by mostly farmland (they’ve moved from a similar home that I wrote about 2 years ago). The views from the home framed by picture windows, and the three levels of verandas (decks) are truly breathtaking and offer a feast for the eyes and a sanctuary for the soul. I’ve seen about 30 pelicans on the lake so far, and my sister has told me about sighting eagles several times including one sighting of three eagles at one time, including one very large one that was hovering over the lake with a huge wingspan. Needless to say, the cat mostly stays inside the home under watchful eyes.

So by now, no doubt, you’re wondering about where I’m headed with this long entry and how I’ll be able to tie it all in with the quotation of yours above? Well, interestingly enough I experienced a dream this morning with you being the main character within this dream. I just got back yesterday from a week of visiting the Twin Cities that included a trip to two to the better art museums found within Minneapolis: the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the much newer and smaller, Russian Art Museum. The larger world class Institute has been augmenting its collection by leaps and bounds and truly houses a great collection. The Museum of Russian Art is currently displaying works by both Geli Korzhev and Ekatarina Khromev. Their permanent collection is made up of about 50% works painted by Ukrainian artists, that I now see you too might consider as Russian artists (“our people”) too. 🙂

Anyway, back to my dream. I found myself following you into a large old house, probably located somewhere in South Minneapolis. I can’t remember what you were talking about, in a broken sort of Russian accented English style, but as soon as we entered this building you pulled out a pocket knife and began cutting open a small package that included a framed depiction of a face. It was a striking work that even included some fluorescent brush strokes. As I was admiring this piece, somebody came up behind us and informed you that he had found a piece that he was interested in purchasing, as I looked around and found that the large room was filled with many pieces of art, all on sale. There were even some very large theatrical background pieces that looked like something that David Hockney might have produced. I finally turned to you and asked who was the artist responsible for this large and interesting collection, now all for sale? You told me that it was works created by your father over the years. I was awakened by the sound of chirping birds that could be heard from a crack in my window.:-)

P.S. I finally have found some time to read “The Master and Margarita” I’m about a third of the way through. Enchanting.

Thing is, we don’t know what the nature of our own mind truly is and I can only hope to clarify the nature of my own mind before I leave this whole thing behind me. Time is running out for me to see things clearly. Distractions are many, hours of clarity are few.

I’m very close to my fourth decade myself, reading the discussions on literature Dmitri and AP have been starting has got me re-reading things I haven’t looked at in around a decade and a half. I’m realising that now I would probably appreciate more in these works, but have less time and available energy to read them.

On the subject of modern literature that in some way resembles (and doesn’t) the classic works of antiquity, there is a Portuguese poet from the first half of the 20th century called Fernando Pessoa, who believed that while he was a single human individual a number of different poets and writers (each with their own biography, appearance and so on) lived in his mind. These form a small body of literature on their own.

One of them was the Fernando Pessoa, initially a typical 19th century English language poet in the style of Tennyson, later a writer of large numbers of Portuguese popular ditties and a spiritual nationalist epic, which was his main published work during his lifetime (the majority of his oeuvre was only discovered after his death). This epic on the history of Portugal, made of a series of interlinked shorter poems, contains all kinds of allusions to European and other spiritual traditions, for example this one:

The Quinas (these are the symbols of the five wounds of Christ that appear on the Portuguese coat of arms):

The Gods sell when they give
Misfortune is the price of glory
Alas for the happy, because they are
Only what passes away!

Suffice to who it suffices what suffices to him
The sufficient to suffice
Life is brief, the soul is vast:
To have is to tarry.

It was with misfortune and baseness
That God defined Christ
In that way he made him opposed to Nature
And anointed him a son.

Also, if we see all Religions (and many cultural tropes) as memetic packages, riding our information processing capabilities, then we should not be surprised to find that some Religions tend to increase the survival and the spread of their host populations, while also somewhat limiting their technological abilities and dumbing them down.

I remember first encountering the idea of memes in about 2004-5, via the book by Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine. Reading this was a surprise because as I mentioned in a previous thread, when I was in my teens and as an undergraduate the main thinkers on ‘the big questions’ were all French and German in the continental tradition of philosophy (Foucault and Derrida, Marx, existentialists etc.). Blackmore was a friend and associate of Richard Dawkins, in that book she was using his meme idea to argue for a form of eliminative materialism and reductionism, which interestingly seems to be the opposite conclusion to the idea in the Mind Parasites novel. This was my first encounter with what later I would come to recognise as Scientific Naturalism, to me it seems to be one of the big manifestations of Anglo-German analytical philosophy.

A couple of years later Dawkins brought this worldview into the mainstream of British society in a much more popular and polemical form in his book The God Delusion, a lot of the public discussion of religion and the spiritual questions for the next decade was shaped by the New Atheist movement, its connection to the Natural Sciences, and what were basically variants of Naturalism/Physicalism.

Something I have been thinking about lately is if another way of seeing one aspect of the recent Woke explosion in the Anglosphere is as a counter to the position that the analytical and scientific worldview was gaining in wider culture, because in a weird, circuitous way this tradition was rehabilitating parts of traditional metaphysics and pre-Kantian philosophy. If it had continued I think this would have started to influence politics and culture, probably in ways against the previous the previously dominant 20th century trends.

It would be a manifestation of pride to assume that people pays too much attention to what I said or say. I told a story of a Romanian soldier who married a Russian, but it was not about me. You are forgiven.
Not just Justinian was ‘Romanian’, but Constantin in the first place.
Leontiev might have been a ‘shameless’ hedonist, but he repented. Nietzsche was a frustrated hedonist who vented his frustrations on what he thought was the obstacle to the fulfillment of his desires and ambitions: Christianity itself. Leontiev reverted to the Church (it was not uncommon in Orthodoxy that nobles, princes and Kings, commoners, retreat to monastery to attune for their past sins) and his literary activity is part of his ‘metania’. That infuriated the westernized liberal and revolutionary ‘lovers and liberators of Mankind’ but Church hater ‘intelligentsia’ alike. But his repentance is what made him an ‘exemplar of Orthodox Christianity’. This is a reason why Solzhenitsyn is reviled today, he asked for repentance. This is what ‘Orthodox Christianity’ is about, not the Kingdom of God on this Earth.

“Also FWIW, while I did see an incredible Oedipus Rex in Moscow (Vakhtangov), I would say that this surpassed Chekhov (Fomenko)�

I have only read these, and only in English, so I cannot make any kind of judgment here.

I completely botched my post – Oedipus Rex did not surpass the plays by Chekhov or Williams I saw. But it was quite good.

I think seeing a play allows a truer judgement of its worth then just reading the dialogues on pages, though this introduces huge wildcard variables that have nothing to do with the original author. Moscow probably provides the best quality to price ratio in the world, for live theater. Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth at Sovremmenik easily surpassed his Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Scarlett Johansson that I saw on Broadway.

As late as 1925 Chesterton still comes out on the pre-Classical side:

Well, if we see all Religions as byproducts of human mind interacting with the Real (capitalized to include something greater than the material day to day experience), and if we see the mental faculties of human populations as at the same time tied to their genetics and also evolving, then obviously Religion (and culture) are something of a byproduct of evolution.

Also, if we see all Religions (and many cultural tropes) as memetic packages, riding our information processing capabilities, then we should not be surprised to find that some Religions tend to increase the survival and the spread of their host populations, while also somewhat limiting their technological abilities and dumbing them down.

It’s basically the typical situation of a symbiont / parasite interacting with its host.

BTW, this book had a deep effect on me when I was in my late teens :

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Mind_Parasites.html?hl=fr&id=9PgT3y9r2QEC

It was the time of my early forays into Zen, and after reading this book, the advice by Linji Yixuan (Rinzai) to “kill the Buddha” if one ” sees the Buddha” has taken a bit of a different meaning. When human mind is purged of all of its “mind parasites ” it is probably quite different from what we are used to experience.

Perhaps that is why St Paul said something about: “Everything is permissible for me–but I will not be mastered by anything”. And perhaps then we understand better what Jesus was aiming at when he replied to the Pharisees: “Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods? “.

But as I wrote to Altan, I cannot pretend understanding the message of Abrahamic Creeds better than their devotees. Perhaps these are things that Christians should ponder and clarify for themselves and others.

Thing is, we don’t know what the nature of our own mind truly is and I can only hope to clarify the nature of my own mind before I leave this whole thing behind me. Time is running out for me to see things clearly. Distractions are many, hours of clarity are few.

Buddha has said before he departed this world: “Work diligently, life and death are painful. Do not suffer them in vain “…

He was of course right.

Where do you get it that I have ‘some Russian descent

I vaguely recall you saying that one of your ancestors was a Romanian soldier in Russia who married a local there and brought her back, or something. But if I am wrong, then sorry.

If anything I am a ‘Byzantine’ in a more direct line and closer to the Byzantine (Athonite) source than Leontiev

A Romanian once insisted to me that Justinian was actually a Romanian and that for much of its history Byzantium was in reality a proto-Romanian Empire. Is this view widespread in Romania?

And I can’t see any rationale in comparing him with Nietzsche, it is counterfactual, whatever a Marxoid-“Orthodox� like Berdyaev might say (he actually called Leontiev a ‘satanist, dressing himself up with Christian features

I wouldn’t go so far as Berdyaev but for much of his life Leontiev lived as a shameless hedonist, feasting on Balkanoid men and women. And did Leontiev not write that the life of a peasant was worth less than that of a nice and beautiful tree? There is something Nietzschean in his contempt for average people and his justification for his own actions, beyond normal morality. And if the Nietzschean superman was actually an anti-Christ as Solovyov concluded, certain implications become evident.

There is much true in what Leontiev wrote but I would not consider such a man an exemplar of Orthodox Christianity. Does he appeal to your pride?

I feel a bit jealous, because I remember looking at the covers and exciting names of books of Jules Verne when I was a child

At that age, I didn’t think that Journey to the Center of the Earth was fiction!

But I never had attention, or too many distractions, to read such a level of books when I was that age

Your distractions were probably much more impressive than mine. I am ashamed to admit that I wasted hours of my childhood on an Atari 2600:

Ukrainian nationalists do not have a track record of winning battles against their neighbours

Wars no, because they have been fighting much-larger opponents. Obviously Russia would win if it invaded Ukraine.

Battles, yes. There was considerable give and take in the Polish-Ukrainian War:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Ukrainian_War

Both sides were at a stalemate until the Poles doubled their forces and Ukrainians ran out of military supplies.

Russian invasion would be bloody for Russia, also.

I’m no expert myself regarding the cannon of Christian literature, however, have found the Gospel according to John to be the most satisfying and edifying of all the gospels, from the very first time that I read it as a teenager, and before I was able to study it in a bit more detail as an adult. It actually totally blew me totally away, and I consider it to be the greatest piece of Christian literature ever written.

Ukrainian nationalists do not have a track record of winning battles against their neighbours. Only victory I can think of is over Polish civilians in Volhynia, peaceful protesters in Odessa, and the police force of Mariupol.

If they become a threat, Russia will roll in and clear the shit out.

There is an interesting book on this topic:

Another one, but more spicy and provocative:

The whole explosion of the BLM thing last year made these approaches seem more interesting and relevant again.

Why this is the situation is not clear though. I don’t have any theory for why our consciousness might possibly have declined in the modern world, at least from the literary evidence.

Among the reasons, I was thinking about the difference between Plato and the other giant figure of Classical philosophy, Aristotle. Aristotle may seem more autistic in his spartan, methodical presentation of his material (there is this theory that many of his works were more like notes for lectures) and his preoccupation with systematic approaches to questions.

convinced me to reread some of Plato’s dialogues… found them to be uninteresting.

I was helped, when someone told me that Plato writes the most important messages in the middle of the text, and adds the “false paths” at the beginning and end of the text.

So the teaching of the dialogue radiates from the centre – which is really weird for modern readers.

In “Republic”, there are interesting teaching in the beginning of the book, but not said by Socrates (more by Thrasymachus).

However, the most famous teaching in the dialogue like “The Cave” – hidden in the middle of the book.

(age 10-11?). Later I was reading Jules Verne and

I feel a bit jealous, because I remember looking at the covers and exciting names of books of Jules Verne when I was a child. But I never had attention, or too many distractions, to read such a level of books when I was that age. And in terms of distractions, it must be even more difficult for young people today to start reading.

Where do you get it that I have ‘some Russian descent’? If anything I am a ‘Byzantine’ in a more direct line and closer to the Byzantine (Athonite) source than Leontiev (Paisy Velichkovski, the spiritual father of Optina lived and died in Moldavia where he translated the Philokalia for Russians). A ‘Balkanoid’ that he might have hated, but wanted to live among them.
If there was ever any ‘sympathy’ of Romanians for Russia it was only because of Orthodoxy, because Romanians shared in the view that Russia is the heir of Byzance and the protector of Christians, because Catherine the Great wanted to recreate the Kingdom of Dacia as part of the ‘Greek Project’ and because they acknowledged (at times) that Russia helped a great deal in the creation of modern Romania. Without the Orthodoxy Russians received from Byzance, they are ‘ethnographic material’ (as Dostoevski put it) and not necessarily of the best quality.
If I appreciate Leontiev’s views it is precisely because he had a clearer, more rational view of Russia’s history and ‘mission’ in the geopolitical environment of his time and was able to raise above the anarchistic ‘narodnichestvo’ and utopian apocalyptic and myth-history currents (supposed to reflect the ‘profound Russian soul’) that so often haunted Russia.
And I can’t see any rationale in comparing him with Nietzsche, it is counterfactual, whatever a Marxoid-“Orthodox” like Berdyaev might say (he actually called Leontiev a ‘satanist, dressing himself up with Christian features’). His hatred of the Church colored his presentation of Leontiev.

emotional connection

I’m lucky to live close to some of the most beautiful architecture of modern Europe, and these can really create romantic imagining.

But I would say that ruins of Greek architecture is our civilization’s “touchstone” of beauty and harmony in architecture, and that will be so for the future generations.

One of the differences is that the ancient Greek buildings had nothing arbitrary, unlike architecture which we see in medieval or modern world. The idea contained in one part of the building, is representative of the whole, and that it contains a total vision of the world

This is why you can find a small portion of a ruin, and reconstruct in the mind how the entire building would be.

So that for example, in the Sanctuary to Asclepius at Epidaurus – from a single corner of a building, a conception can be reconstructed in your mind, which expresses an ideal of the Greek civilization, and its approach to life.

It depends on how modern. Something went wrong in the early to mid 20th century.

I mean architecture after the historical Roman Empire. Medieval and modern architecture.

That’s not to say that there are not incredibly great Gothic buildings, Venetian palaces, et al. Even some of the New York skyscrapers are masterpieces of art.

But the modern world’s buildings doesn’t have the level of integration as in the Greek temples, where it can be that no part of the building seems arbitrary, and so directly seems to transmit to us their ideals.

For example, Plato might not tell you what the correct theory is, but gives you ten different theories in five different characters, as well as a couple of myths, and then tells you that they are all a waste of time. Meanwhile there can be hidden deeper teaching and messages each time you re-read the text.

It’s not just a superfluous game, but it’s trying to teach the reader about the many-sided reality, and complexity of the topic, and the interconnectedness where accepting a theory in one topic, effects our views on another topic. The uses of metaphor and myth also allows the discussion to be viewed in an almost visual way.

Thank you for this. Okay, you’ve convinced me to reread some of Plato’s dialogues. I confess when I had read them as a curious student I found them to be uninteresting. Obviously I was not clever enough to appreciate them fully.

Lol I think it was probably lucky as I avoided any “Harry Potter� or “Lord of Rings�.

I don’t think I would equalize those two.

When I started to enjoy reading literary things, I was pretty old (16-17), and it was because of 19th century writers. So my first love in literature (and kind of “homebase�) – 19th century literature.

The first book I read on my own was Robinson Crusoe, a gift for my first communion (age 10-11?). Later I was reading Jules Verne and especially Jack London. I discovered Lord of the Rings later still, around age 14-15. It made a very strong impression. Then there was a pause (music, girls, bonfires, etc.) though I started reading Russian authors towards the end of high school (age 17-18). Then there was exploration in university, when the massive library was at my finger tips (this was before the internet, Amazon, etc. so a new world opened up).

No one I knew in high school read for pleasure, other than stuff like Steven King which probably shouldn’t count. Harry Potter did not yet exist in the 1980s.

, all the major Western authors on these topics seem to have read Cicero

And Cicero is one of the main influences on the concept of “general essay”, rediscovered in the renaissance via Montaigne.

With Cicero, you’re also forced to experience, how sophisticated was the literary world by his time. Because he writes in some ways like he was publishing in 21st scientific journal; beginning often with a review of past literature.

He approaches a topic (whether it will be about old age, or the meaning of fate, or grammatical fashions), as a writer in a peer-reviewed journal today, who has to comment on the previous literature and investigations.

I find surreal especially, is when he reviews about how the virtues and vices of modern contemporary writers, compared to those of lost centuries of the past.

different genre to what Thucydides was doing

You’ll find many modern historical projects in Thucydides. Perhaps not well developed, or with a consensus of scholars he can debate; but the seeds of different modern historical schools can be found in the text.

So, for example, I noticed , is that “Annales school” approach of analyzing ordinary customs fashions, and farming methods, is contained with Thucydides’s text, as analysis of trading routes, etc.

various French writers are superior to Dostoyevsky

I was not saying that Flaubert is superior to Dostoevsky. Although I was personally more impressed by Flaubert – I would not want to impose my subjective impressions too much. (Just decide for yourself)

It would be art fans discussing whether they prefer Cezanne or Monet. Some art fans prefer Cezanne, others like Monet. They are both interesting artists, generally considered at the top level of their profession

My point was that, of course, the innovations and trends of the 19th century novel were centred in France, and Russian writers are part of this weather system that was blowing from Paris. Moreover, that in France, there were more of these great novelists, than in Russian Empire. That is in the Russian Empire produced 2-3 novelists that had a similar professional acclaim to the great writers in Paris, and 2 equally rated writers of short stories. France was the centre of the storm, as it were, of the 19th century literature – the winds of which have blown across the Russian Empire, and even over the Atlantic oceans to America; Henry James was at the level of any novelist born in Europe, but the number of the authors in America was not like in the centre of the storm.

Ancients were not wise, but strip away the clever and playful games and then compare.

For example, Plato might not tell you what the correct theory is, but gives you ten different theories in five different characters, as well as a couple of myths, and then tells you that they are all a waste of time. Meanwhile there can be hidden deeper teaching and messages each time you re-read the text.

It’s not just a superfluous game, but it’s trying to teach the reader about the many-sided reality, and complexity of the topic, and the interconnectedness where accepting a theory in one topic, effects our views on another topic. The uses of metaphor and myth also allows the discussion to be viewed in an almost visual way.

–

So we think of for example, Plato’s dialogue “Theaetetus”.

It begins as a frame story, about remembrance of a short light, joking dialogue of Socrates, talking about some pedantic questions about knowledge – but then outlines multiple different future theories that would be in modern epistemology, problems of measurement, questions reliability of memory, and in the centre of text: about how man can be virtuous, the problem of evil, and its relation to social norms and the establishment of rules in language, whether beauty is related to justice, etc.

And then they say their discussion was useless, and has just produced bad wind. And Socrates proceeds to his trial.

–

There is fertile, complex, riddled and puzzling discussion. It is even designed to deter the people who will read it the first time. But will start to reward the second, third or fourth time reading, where the deeper meanings will become visible.

These are texts with multiple layers of meaning, and where literary setting itself (e.g. of perfectly remembered frame story, before a trial), will contain even additional layers of comment on the theories it contains.

when you were young – did you prefer

I avoided “extracurricular reading” as much as a possible, and was more interested in sports, music and video games, etc.

Lol I think it was probably lucky as I avoided any “Harry Potter” or “Lord of Rings”. When I started to enjoy reading literary things, I was pretty old (16-17), and it was because of 19th century writers. So my first love in literature (and kind of “homebase”) – 19th century literature.

Dostoyevsky less profound than Euripides

Of course and what a question

So you think Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex surpassed Brothers Karamazov?

Christendom novels e

To turn this into conversation about “Christendom�. Like falling into an argument with American missionaries, rather than literature fans or historians.

My thesis at the beginning was the Christendom at its height (c.1500-c.1900, it started a little earlier in Italy) was the pinnacle of human civilization.

I visited ruins where there is even a single column, and yet you receive a strong spiritual impression even from the fragments of their buildings.

So it’s a purely emotional connection for you, that clouds your impression. It is why for you, the greatest 19th century novelists don’t touch the ankles of Euripides.

Personally, I do not receive such a spiritual impression from modern architecture

It depends on how modern. Something went wrong in the early to mid 20th century.

Christianity on the other hand is a rational and reasonable faith, well suited for human needs.

Well, this probably speaks more about your own mindset and psychological inclinations than it does about the relative rationality or lack thereof of any of these belief systems.

Anyway, given that neither of the two of us is a Monotheist, I believe it is not fitting for us to discuss the differences between the Theistic metaphysical doctrines.

Let’s leave this to our Monotheistic friends, they’re good at trying to sort out their differences. They have been doing this for the last 2000 years, millions of people suffered a cruel death while they tried to prove to one another that their understanding of the Divine is more accurate than that of their neighbors.

Relevant: Swift’s Battle of the Books

And it seems I was neither an ill prophet nor an ill counsellor; for it was nothing else but the neglect of this caution which gave occasion to the terrible fight that happened on Friday last between the Ancient and Modern Books in the King’s library. Now, because the talk of this battle is so fresh in everybody’s mouth, and the expectation of the town so great to be informed in the particulars, I, being possessed of all qualifications requisite in an historian, and retained by neither party, have resolved to comply with the urgent importunity of my friends, by writing down a full impartial account thereof.

I don’t know. Perhaps our Monotheistic friends could answer this question. They are the ones believing in an Absolute Creator God.

My criticism was directed against Platonists, Advaitins and others who believe in an impersonal God.

Christianity on the other hand is a rational and reasonable faith, well suited for human needs.

And in the ancient Greek, there is even a more open and sophisticated way of thinking, compared to what is possible today. The Greek writers can seem like they were more ironic and sophisticated, and could hide behind multiple meanings and riddles. Modern writing does not have the multi-layered, riddle aspects of writers like Plato, which require us to re-read, and try to decipher.

From what I understand, Classical Greek lent itself to multi-layered meanings.

But this seems to get to the heart of your conclusions: you are impressed with riddles, puzzles, and wit. Perhaps that is why you also think that various French writers are superior to Dostoyevsky (whose writing style was clumsy). Do you confuse such tricks, with wisdom? Not that the Ancients were not wise, but strip away the clever and playful games and then compare.

Btw, when you were young – did you prefer Lord of the Rings, or the Iliad and Odyssey, or the Norse sagas? I enjoyed them all, but the early 20th century work the most.

But the greatest artists of the quattrocento cinquecento, are not just imitating the ancient models, but incorporating the influence, and advancing on it.

This is sort of what I was saying, I was thinking of the way Petrarch was famous for being able to write Latin poetry and prose that mimicked the ancients very closely, but no one reads that much any more. Whereas something like Tasso’s Jerusalem Liberated drew on Classical models, was very popular and widely read for several centuries until quite recently. But this work was written in vernacular and also contained different religious and cultural (chivalry related) content.

I found the opposite. Medieval writers like Dante, seem far more naive or primitive, than reading some of the ancient writers.

These will actually be reasons why the later works are less distant for someone who does not master Classical Latin to a high enough level to really appreciate this period of Latin poetry.

For example, Classical Latin has a complex and intricate grammar and is a very synthetic language compared to the Western vulgar tongues, we also don’t have a clear idea as to what it sounds like as spoken living language. Since I grew up in still mainly Christian surroundings, only learning some Church Latin and long after the fall of Rome, I found becoming absorbed by the Aeneid or Horace’s Odes tricky (it didn’t happen).

And some of oversophisticated the Roman writers like Cicero, seem more modern than most of the writers of the 19th and 20th century.

I tend to think of Cicero as a moralist and political writer as much as a straight part of literature, AFAIK he has never not had readers, all the major Western authors on these topics seem to have read Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Locke, Kant and so on. The issues with the Latin are similar to those Classical poets, so it makes it harder to appreciate fully the literary qualities, except it can be seen to be a very elevated and august style, maybe this makes it seem like it was written by aliens.

The content of something like the Offices will probably always in some way be relevant. It is unusual at the moment that they are no longer being read to the same extent as they used to be, I have been wondering if they might make a kind of come back in the near future as the latest avant-garde thing.

Plato and his later peer, The Philosopher, are a whole subject on their own.

I’m not sure anyone since writes what we call now “modern history�, with as much intelligence, as Thucydides.

Modern ‘scientific’ history is in various respects a different genre to what Thucydides was doing, it is one of those things that didn’t exist in the Classical period

Why should anything matter if all is ultimately God?

How you can derive moral teachings from a being that is not a being but an unconditioned principle?

I don’t know. Perhaps our Monotheistic friends could answer this question. They are the ones believing in an Absolute Creator God.

For my part, I know one thing: the Buddha said that there is an end to stressful existence. This end is reached when we get to :

Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around:

Here water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing.

Here long & short, coarse & fine, fair & foul, name & form are all brought to an end.

With the cessation of [the activity of] consciousness each is here brought to an end.’”

When mind is purified and pacified, the release follows. This is all I personally need to know.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.11.0.than.html#gods

Christian God is a better concept than impersonal Absolute of Platonists and Advaitins. Such beliefs will just lead to subtle forms of nihilism, why should anything matter if all is ultimately God? How you can derive moral teachings from a being that is not a being but an unconditioned principle?

b. Unconditioned Reality: Any reality that is self-sufficient, i.e. does not depend on anything else for its existence. This is what is called “God�.

Whoopty doo! Well I’ll call it Quantum physics, Atman, Ishvara, Para-Brahman or Ecuador!

Video Link

Well AP specifically mentioned novels and literary output, and we have a very few novels surviving from the Classical Era. No wonder why, when grain shipments from Africa ended, people were massively dying from starvation, plague, aqueducts were in ruins and there were barbarian warriors everywhere, it must have been an easy choice for early Medieval monks to concentrate on preservation of works of Platon and Aristoteles, and not on every day prose literature, even some works of Aristoteles. and almost everything from Diogenes and Heraclitus is lost.

And in the ancient Greek, there is even a more open and sophisticated way of thinking, compared to what is possible today. The Greek writers can seem like they were more ironic and sophisticated, and could hide behind multiple meanings and riddles. Modern writing does not have the multi-layered, riddle aspects of writers like Plato, which require us to re-read, and try to decipher.

Well same is very true with ancient Buddhist literature, there are so many hidden layers, riddles and multiple meanings in the text, that it’s just unbelievable.