Zanoni, A Rosicrucian Tale by Edward Bulwer Lytton, 1842

"The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword"


Edward Bulwer Lytton can be a difficult author for today's reader. The sensibility towards literature prevalent in  the middle of the 19th century has almost vanished today. The typical modern book reader rejects the unfamiliar words of  an author who uses an extensive vocabulary. He is ignorant of etymology. He declines to follow the twists and turns of the longer sentence and is confused by the plethora of characters. Second person singular usage sounds precious to him. Greek and Latin phrases, even when a translation is provided, appear to be affectation. He expects irony from an author who says what he means and means what he says  in a  manner more erudite than accustomed. He is appalled by what seem to be clichés which are really original turns of phrase that have become clichés over the years in testament to their effectiveness. When Bulwer Lytton's esoteric thematic content is added to his alien stylistic elements, today's average reader is compelled by his experience to reject him as obtuse, emotional and boring. In fact, he was a very popular author in his day and will reward the intrepid explorer of his work. But I admit that sometimes when immersed in one of his books I am feeling this sentiment: "Just come out with it directly!"


Some Interesting Quotes from Zanoni

The Fanaticism Of Unbelief

Who shall argue with the most stubborn of all bigotries,--the fanaticism of unbelief?

Human Love

It is true that the desires of earth chain me to the present, and shut me from the solemn secrets which Intellect, purified from all the dross of the clay, alone can examine and survey. The stern condition on which we hold our nobler and diviner gifts darkens our vision towards the future of those for whom we know the human infirmities of jealousy or hate or love. Mejnour, all around me is mist and haze; I have gone back in our sublime existence; and from the bosom of the imperishable youth that blooms only in the spirit, springs up the dark poison-flower of human love.

Introduction to the Dweller on The Threshold

Thou austere and remorseless Hierophant,--thou who hast sought to convert to our brotherhood every spirit that seemed to thee most high and bold,--even thou knowest, by horrible experience, how vain the hope to banish FEAR from the heart of woman.
My life would be to her one marvel. Even if, on the other hand, I sought to guide her path through the realms of terror to the light, think of the Haunter of the Threshold, and shudder with me at the awful hazard!

Paracelsus

"Rouse thyself," said Mejnour; "thy ordeal has commenced! There are pretenders to the solemn science who could have shown thee the absent, and prated to thee, in their charlatanic jargon, of the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid of whose true properties they know but the germs and elements. I will lend thee the books of those glorious dupes, and thou wilt find, in the dark ages, how many erring steps have stumbled upon the threshold of the mighty learning, and fancied they had pierced the temple. Hermes and Albert and Paracelsus, I knew ye all; but, noble as ye were, ye were fated to be deceived. Ye had not souls of faith, and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye aimed! Yet Paracelsus--modest Paracelsus--had an arrogance that soared higher than all our knowledge. Ho, ho!--he thought he could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself the Divine gift,--the breath of life. (Paracelsus, 'De Nat. Rer.,' lib. i.)

First Step In Training The Mind

Boy, I could tell thee such truths of the past as would make thee the luminary of schools. But thou lustest only for the shadows of the future. Thou shalt have thy wish. But the mind must be first exercised and trained. Go to thy room, and sleep; fast austerely, read no books; meditate, imagine, dream, bewilder thyself if thou wilt. Thought shapes out its own chaos at last. Before midnight, seek me again!

The Challenges To The Traveller And The Fear Posed By The Dweller On The Threshold

"He who would establish intercourse with these varying beings resembles the traveller who would penetrate into unknown lands. He is exposed to strange dangers and unconjectured terrors. THAT INTERCOURSE ONCE GAINED, I CANNOT SECURE THEE FROM THE CHANCES TO WHICH THY JOURNEY IS EXPOSED. I cannot direct thee to paths free from the wanderings of the deadliest foes. Thou must alone, and of thyself, face and hazard all. But if thou art so enamoured of life as to care only to live on, no matter for what ends, recruiting the nerves and veins with the alchemist's vivifying elixir, why seek these dangers from the intermediate tribes? Because the very elixir that pours a more glorious life into the frame, so sharpens the senses that those larvae of the air become to thee audible and apparent; so that, unless trained by degrees to endure the phantoms and subdue their malice, a life thus gifted would be the most awful doom man could bring upon himself. Hence it is, that though the elixir be compounded of the simplest herbs, his frame only is prepared to receive it who has gone through the subtlest trials. Nay, some, scared and daunted into the most intolerable horror by the sights that burst upon their eyes at the first draft, have found the potion less powerful to save than the agony and travail of Nature to destroy. To the unprepared the elixir is thus but the deadliest poison. Amidst the dwellers of the threshold is ONE, too, surpassing in malignity and hatred all her tribe,--one whose eyes have paralyzed the bravest, and whose power increases over the spirit precisely in proportion to its fear. Does thy courage falter?"

Meeting The Dweller On The Threshold

The cloud retreated from it as it advanced; the bright lamps grew wan, and flickered restlessly as at the breath of its presence. Its form was veiled as the face, but the outline was that of a female; yet it moved not as move even the ghosts that simulate the living. It seemed rather to crawl as some vast misshapen reptile; and pausing, at length it cowered beside the table which held the mystic volume, and again fixed its eyes through the filmy veil on the rash invoker. All fancies, the most grotesque, of monk or painter in the early North, would have failed to give to the visage of imp or fiend that aspect of deadly malignity which spoke to the shuddering nature in those eyes alone. All else so dark,--shrouded, veiled and larva-like. But that burning glare so intense, so livid, yet so living, had in it something that was almost HUMAN in its passion of hate and mockery,--something that served to show that the shadowy Horror was not all a spirit, but partook of matter enough, at least, to make it more deadly and fearful an enemy to material forms. As, clinging with the grasp of agony to the wall,--his hair erect, his eyeballs starting, he still gazed back upon that appalling gaze,--the Image spoke to him: his soul rather than his ear comprehended the words it said.
"Thou hast entered the immeasurable region. I am the Dweller of the Threshold. What wouldst thou with me? Silent? Dost thou fear me? Am I not thy beloved? Is it not for me that thou hast rendered up the delights of thy race? Wouldst thou be wise? Mine is the wisdom of the countless ages. Kiss me, my mortal lover." And the Horror crawled near and nearer to him; it crept to his side, its breath breathed upon his cheek! With a sharp cry he fell to the earth insensible, and knew no more till, far in the noon of the next day, he opened his eyes and found himself in his bed,--the glorious sun streaming through his lattice, and the bandit Paolo by his side, engaged in polishing his carbine, and whistling a Calabrian love-air.

Thoughts Are Souls

The master has no power to say, 'Exist no more,' to one THOUGHT that his knowledge has inspired.Thou mayst change the thoughts into new forms; thou mayst rarefy and sublimate it into a finer spirit,--but thou canst not annihilate that which has no home but in the memory, no substance but the idea. EVERY THOUGHT IS A SOUL! Vainly, therefore, would I or thou undo the past, or restore to thee the gay blindness of thy youth. Thou must endure the influence of the elixir thou hast inhaled; thou must wrestle with the spectre thou hast invoked!

Fear!

Everywhere I see the track and scent the presence of the Ghostly One that dwells on the Threshold, and whose victims are the souls that would ASPIRE, and can only FEAR. I see its dim shapelessness going before the men of blood, and marshalling their way. Robespierre passed me with his furtive step. Those eyes of horror were gnawing into his heart. I looked down upon their senate; the grim Phantom sat cowering on its floor.

Remembering History: Theodosius I and the Nicene Creed


Above: the diademed Theodosius I, looking more lugubrious than saintly

He was the last Emperor to rule both the Eastern and Western Empires. He recruited huge numbers of barbarians to fight in the dwindling legions of Rome, as the newly ascendant Christians showed little interest in defending the Empire.  The influx of barbarians would ultimately prove to be a big mistake when one of Theodosius' former  foederati barbarian leaders, Alaric, King of the Visigoths (an Arian Christian) would invade Italy during the reign of Theodosius' son Arcadius, Western Emperor, in one case taking advantage of the feast of Easter, knowing the Christians would be preoccupied with religion.

When Christians were establishing themselves as a religion they cried for tolerance. Once they were in the position as the establishment's official religion they banned or made it very difficult for all others to practice their faiths, especially other Christians who were skeptical of this new first dogma of the church, the Nicene Creed (Symbolum Nicaenum), and of course, Jews, who were deemed full of impious "madness". And let us not forget also all those insane conservative pagans who were still banging around at the time. Flavius Theodosius ( 11 January 347 – 17 January 395) known as Theodosius I decreed  Nicene Catholic Christianity the official and only state religion in 380. After initially mollifying influential pagans with his tolerance, once he was comfortably in power he issued strict proscriptions against them, such as a penalty of death both  for making sacrifice to the old gods in 381 and the practice of the haruspex  (the ancient Roman art of foretelling the future by the reading of entrails) in 384. The ancient religion of the state that unified and, for centuries pacified the ancient lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea was officially and finally denied by the enervated successors of what was left of the Romans.

The Nicene Creed was first agreed to by a majority of bishops at the first ecumenical council in 325 at Nicaea, hence the name, and finally hammered out as dogma in 381 at Constantinople. The Catholic and the Orthodox churches (as well as Anglican and Lutheran) to this day adhere to the Creed in more or less the same form, including it in their liturgies.  It is an interesting question whether Jesus would recognize this legal statement of Faith as any kind of representation of himself or his goals. The Catholic Church developed a shorter and vaguer Reader's Digest style version of the  Creed deceptively known as as the "Apostles' Creed" or Symbolum Apostolorum, used in some liturgical and non liturgical settings by most Christian denominations today. It appeared around 390 even though all the apostles were some three hundred years dead when it was written. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the matter in this way:

The Apostles' Creed is so called because it is rightly considered to be a faithful summary of the apostles' faith. It is the ancient baptismal symbol of the Church of Rome. Its great authority arises from this fact: it is "the Creed of the Roman Church, the See of Peter the first of the apostles, to which he brought the common faith".

In other words: the Creed is true because we say so.  The Church has also promulgated a mythology that the Apostles each received a part of the Creed at Pentecost from the Holy Spirit which was handed down in the church as an oral tradition (the church has had an oral tradition ever since, yuk yuk I'll be here all week).


Here is the Catholic Version of the Apostles' Creed:

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.

6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,

9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,

10. the forgiveness of sins,

11. the resurrection of the body,

12. and life everlasting.

Amen.

The Nicene Creed did not end the confusion of discordant ideas on the Trinity (a notion first promulgated by Tertullian early in the third century) and Christianity itself. There are plenty of pin spinning angels to be counted in it. To this day the Eastern Church and the Western Church can't agree if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son both, or either. The Creed doesn't say. Don't ask me which side professes what. It makes my head spin.  The Trinity is a very complicated theology, based on vague biblical allusions cobbled together to support a politically ascendant church looking to justify its grasp on power and enforce unity among the faithful by squelching independent thought. Mergers of  Church and State, no matter how well meaning, are an Evil mix harming both or either party. Here is the 1975 ecumenical text of the Creed.

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

What a curious document from a religion that boasts of its monotheism.
When I was a child I enjoyed the  scary bit in the Apostles' Creed  (being a horror movie fan) about "he descended into Hell" but in the legalistic  Nicene Creed we are told Jesus "suffered death".
Jesus  is now depicted lacking all dynamism,  as "sitting at the right hand of the Father" clearly his successor as President of the Universe performing the same function. This concept at once demeans both the Father and the Son.
There is (are?) the Father and the Son in a sort of tableau vivant (with the invisible Holy Ghost, as (S?)He used to be called, getting to flit around) posing passively for the heavenly choirs in a set piece of theological erotica.
And the Creator (Creatorem caeli et terrae) of the Apostles' Creed is termed the "Maker of Heaven and Earth".(which is an accurate translation of the  Latin: Factórem cæli et terræ,) in the Nicene Creed of 381.

"Creator" is a more magnificent title than the more workmanlike "Maker". The Father is not the architect here; he is a contractor.  They are depicting the Father as equivalent to such a one as the Egyptian god Ptah who was also called the "Maker". He shaped the forms, the worlds, often for the other gods.
They are definitely downplaying the Father. It looks like they are trying to glorify the Son at the expense of the Big Guy. Their Mistake!
At one time I think they may have said they  "await" the "resurrection of the dead" rather than the impatient  "look for the resurrection of the dead". Interesting...Here is the original Latin:
"Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum," Yes the verb expecto (originally exspecto, literally "look out" which is a much different thing than "look for") is usually translated "await"; the verb, quaerere (the Latin root word of our "Inquiry") would be "look for".




Quotes of the Day

Omne enim spectaculum sine concussione spiritus non est. 
There is no public entertainment which does not inflict spiritual damage. (Lit. All public entertainment is not without spiritual damage.)

 Certum est, quia impossibile - It is certain because it is impossible.


Qui fugiebat rursus [sibi] proeliabitur. - He who flees will fight again.

Nec ratio enim sine bonitate ratio est, nec bonitas sine ratione bonitas ...
Reason without goodness is not reason, and goodness without reason is not goodness.
- all from Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, ca. 160 – ca. 220 A.D.)
 

“Do not feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature”-Luther Burbank