The King of Ys covers twenty five years, beginning and ending on the Birthday of Mithras.
While exorcising Dahut, Corentinus, echoing the opening lines of Paradise Lost, says that Satan:
"',,,brought death into the world...'" (p. 501)
He did not. Does anyone still believe that the first human beings and all their descendants would have been physically immortal if not for an original act of disobedience to a divine command? Death was part of life before us and we are part of life.
There might be further reflections on rereading to the end of The King of Ys but that is all for now. Tomorrow I again visit Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Again, I disagree. It is the defined teaching of the Church that sometime in the distant past there was a first man, who was tested, fell, and lost sanctifying grace for himself and his descendants (until the coming of Christ). And that was why death entered mankind's life. And that this was done in such a way that evolution played a role.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Surely that contradicts everything that we know from archaeology and evolutionary biology? Hominids became physically immortal when they became Homo Sapiens but lost that immortality by an act of their own wills in the first generation?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, it does not. I'll make explicit what I left implicit: that first man was infused with a soul hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago. Anderson's story "The Little Monster" could fit into that. Jerry Parker and his uncle are even Catholics.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The infusion of a soul conferred physical immortality which was then lost before any physical trace of it was left behind?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, because that first man would be tested soon after that infusion.
Ad astra! Sean
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