"'"Be ye therefore wise as serpents -"'
"'"- and harmless as doves,"' finished Avery." (CHAPTER VII, p. 53)
That cover is inappropriate for this quotation.
I quote the quotation first because it is yet another Biblical verse quoted in a work by Poul Anderson and secondly because it is one that we do not seem to have noticed before.
For the full verse, see here.
Meanwhile, I have just read: "'A column of smoke by day, a pillar of fire by night.'" in Dune. Perhaps I can leave it to blog readers to locate that verse?
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson quoted from or alluded to the Bible so many times! It would need a really zealous pedant (or fan!) to track down and list all these Biblical quotes from his works, fiction and non-fiction.
And that column of smoke and pillar of fire refers to the Exodus of Israel from Egypt.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that early Christians had no political power and were operating in a hostile environment.
Hence they tried to practice psychological ju-jitsu on potential enemies, hopefully outsmarting them.
Once they -did- have power, they changed their tune awfully fast... 8-).
Which was inevitable; they were human beings, after all.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, Christians are human beings too, with all the vices and flaws of everybody else.
That said, I also believe in the divine, supernatural origins and beliefs of Christianity. Moreover, some things, like theocracy, has never really "caught on" in Christianity.
Ad astra! Sean
sean: that depends on which -strain- of Christianity.
The Eastern Orthodox embraced Caesaropapism rather thoroughly.
The Catholic Church didn't, but only because it and the secular (and Protestant) states fought each other to exhaustion and mutual accomodation, as Poul pointed out in that Time Patrol book.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
With some modifications, I agree. It's been catastrophic for Christianity within the Orthodox churches that they submitted so slavishly to domination by the State. And the same has been true of Protestant churches controlled by the State, such as Anglicanism in the UK and some of the Lutheran churches.
It's my belief it's the will and wish of God for the Catholic Church to be independent of the State, to resist unjust interference by the State, and has the right to criticize the State when it does wrong. Such as the "legalization" of abortion.
And I believe one of the points Anderson was making in THE SHIELD OF TIME was that it was good that neither Church were completely dominant outside their proper spheres. Again Matthew 22.15-22 comes to mind.
Ad astra! Sean
Gggggrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! I meant to write "...good that neither Church OR STATE were completely dominant..." above.
Sean
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