![]() ![]() A young buck drives away his rivals with his horn. The origin of the ancient symbol of the Horn lies in its roots in the misfortune of being cuckolded. That’s our natural and very Fallen nature. Now, most people on this planet prefer a life of Ivory (physical riches and spiritual materialism) over a life of Horn (disappointment and penance). the former symbolizing Cosmic Disappointment. Sure, there’ll be some Major adjustments for the kids later on, but if they have an active intelligence, they’ll catch up in plenty of time, though the transition from naïve innocence to cosmic disappointment is vast.Īnd without the firm foothold of faith well nigh impossible.Īnd note well the conclusion to Book VI of the Aeneid, in which Virgil shows the only auspicious door out of the Underworld: the Gate of Horn, and NOT the Gate of Ivory. It’s like pruning back your rose bushes, in the interests of their future health. It’s like your parents weeding out any bad influences on you as you grew up - can THAT be such a bad thing? Most good parents do it - or used to. And for the future of European civilization the Church seems in hindsight to have been right. Ours is surveillance.īut to the Church, MORAL Anarchy was the most perilous type of chaos, thanks to Nero and Caligula. So, the popular faith and imagination of the Middle Ages derived largely from books like this!Įven Aeneas’ triumphant victory over Turnus was seen by clerics as a divine allegory of the victory over evil.Īnd who’s to say they were so WRONG, though?īut, with that, Church censorship was also beginning, and Roman freedoms were eventually going to be curtailed.īut freedom has radically different restrictions as Age progresses to Age, and while we postmodernists seem to have fewer, we in fact have migrated to much less privacy.Įvery age has its manner of dealing with anarchy. Perhaps in an age of starting from scratch again and rebuilding, that grim mindset was best. The very dearth of Hellenic playfulness gave our ancestors their dour mindset. The Greeks - so sybaritic in their literature and such a springboard in their stories for the imagination - had little or no influence on our serious Medieval European ancestors. and how much Latin magic is in the Holy Grail? (But what about the loss of higher mathematics - and calculus - to the Ottoman Empire, against whom Europe Crusaded? Enemies don’t share secrets, alas.)īut how about the late medieval romances. It is hard to imagine such inspired living as the Knights of the Round Table, or early books of such high-mindedness as Piers Plowman or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight existing without the nobility of the Aeneid. So, now, books like this one were suddenly a prime source for imaginative myth-making. ![]() The domino effect was about to play its hand.Įarly Christian apologists, looking for grist for their mills, would soon see in Virgil’s groundbreaking ideas about a blissful afterlife in the Elysian Fields - for ordinary good people, as well as Homer’s heroes - an announcement of the Lord’s freely-offered - and freely-withheld - salvation.Ī salvation for which Aeneas must forsake the fleshpot of Carthage.Īnd did I say Homer? That’s another thing.Īpproximately concurrent with all of this was the disastrous destruction by fire of Alexandria’s priceless library - the last detailed link with the pre-Roman Greek world. ![]() Sure, it was political propaganda commissioned by Augustus, through Virgil’s noble mentor Maecenas.īut don’t forget that many of the same Roman readers of this runaway bestseller were fathers of the first Italian Christian converts. With not much respect due to Troy’s ancient conquerors - the Greeks. It inspired them to believe that a semi-divine Trojan named Aeneas had given them ideals worth dying for! Virgil left off writing this masterpiece a mere twenty years before the Star appeared over ancient Bethlehem.Īnd, of course, the Aeneid gave the worldly Romans hope for a brighter future at the same time, when their history was beginning its long, slow decline into moral chaos. YOU can Conquer - now, isn’t that a nifty quick analysis of how faith works? That’s Virgil talking!įaith in oneself. ![]() TO CARTHAGE THEN I CAME, WHERE A CAULDRON OF UNHOLY LOVES ![]()
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