” The most congruous apprehension that we can entertain of the Infinite and eternal Deity,
is to conceive him as an immense and all glorious Sun, that is continually communicating
and sending abroad its beams and brightnesse.”
— Joseph Glanvill (Christian bishop, apologist for psychic phenomena, and philosophical skeptic)
OMG, Lila, I’m starting to get envious of your nose for sniffing out hidden treasures. This is beautiful!
Hey –
thanks! results of a misspent life, coiled up under dusty tombs (er, tomes…but I’ll let it stand since it makes weird sense that way too) searching for “truth” – which I am told doesn’t exist..
actually, many thanks to a Hopkins Intellectual History Seminar…
where I met Glanvill
and Malebranche
– and Gassendi..
there was a raging debate on witchcraft going on then..and Glanvill positions himself as a Christian who finds no divergence between reason and faith but finds a great deal of divergence between mistaken opinions (dogmatism – he was talking about the dogmatism of the atheists, not just the theologians)and reason..
I’d like to do a longer post listing other places the sun imagery crops up – from Plotinus to Swedenborg to the Gayatri mantra..
There’s a “dusty tome” about how the pagan Celtic sun-worship seamlessly evolved into the unique Celtic interpretation of Christianity which was gradually snuffed out by the Roman Church.
It is “Sun and Cross”, by Jakob Streit.
The “Masks of God” series by Joseph Campbell should also provide ample imagery of this kind.
Have fun “misspending” some more of your life! 😉