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The Spiritual Perils of Verbicide
Jared Selim | Feb 05, 2026
https://substack.com/home/post/p-185556609

How Murdered Words Lose Meaning—and How Logos Revives Them

Was the Synagogue Chief "Slave to the Law"? And what does "Slave" mean?

1) How Many Theologians WERE Jean Gerson OR von Nieheim? · 2) Was the Synagogue Chief "Slave to the Law"? And what does "Slave" mean?

Another Bergoglionism:

The Son of God calls the synagogue chief a hypocrite, a word “he uses so often to refer to those who are rigid and unyielding in their insistence on applying the law down to the last letter”. These people are not free, “they are slaves of the Law”. But “the Law was not made to enslave us but to set us free, to make us children” of the Lord. “Beneath rigidity there is something else, always! This is why Jesus says: hypocrites!”

I go through a search. Exodus does NOT say not to work miracles on the sabbath. The chief of the synagogue is indeed a hypocrite, but it is not the last letter of the law that he is zealous for.

Or perhaps there was such a thing as breach of sabbath in the command to the lame man "take thy bed and go"? But if so, why was the lame man not apprehended for taking the bed and walking?

Ah, perhaps these hypocrites WERE enforcing a Church discipline (remember, there was a Jewish Church leading up to the Catholic Church, and the Aaronite Priests but also Rabbis in this time were still not apostates but part of it and regulating parts of it) IN WHICH a poor man could be asked to take away his belongings if he was trespassing somewhere on the sabbath. Or perhaps the bed was a very light thing and he was not going very far away with it.

There seem to be Jews and similar who these days think it is ok to interrupt a loafer's night sleep in order to make him and his slender property leave the house.

But in that case, neither did Jesus command a breach of the sabbath by "take thy bed and walk".

And what if Jesus had been doing the works of a physician? Well, that might have been a sabbath breach to change his bandages if he had sores, or his plaster, if he had a broken leg. Not sure about that one. But what Christ did was SPEAKING. And there is no rule against SPEAKING on the sabbath. And if the principle was that the effect of the words were to do the EQUIVALENT of illicit medical work on the sabbath, well, God is by His word dragging the Universe around Earth each day, including the sabbath. That is the EQUIVALENT not of oxen dragging a millstone around but of very much more than that. And the miracle Christ accomplished was also of very much more than just equivalent of what could have been done by medical work which in that late part of the Old Testament MIGHT have been illicit. So, equivalent of more than the illicit work = illicit work, even if no physical effort of work is done? Well, that would make God a sabbath breaker.

No, it was NOT "every letter" of the law that the chief of the synagogue zealously observed and wanted observed.

He was probably of the school of Hillel, considered Jesus as of the school of Shammai (Shammai agreed with Our Lord on indissolubility of marriage!) and wanted to show Him "you aren't following your own rules". And in order to do so, he had to resort to subterfuges and go way outside any letter of the law.

Yes, the chief of the synagogue was in a sense a SLAVE of the law. A slave looking for as much wiggle room as possible. A slave paying lip service to the principle of zeal for every letter, but actually having no such zeal. He was not able to say "after all, the law as stated does not call this a sabbath breach". He could have used

Exodus 31:14 Keep you my sabbath: for it is holy unto you: he that shall profane it, shall be put to death: he that shall do my work in it, his soul shall perish out of the midst of his people.

But from context we know that Exodus 31:14 is not speaking about each and every act which can be termed "the Lord's work", not of cultic acts per se, but of preparations for these. If you want flowers on the altar for a Marian feast, well, it's not on the feast day itself you provide the flower pots, but the day before. Some would say the idea is not excellent, for floristic reasons, and some have suggested flowers on the altar are an abuse. But if one puts the flowers on the altar there in order the same morning, at least we live in another covenant than that when Exodus 31:14 was binding law. However, Exodus 31:14 is NOT talking about making miracles, in context.

So, even that idea for an excuse for the chief of the synagogue being zealous is false.

Slaves are not really zealous for their masters. Read Roman comedy, every slave in Plautus is only thinking on how to cheat his way out of the words of the master. But if the chief of the synagogue is "slave of the law", perhaps he was as little zealous as the chief of the synagogue.*

Christ had no more broken the law than a priest entering the sanctuary on Yom Kippur [Leviticus 16:31-34]. Indeed, the words of "thy sins are forgiven" mean that that was precisely what Christ was doing.

No, the chief of the synagogue was simply not zealous for the law at all, but eager for an opportunity of criticism. He was not rigid, he was indeed extremely flexible in exegesis, in claiming to find any fault. He was not applying the actual law, he was bluffing so as to give an impression of doing so, like certain policemen bluff when dealing with people they want to humiliate and have no legal charge against. Slave, yes. Rigid, no.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Holy Martyr couple
Chrysanthus and Daria
25.X.2016

* Obviously the chief of the synagogue was as little or as much zealous as the chief of the synagogue. I meant as little zealous as the slave in Plautus. Sorry, had too much too eat and too little rest the last dark part of a nychthemeron./HGL

Dwight Longenecker and the Bildungsroman

1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Fable and Allegory, 2) Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Dwight on Definition of Fundies, 3) Dwight Longenecker Not Knowing What Computers Are, and Not Answering a Challenge On It, 4) With Dwight on Fundies, Again, 5) One item on Dwight, related to Teen Marriages, 6) Was Dwight Ever Outright Heretic? If So, it is Here I Blamed him, 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica (again) : Dwight Longenecker and Bildungsroman

It seems Dwight makes the assumption, that the literary form of Wilhelm Meister meets the kind of soul to whom is said "mitis depone colla Sigamber":

The theological theory of Indiana Jones goes like this: The films reflect the religious and spiritual growth of humanity as Jones develops positively as a human being. ... To understand the theory it is necessary to start with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom—which is the second film to be made, but as a prequel is the first of the stories chronologically. ... [L]ike the pagans he is countering, Jones replies, “Fortune and glory, honey. Fortune and glory.” In other words, in the first film Indiana Jones’ main concern is Indiana Jones. Jones for the money. Jones for the show. Jones for the showgirl. Temple of Doom was criticized for its nihilistic tone, dark themes and violence, but whether the film makers intended it or not, the bloodthirstiness and dark terror are a fitting reflection of the pagan world view and Jones’ own lusty, greedy, bloodthirsty self.

The second film in the chronological sequence is Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. As Judaism is an advance on paganism, so Dr. Jones is now not only pursuing a Jewish artifact, but he is also engaged in a moral battle against evil incarnate—the Nazis. ...

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes the storyline into Christian territory. From being a selfish grave robber to being a world savior by finding the lost ark, Indiana Jones now continues his personal crusade not only to recover the holy grail, but to find his father. The final film in the trilogy therefore echoes with Christian symbolism and themes. The cross or “X” always marks the spot. The guardians of the grail are willing to be martyrs to defend the holy relic, and Indy comes to realize that the quest is about eternal life and reconciliation with the father, not just the pursuit of “fortune and glory, honey.” The climax of the film (and arguably the whole trilogy) is when Jones Sr. is shot and the villain Donovan says, “It’s time to ask yourself what you believe Dr . Jones.”

To save his father’s life Jones must face three tests, which are the marks of becoming a Christian. He must be penitent. He must hear the word of God and he must take the step of faith.* ...

I am not sure there was all that kind of character development in the real Sigambrian, in Clovis. When he is bowing down for baptism, he is not really distanced from "fortune and glory", he is thanking the God who provided it for him. And afterwards, he is not behaving in a perfectly Christian way either. His wife on the other hand hardly needed such a conversion, though she needed her husband's. She is Saint Coltilde.

Hollywood believes in character development, not because Hollywood is Christian, but more like because Hollywood is Jewish. What is wrong with being Jewish and believing in character development? That it is un-Christian. Especially it is un-Christian to make bets on someone else's character development provided you stop him from remaining himself, time after time, whatever little he may have done to merit a persecution, just because he is still not the character you would like. How is it said this is un-Christian?

Matthew 23:15 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him the child of hell twofold more than yourselves.

Or Jude: [22] And some indeed reprove, being judged: [23] But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal.

Obviously, if you hate someone's spotted garment, you are not counting on his character development. And if you pull someone out of the fire, you do it pretty quickly, like the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future did on one night with Mr. Scrooge. You do not spend years tracking him over land and sea to convert him to your view of what a Christian should be.

Here is the Challoner comment:

[22] Reprove, being judged: He gives them another instruction to practice charity in endeavouring to convert their neighbour, where they will meet with three sorts of persons:

• 1 st, With persons obstinate in their errors and sins; these may be said to be already judged and condemned; they are to be sharply reprehended, reproved, and if possible convinced of their error.
  
  
• 2 d, As to others you must endeavour to save them, by pulling them, as it were, out of the fire, from the ruin they stand in great danger of.
  
  
• 3 d, You must have mercy on others in fear, when you see them through ignorance of frailty, in danger of being drawn into the snares of these heretics; with these you must deal more gently and mildly, with a charitable compassion, hating always, and teaching others to hate the carnal garment which is spotted, their sensual and corrupt manners, that defile both the soul and body.

Here is Dwight again:

While the theological theory of Indiana Jones works cleverly, what is mysterious about it is that it is very unlikely to have been intentional. The character and idea for the films were conceived by George Lucas, but Steven Spielberg was soon heavily involved. The story and first two screenplays were written by Lucas, Philip Kauffman, Lawrence Kasdan, Willard Huyck, and Gloria Katz. Spielberg increasingly took charge, and the third movie went through various stages of development with input from Lucas, Spielberg, and five different writers who, among other things, were wrestling with an earlier concept called Indiana Jones and the Monkey King, while also trying to weave in the ideas of stars Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

I think it is very naïve not to expect such a Bildungsroman motive to have been intentional, at least for the last item. If items one and two were kind of unintentionally leading up to a third, this would pretty certainly have been explicitly known by those making third. But even the "one" being a prequel to the already extant "two" means it may have been meant for such a buildup. Jews are great moralists, great believers in character development, great optimists who may expect a real Pagan like Indiana Jones of the Temple of Doom to just develop (at least in response to necessities of the peripeties) into the Indiana Jones of the Last Crusade.

I have a very deep gut feeling, while some Jews were indeed killed in the camps, many, even most, where pushed into a process intended for character development. Because someone may have experienced that Jews, although great moralists, were not always as moral as they expected others to be. Auschwitz may have been built in order to mainly bring Jews of that type to develop from the one Indian Jones into the other one, over the in between one.

Someone has suggested Hitler was antisemitic due to reading Karl May. When it comes to his hating economic injustice, this may be true. Or it may be he was an Austrian. But no one has suggested (or if I did, I seem not to have been heard) he believed a little too much in character development after reading Karl May and also a little too much after probably failing as an artist because some Jewish Connexion believed his character development depended on that.

Now, in the sense of character development, Karl May did take the adventure hero into the Lehrjahre of Wilhelm Meister a bit before Hollywood did so after Karl May.

And I think it has been done to others, including to me, including by Catholic ecclesiastics (if you will call such Catholics) who are interested, along with Jewish friends, in my "character development". In another article, on his own blog, Dwight is basically stating God is sometimes not hearing prayer because He is interested in - very basically - our character development.

Now, Father Bryan Houghton, he once wrote and wrote to refute an idelogy about prayer in which "God is more eager for our moral progress than for our praise". No doubt, after certain backslidings, certain progresses must needs be made. One is not praying correctly if praying in a state of mortal sin. But the human life, like the angelic life, is mainly made for praising God. Not for "moral progress". Father Bryan Houghton in Unwanted Priest also diagnosed this new idea about prayer as, first of all, not due to any Jesuit before dissolution and reorganisation of the order, and second as the root cause of the Liturgic Reform. Which he considered a thoroughly bad one. He also entitled one of the chapters - since I read the French translation, not the original, I must translate back - L'église du bavardage, presumably The Church of Babbling. Close enough to "Church (? or whatever) of Babylon".

Unlike how I see Dwight, I consider Father Bryan Houghton to have been a thoroughly Catholic Catholic.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Vigil of Epiphany
5-I-2016

* Same link as yesterday.

Fable and Allegory

1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Fable and Allegory, 2) Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Dwight on Definition of Fundies, 3) Dwight Longenecker Not Knowing What Computers Are, and Not Answering a Challenge On It, 4) With Dwight on Fundies, Again, 5) One item on Dwight, related to Teen Marriages, 6) Was Dwight Ever Outright Heretic? If So, it is Here I Blamed him, 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica (again) : Dwight Longenecker and Bildungsroman

Dixit Dwight:

When Tolkien vociferously denies that LOTR is an “allegory,” he seems to be denying that it is a fable: that is, he is reacting against stupid people who were inclined to say, “The ring is the atomic bomb. The Shire is England. Minas Tirith is the United States. Mordor is Nazi Germany. Isengard is Fascist Italy. Wormtongue is Neville Chamberlain. Eowyn is Vera Lynn.”

But if you really knew the fables of La Fontaine and of Aesop, they are very much less allegorical than that.

Of course Animal Farm is BOTH a fable (as in a story with an Esop where animals talk) and an allegory (as in a story where Russian Revolution and its subversion by Stalin is presented by another story).

Bunyan has an allegory where Popery as a toothless old giant stands for Catholicism which had become harmless in England due to Reformation (which is horribly unfair to Catholicism, but indeed Bunyan's intent, and probably more charitable than Titus Oates, at least). And everything else in it is an allegory. A City called Destruction is allegory of "state of sin" combined with "community of sinners"/"civitas diabolis". Not totally clearly - in Bunyan, as opposed to St Augustine - distinguished from "civitas terrena".

C. S. Lewis made one book which really is an allegory - Pilgrim's Regress (some reference to Bunyan not quite out of place, but not a Puritan work). In it red and black dwarfs obeying the same King Barbarian are allegorical of Commies and diverse Fascists (including Nazis) to same spirit of ruffians leading to totalitarian revolutions (a trace of this is found in the atheist Red Dwarf Trumpkin in Prince Caspian and the occultist Black Dwarf Nikabrik in same book).

In a fable, the story as a whole conveys a specific moral - called an Esop.

In an allegory every detail corresponds to some detail of the main allegorical plan. Like Romance of the Rose corresponds to a plan of making inner feelings of the beloved + her circumstances persons whom the main character encounters when trying to "pluck a rose". Or like in Animal Farm everything corresponds to a main plan in which "man" = oppressors and "animal" = proletariat. Including a pig (animal, therefore proletarian) ending up walking on two legs (like a man, therefore like an oppressor). By the way, the sheep in Animal Farm who asks "aren't all animals equal" and gets a reply "yes, but some are more equal than others" also has an echo in a Narnia book, namely The Last Battle. And the horse slaughtered in Animal Farm corresponds - as literary reference, not as allegory - to talking horses driven off to the Tisroc in Last Battle.

Unlike Romance of the Rose, Voyage of the Dawn Treader is not an allegory. Unlike Pilgrim's Regress and Animal Farm, Prince Caspian and Last Battle are not allegories.

So, an allegory is like a fable with a lot of fables in it. And a fable is a story built around an Esop.

Each parable of Our Lord may be a fable or an allegory. But one could take The Prodigal Son into two kinds of extensions. One of them would add the kind of detail which was needed to make it a realistic novel. One other would add the kind of detail which would include further niches of fable-Esops or other correspondences with what one considers the story is about (as in conversion to God, as in conversion of Gentiles while Older Son walks sadly and Pharisaically away etc.) into the details, just as the main story has an Esop.

C.S. Lewis also denied that his Narnia stories were allegorical, but did not deny his intent for the stories to bear a theological reading. He used the word “analogy” to explain how the Narnia stories reflected an underlying theological system.

Did he really use the words "the stories reflect an underlying theological system"?

I doubt it. They presuppose it. And the system is ambiguous, insofar as author could state that Aslan is a parallel incarnation of God the Son (highly problematic as a theological concept), while this fan fic writer has preferred the idea that God the Son, incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, seated at the Right of the Father is present under the species of a lion's body in the world of Narnia, just as He is present under the species of bread and of wine on the altar. That might break down on some of the stories (The Horse and His Boy), but at least makes Bethlehem the place "where Aslan was a lion cub" and therefore keeps uniqueness of Incarnation. As His sacrifice is present on the altar, so also on the Stone Table, with the difference that the altar shows His sacrifice performed by a priest like Him according to the Order of Melchisedec, the Stone Table shows how Satan plotted for the Crucifixion. I do not know if C. S. Lewis would have approved this reinterpretation of inherent theology in the stories, and I have some difficulty in accepting as orthodox the one he had in view.

So, there is - somewhat ambiguously, perhaps - a theological system presupposed in Narnia Chronicles. This does not mean the stories are there only to reflect it.

So, Calvary and Empty Tomb are shown at the Stone Table - but the four thrones and the children who had grown up as adult kings and queens returning as children and doing so at the chase of a stag, what does that refer to in terms of theology? Nothing. The reason why Narnia stories are NOT allegories is precisely this, there is SO much which cannot be explained in them by the real or supposed theological meaning. Or, if it is a beaver who is telling the four children of their tasks - what has a talking beaver to do with the Theology of Christian Easter?

These things are there for the story and not for a theological meaning.

Can the same kind of analogy to truth be detected in the Indiana Jones films? Let me give it a try.

I will spare you the details of his try. But the kind of spiritual progress traced in a story in a somewhat allegorical way he has in mind works a thousand times better for The Tower of Geburah than for Indiana Jones. The chapter "wishes don't wash" means that regretting your sins doesn't clean you, as long as you don't turn to "Gaal", which VERY transparably is Christ, as seen by Evangelicals.

Not meaning the idea he gives about Indiana Jones cannot have been a kind of inspirational backbone shared between writers - who would surely have talked to each other - but they only give a kind of "character arc" for Dr. Jones, they have nothing to do with the "story arc" of the stories, apart from that.

With such obtuseness about matters of literature, I am not quite surprised he can be unduly impressed by people claiming Genesis 1 to 11 have a kind of literary genre which is incompatible with story being meant to be taken as literally true.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Octave of Holy Innocents
4-I-2016

I nearly forgot to link to his work:

The Imaginative Conservative : The Theological Theory of Indiana Jones
by Dwight Longenecker, Published: Jan 3, 2016
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/01/the-theological-theory-of-indiana-jones.html

Can a Christian Author be indebted to an Anti-Christian one?

1) Can a Christian Author be indebted to an Anti-Christian one? , 2) What does Subcreator Mean?, 3) Was God's Motive Ethic or Aesthetic When Creating?

In below, I thought the marks of affection in Ausonius' letters to St. Paulinus were of a homosexual motivation, but Ausonius was in fact his grandfather. Sorry, my bad, did cross out the mistake. For "Ausonius, who was not just Pagan, but even homosexual." read instead "Ausonius, who was Pagan."

It is possible that José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in some way indebted to Marx. Once he called him "a talented Jew, who saw the problem with Capitalism, but not the solution to Capitalism."

St Paulinus of Nola was mentored by Ausonius, who was not just Pagan, but even homosexual.

And, of course, C. S. Lewis had some debts in literary and mental make up to Anti-Christians.

Edith Nesbit was both Fabian Society and, possibly (on a list of known or alleged members!) Golden Dawn. This did of course not bother C. S. Lewis in his childhood, he was just happy to read her books.

James George Frazer in The Golden Bough was in a Darwinian fashion tracing the thought of mankind in the stages magic, religion and science, much as the Positivist Comte traced it in mythology, metaphysics and positive science. Obviously he was Anti-Christian. And as obviously C. S. Lewis enjoyed him while he was an Atheist.

William Morris, who was a great author of fantasy and a great exponent of Medievalism was also a revolutionary socialist. Hardly a strict if at all Christian. He was enjoyed by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

So, if C. S. Lewis was reading these before becoming a Christian, was it his duty to renounce them at conversion? In all of their works, in all of their thoughts, in all of their novels and nostalgia for Middle Ages as well as for Paganism?

No.

Morris is not on the Index. Nesbit is not on the Index. Even Frazer is not on the index. If it had been either C. S. Lewis' duty when converting to Christianity or Tolkien's when taking his Catholicism seriously, to renounce these authors, the Church should have said so.

Is there a reason why these are not on the index?

Let's start with Frazer. The details of paganism are the main content of his work. His ideology - which is indeed antichristian - is absent from its pages, meant to be gathered between the lines, perhaps alluded to in a foreword, but it does not determine any content to be included which is factually erroneous. And facts about Paganism are not Anti-Christian errors. Even if presented by one Anti-Christian.

Then Morris may have hated Capitalism in a somewhat wrong way, if he thought Marxist Socialism a solution. But it is a wrong thing and Medieval Guilds were partly there to prevent it. As for the rest, the Middle Ages, which he did not quite admire in all respects in the right way, were admireable, since they were the product of Christianity. Which Chesterton (notably in Return of Don Quijote) and Tolkien fully appreciated, even if Morris did not. However, he did realise the falling away from them, Industrial Capitalism, was a product of esp. Calvinist Protestantism, which he duly found unattractive.

Of course, if he once said "love is enough", he was, if speaking of human loves, wrong. He needed to be contradicted. He was - by his admirer C. S. Lewis. The intro to his The Four Loves, or the post script, whichever, says the novel so entitled (actually the title was somewhat longer: Love is Enough, or The Freeing of Pharamond: A Morality, 1872) got its briefest review in the few words "it isn't" - and the book by CSL agreed largely with that assessment. Only adding that preventing human loves is not the recipe for curing their mistakes.

Note, this book (by CSL, I haven't read the one by Morris) is not limiting the mistakes to those of Eros, his third love. There is a kind of paternal or parental possessiveness which is about Affection, his first love. There are kinds of intellectual pride, which are about Friendship, his second love. And Eros can be hallowed in marriage, while the other two loves here mentioned are not usually so.

And Nesbit ... like Morris, also Nesbit wrote for the large public. They adapted to its tastes, which were very much more Christian than when Rowling wrote Harry Potter. Also, like Morris, Nesbit did have sensible things to say, about cooperation among siblings or about preference for less competitive and more wellproductive but not overproductive economies, like pre-Industrial Revolution.

Nevertheless, some errors were expressed but on the other hand their readers C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien actively strove to take the good and avoid or correct the bad from Nesbit (CSL) or Morris (CSL & JRRT). If one has read an author with delight who does express some bad things, either avoiding the author or this method of sifting and correcting are the correct ones, when you realise this fact.

And this was, by temperament, the path they chose, but also because the authors in question were not so heavily and overtly anti-Christian in their writings as to have merited for instance inclusion on the index of forbidden books. Which is a thing Tolkien would have known and a thing which was sufficiently apparent from the texts for C. S. Lewis to sense it even if he did not know this fact about the Index.

So, yes, despite being indebted to Anti-Christian authors, they are themselves Christian authors. Not flawless, but not so bad as to merit the comparison I have heard over the web or orally here, namely with the Apocrypha on which St Jerome had a few things to say in the previously quoted letter:

Let her avoid all apocryphal writings, and if she is led to read such not by the truth of the doctrines which they contain but out of respect for the miracles contained in them; let her understand that they are not really written by those to whom they are ascribed, that many faulty elements have been introduced into them, and that it requires infinite discretion to look for gold in the midst of dirt.

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien saw to it that their readers did not have to use infinite discretion, simply by using what discretion they had themselves. This was especially so in Tolkien, who was a Catholic.

This is why I think a Christian need not blush to read them.

As for the charge that they were secretly Illuminati, I think it is totally erroneous. It was made by John Todd while CSL had already been dead and JRRT was close to death, therefore neither had an opportunity to respond. Also, it may be informative if one author is very erroneous anyway - like Marx and Engels are - to know he was secretly of such and such an occultist obedience or even a diabolist (see further Wurmbrandt's study Was Karl Marx a Satanist? which he concludes in the affirmative), but supposing someone were so does not prove his writings to be erroneous.*

Other charges have come by supposing it was CSL's fault if Narnia Chronicles are required reading for Wiccans (in fact, CSL is very anti-witchcraft), or by playing on double meanings of the word "magic" where CSL and JRRT use the word loosely, as in any supernatural facts or acts, whereas critics use it about the mortal sin by which human beings seek to procure such powers by an implicit or explicit contract with demons. This thing was of course not anything these authors recommended, indeed a thing they warned very heavily against (confer Angmar's obtaining certain powers by a ring given by Sauron - essentially Abaddon - to mortals, and the horrible effect this has on his being and will, when it comes to Tolkien).

So, whether the authors CSL and JRRT were indebted to were anti-Christian or merely un-Christian, in the cases here mentioned and very well known, they were themselves Christians.

As to Yeats, CSL confesses his earlier infatuation with him as a sin and a weakness, and his writing of certain warnings can be seen as a kind of penance for it.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Ursula and 11 thousand Virgins
21-X-2015

* Writers are not politicians. If one such is a quockerwodger (explanation, see this link: here, English Historical Fiction Authors : Old Words – London Street Slang from the 1600s to the 1800s, don't vote for him, or he'll betray you. These writers are already dead and can no longer give the general readership any bad surprise. Perhaps it is not surprising that the charge should be made in France where, as Fr. Bryan Houghton said, everything turns on politics. French, even if Catholics, apply the categories of politics to things like ... well, authors.

avec attention & sans prévention

et je reconnois, que ceux qui liront cet Ouvrage avec attention & sans prévention

Il semble que le bon Dom Augustin Calmet ait eu affaire des gens qui étaient "prévenus" sur tel ou tel interprétation de son œuvre précédant et qui par là se disaient "eh oui" dans des endroits où l'auteur n'était pas d'accord avec eux.

Notamment, ils avaient crû qu'il avait, comme c'était la mode, voulu tourner en ridicule les sentiments à l'époque encore populaires sur les sujets des apparitions.

Je ne crois pas que Dom Augustin Calmet soit le dernier écrivain à devoir se plaindre du fait que tel ou tel lecteur soit prévenu - informé en avance sur ce qu'il devait (devoit auroit écrit l'auteur ...) trouver. Comme un protestant peu instruit est prévenu par ses pasteurs sur ce qu'il doit trouver en implications anticatholiques dans l'épître aux Romains, bien avant d'ouvrir le livre sacré.

Mais St Paul, c'est quand même un auteur avant les jours de Dom Augustin Calmet, je ne disais pas qu'il n'était pas le premier, quoique c'est vrai aussi, je disais qu'il n'était pas le dernier de souffrir de ce genre de mauvaises lectures. Qui peut-on citer après Dom Augustin Calmet? Je ne suis probablement qu'un exemple parmi tellement d'autres, mais je suis un exemple que je connais.

On vient de me taxer l'autre jour d'apostat, et ça de la part d'un catholique, bien que je suis catholique.

Je ne crois pas possible de lire vraiment mes blogs et d'arriver à cette conclusion, pour quiconque me lit "avec attention & sans prévention". Et je ne voudrait pas croire que le seul sujet de notre conversation, mon refus de taxer le Seigneur des Anneaux comme de l'occultisme aurait pu donner occasion de ce reproche : on ne croit pas tout ce qu'on aime lire, et il ne s'agissait pas de défendre la pratique des neufs hommes ayant pris des anneaux de Sauron* - du tout. Il s'agissait de souligner que Tolkien lui-même n'approuvait pas ce fait. Un auteur n'approuve pas tous les faits de tous ses personnages.

Quant à Tolkien, ceux qui liront son œuvre avec attention & sans prévention ne pourront pas conclure qu'il approuve le genre de pratiques que l'église a condamné et qui est une des significations du vocable "magie". Quant à moi, ce qui me liront avec attention & sans prévention ne pourront ni arriver à la conclusion que je prend son histoire comme véritable, ni que j'aurais plus que lui-même approuvé la magie dans le sens interdit. Ni que je "crois mes fantasmes" ou encore pire que je le fasse au dépens des vérités de la foi chrétienne. Ni que je veule en quelque façon tourner en ridicule la vérité chrétienne.

Par contre, quant à ceux qui trouveront mes dires ridicules malgré mes intentions, j'ai un bon exemple en Dom Augustin Calmet quant à l'attitude détaché que je dois maintenir vis-à-vis ces "esprits forts".

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre/Paris X
St Ignace de Loyole
31-VII-2015

* Qui représente à peu près Abaddon ou peut-être Belzébut, un démon juste inférieur à Satan (Morgoth, chez Tolkien) lui-même.