Three are the things, I thought of in Tolkien lore

Well, actually lots more than three things as per my entire life, but these three lately, from my rereading of LotR.

1) Apparent double plot hole - but just apparent.

Let's take four scenes, which do not quite seem to add up, at a certain glance:

a) In Lothlorien, when leaving, the company are given cloaks, with the fairly obvious impression it is one per person, not more.
b) When Sam and Frodo leave, one of them says to destroy the boats, and the other says to leave one for themselves.
c) When Boromir is "buried", both cloaks are used to make him a bier and a boat (not leaking) to get him downstreams the river, hoping his corpse makes it to Gondor.
d) When the three runners, an elf and a dwarf and a man, make a certain pause, their elven cloaks are mentioned.

Now, this is the kind of thing that an editor would spot as plot holes and badger Tolkien to change, if they were of the modern kind that Jenna Moreci loves. And they would certainly not have allowed him plurals like "elves" and "dwarves" or an adjective like "elven" or a sentence like "helms too they chose" ... and as back then conlanging was not a thing, they might have cut down text blocks in Quenya or Sindarin very drastically. But back to the plot hole. One on which the editors would have concluded "why the epic burial scene - that's where the contradictions cluster!"

The most glaring part is the boats, and I can frankly find no better explanation than Frodo or Sam saying they were going to make holes and yet not doing that, and Tolkien forgetting to mention they changed their mind or forgot in the hurry.

Leaves the cloaks. I had thought of the fact, all of the company already had other cloaks before arriving in Lorien, so, they used the other cloaks for Boromir's burial. But the more obvious solution is, they didn't leave the cloaks with Boromir in the boat, except his own, they took them off the bier once the burial was done, and back onto their backs.

One use of Tolkien fandom is obviously a training ground for apologetics in the face of supposed Bible contradictions.

2) Between Middle-Earth and Narnia ...

I once made a list of 40 parallels between Tolkien and CSL, specifically Narnia. It included Etten Moors and Ettinsmoor, it included giants throwing stones for fun, and the travelleRRRs being a lot safer if they had been aiming at them, and quite a lot more.

Here are two. That the Wood between the Worlds owes something to Lothlorien, is pretty obvious - it may even have been on my list of fourty, one which I have long since lost.

But consider what would have happened to Galadriel if she had taken the ring - I'm sure I missed this one : it's Jadis. Galadriel even is kind of a giant, compared to Aragorn and Boromir ... Jadis is specified as being 7 foot tall (English feet). And Jadis is, three times over, "Galadriel, but having taken the ring" ... the last and most obvious time being when she stole an apple of immortality, but before that, in the world of Charn, she was so at least twice over, both when acquiring a secret and when using it - the secret of the Deplorable Word.

3) What is Tom Bombadil again ...?

Precisely as the (sometimes dreaded) Susan-fiction is the big fanfic in Narnia related fanfics, so what Tom Bombadil is, is arguably the great fan debate.

Now, let's start with a clue outside the lore of Middleearth, but close to Tolkien. Some guys have figured, The Green Knight was what was considered by anthropologists of religion a genius loci or some such stuff, and that Tom Bombadil was the same type of not quite defined in Christian theology supernatural. I am not denying that. Or the inlore idea he (like Ungoliant) could be parts of the music taking bodily shape (he for music of good ainur, Ungoliant for Melkor's discords) ... but there is another point.

The shapeshifter Beorn was very close to a genius loci too. See his relation to the Carrock.

And there are more parallels. There are hospitalities that are so simply earthy they are mundane. Bilbo's to the dwarves, Merry's and Fatty's to the three from Hobbiton, Farmer Maggott's and Butterbur's to the hobbits ... then there are those that are, if not elven, at least elfin, though in an earthy manner, in as much contrast with Rivendell or Lorien as Farmer Maggott to that of King Theoden. And there are two of these, Beorn and Tom Bombadil. I am now going to suggest, that as much as the bear was Beorn's "totem" so Tom Bombadil had another animal, whether or not he was shapeshifter or even mortal (Beorn had died before the main action of LotR, Tom Bombadil seems immortal).

There is an animal that can have its fur described by sometimes "yellow boots" and sometimes "blue coat" ... it doesn't wear hats, but on the head something can tickle like a feather. And the soles of what it has instead of feet certainly feel like leather.

It has different sounds, but one of them is a somewhat earthy, not at all aetheric, "song" which can send listeners to sleep.

It can bring the loved ones gifts that are decidedly not to normal human tastes. Confer how Tom Bombadil brings waterlilies - that means nenuphars, a flower bigger than most, but a small part of a plant, most of which is wet and muddy if you take it from one pond to another alive - the big leaves that lie on the water are wet on the lower side and the root of each is a yard long or more, reaching down to the muddy bottom of a pond.

The animal is decidedly "master" - if it jumps, it's not likely to land stumbling. But also prefers a territory with fixed limits and even witdrawing into limits even more fixed. Also known for great agility, like Tom and Goldberry show when serving. It is also known for being more casual than faithfully attached - it's perhaps from fidelity to Goldberry that he refrains from shapeshifting.

It is good at surviving getting wet but doesn't opt for the experience, and that is very harmonious with what Adventures of Tom Bombadil tells us, and at least two of the three animals he teases there are animals that this animal would also tease.

And Tom Bombadil is decidedly the happiest couple with Goldberry, even the happiest as an individual - as well as longlived - take an animal with a folklore reputation for longevity (veterinarians need not agree) and where in one language, its name is nearly homophonous with happy ...

On top of that, a poem about the animal says each individual has three names - a practical name (I think Tom is mentioned) and a bombastic name (Bombadil is not mentioned, but clearly fits styles like Quaxo), and a secret name (we don't get Tom Bombadil's secret name, because it is secret).

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Claire of Assisi
12.VIII.2022

PS - I had forgotten a third earthy-elfin hospitality that was not elven in Tolkien's sense : how Merry and Pippin are received by Treebeard and Quickbeam in Fangorn. So, Beorn to bears, Treebeard to trees, Tom Bombadil to x - or else x just was an inspiration for his character ...

Do We Need Other Editors?

I on and off listen to Jenna Moreci, and the last video I heard, she displayed some lack of culture on part of the editors she knows.

Let's take a less big deal first, just to warm us up. She denies that an author can honestly and competently arrive at his book being more than one genre. She claims those who think so are taking everything rather than the basic plotline into account.

However, cross-over genres exist. Fantasy, for instance, is a recent cross-over between modern novel and romance / epic. Especially in the stages where supernatural elements were added for fun, rather than because they were believed to be historical (in this sense, closer to certain Arthuriana than to Homer, for instance).

If you decided to make a novel sized and novel style managed version of Camaralzaman, would you define it as fantasy, because the love interest is a Jinn, or as a love story, because what he does with the Jinn is fall in love with her? I'd go for both. Similar observations can be made about the European stories where the bride is not completely human ...

But, to the main point, and I am doing a detour, by 9th City District of Vienna, Alsergrund. There is a certain stair that is called Strudlhofstiege there. It is a monumental stair. Now, imagine a very modern architect, imagine he was building some time in the 70's (a fairly low ebb for architectonic beauty), but he was building a stair on a fairly broad hillside. He replicated the general form of Strudlhofstiege, but exchanged every detail that was harmonious for something more of a broken harmony, and on top of that painted the whole shebang in rainbow colours. Could he claim to have completed a piece of monumental architecture? Yes. It has nothing to do with whether he succeeded in making it beautiful or even deliberately tried to make it ugly. It is not a totally utilitarian stair, but one with bigger and more symmetric arrangements than a stair actually needs to allow people to get up and down. Hence, it is a monumental stair, he is a monumental architect. However ugly he managed to deprave this genre of architecture in this case.

Some may guess where this is going.

Jenna Moreci (it's not just a private person, it's a published author, THE SAVIOR'S CHAMPION, THE SAVIOR'S SISTER, soon upcoming, THE SAVIOR'S ARMY) took an example (again, not a private conversation, but a public video on advice on how to become a published author, or in this case more how not to spoil your chances), and this example was a man who considered his works as being similar to Homer and Beowulf. She found two faults. A, claiming to be an "epic" writer is self praise, so totally arrogant, B, if the claim is anywhere near true, the genre is dead.

I'll deal with both, and first A.

What does it take for a narrative poem to be in the ballpark of Homer and Beowulf?

• 1) It should be written in self-similar, variedly repeating, verses, of a sufficient number - the Odyssey is over 12 000 hexameters long and Beowulf is, while much shorter, at least 1/4 of that, but counted in Anglo-Saxon verse (3182 long verses*) - each versification, like the Sloka and the Catafractic verse, being capable of lots of variation, while still being recognisable, as you are doing a specific thing to the speech rhythm;
• 2) It should describe recurring characters and situations in recurring formulas (the genre was originally meant for oral recitation, and while bis repitita placent, they also stick into memory better);
• 3) It should, whether the ending be happy or horrible for the character of sympathy, deal with people high up like royalty and with serious situations, like such occurring at war, at voyages among dangers, possibly monsters, and with murderous intrigues, and it should kill off someone horribly, at least a baddy);
• 4) It should have a unity of action that allows for a diversity of episodes, contrasting with the main action (if it just features the main action, it's an epyllion);
• 5) It should avoid psychoanalysis, except perhaps at a level that can be easily comprehended in terms of supernatural influences (the setting should also be pre-modern or at least an archaic setting within the modern world).

If all these requirements are met, yes, it can very arguably be an epic. It can very arguably be close to Homer, close to Virgil or close to Beowulf.

And it can still be bad. There are several reasons why a project to make an epic could fail:

• 1) author is more steeped in another genre than the epic (note, Tolkien and CSL never actually tried writing full length epics, they preferred the fantasy novel, which is another genre, perhaps because they were aware of ultimately owing more to George McDonald and to William Morris than to Homer and the anonymous Beowulf poet) and it shows too much;
• 2) author takes a theme that doesn't really fit epic poetry, like a too recent war still arousing partisan passions;
• 3) author takes a theme that is at least at a tension with epic poetry and prefers doing justice to the theme over doing so to the genre;
• 4) author has no sense of rhythm, and only counts syllables, not even noting where the mid-line pause should be;
• 5) author starts off well, and from the first parts of the story, by the time he reaches the end he is in a time pinch and rushing the narrative into bare outlines.

Or the setting could be a specific historic one which he hasn't at all mastered, like he is giving Vikings helmets with horns on them - and everyone who knows Viking helmets will bite their tongue over reciting a passage where he considers a Viking has a horned helmet.

Or he is trying to do away with history as a basis - that's more Romance than Epic.

Or he's too goodnatured to do the obligatory dastard really well. Yes, both Homeric epics, the one by Virgil, and Beowulf feature some major dastards, and Mahabharata and Ramayana are no exception.

So, claiming it is "like Homer and Beowulf" doesn't mean claiming it is good as they are good, it is just the description of the genre. Precisely as the modern architect who mistreated the Strudlhofstiege as a model for sth very non-baroque, has the right to call it monumental architecture, without that being self praise.

The other claim was, it is a dead genre. Verse drama, verse romance (usually rhymed and with shorter lines than the epic) and verse epic are indeed what one could call "non-current" forms. Verse drama was recently revived in French, by an author loving Catafractic verses, and dealing with the Second Siege of Vienna. I'm not sure whether it has or ever will be performed. But it is there in print.

Now, just because a form is non-current, one cannot conclude it is dead. If a form was current two years ago, and suffered 4 flops and no success since then, yes, in that case the form may be for the moment not just non-current, but dead as a doornail. An inept author or two or three just beat it to death. But for non-current forms to be revived is rather a kind of staple in the history of literature, drama, music and related, even architecture and sculpture. Heard of the Renaissance?

So, there are some culturally challenged people that Jenna Moreci is adressing as editors. I'm not saying her editors need to go, just, we need other ones. Fortunately, in a free society, becoming an editor does not require a specific licence from the ministry of culture, it requires the licence from your town to open an enterprise.

If you are interested, you can be the next editor tomorrow ... and if you don't know whom you would edit, try asking Jenna about the guy who described the genre of his work as close to Homer and to Beowulf.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St. Clare of Assisi
11.VIII.2022

* It can be noted, Tolkien actually didn't quite class Beowulf as an epic, but more like an elegy - a poem of grief or mourning. The shortness may have contributed.

If "The First Resurrection" is spiritual and from AD 33, is all of Apocalypse 20 true?

War of 14 a Rehearsal for Harmageddon? · Do Macron and Merkel Know the History of World War I? · If "The First Resurrection" is spiritual and from AD 33, is all of Apocalypse 20 true?

And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.

Until He assumed His human nature, any appearance of Him, as when He had a boxing match with Jacob, and finished calling him Israel because he had "fought with God" - the key we are told is in Christ's hand and I do not know what the chain is.

And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

Before Calvary, the dragon could offer Him all kingdoms, before Assumption, He could say He had all power in Heaven and on Earth.

The Earth's rightful spiritual king has already ended the power of Satan to usurp the earthly kingdom. However, this is not quite still the case the last 3 and 1/2 before He returns.

And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.

Romans didn't get worse in religion after AD 33, Jews didn't end up worse than the Pharisee generation Jesus had to oppose, and one nation after another, first a few thousand Jews making the Church grow from a club to a nation, then Romans in 313, Armenians a bit earlier, and a chain reaction of nation conversions after that means Satan had much less power than after Babel, when he introduced idolatry.

And I saw seats; and they sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

The endtimes beast and its image could be morally identical to lots of other seductions of powers, by which evil rulers before the Antichrist will have tried to give Satan back some of the power he lost.

Also, we could be talking of some OT saints who had been martyred before Satan was bound, like when he made some powerful Jews too certain Isaiah was a false prophet - or too certain they could bear a true prophet even less. Back then, Satan had "full powers" and equal or greater to when he gets loosed "at the end of the thousand years"

But if this is "a stretch", (meaning too much of one) the alternative is, the Millennium is upcoming, the ones on the thrones are bodily resurrected.

The rest of the dead lived not, till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

1) The rest of those who died didn't really live, didn't enjoy reigning in Heaven, before the thousand years were over - the martyrs could include all saints, and the hesitation to accept non-martyr saints was very probably reasoned from this one - the rest endure rather than enjoy, even if they are not damned, namely in Purgatory;
2) the martyrs could in fact include all saints and all faithful departed - except the part that stay in Purgatory up to the general resurrection, and then go to Heaven, after the thousand years. Not only do non-martyr saints, but also uncanoniseable ones that spend a few days in Purgatory share the essential dignity of the martyrs, and therefore when the non-canonisables leave Purgatory they are added to this number - the rest of the dead refer then to very sad cases who will "remain in Purgatory to the end of time" (one of them c. 105 + years ago, from the Fatima region, forget which of the seer children asked Our Lady, and also the damned, who will not really be living even after their bodies are permanently raised;
3) or, again, if this is too much of a stretch, the Millennium could be upcoming.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. In these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ; and shall reign with him a thousand years.

This verse was totally the go to point for St. Augustine arguing we are in the Millennium, not waiting for it.

First death bodily, second death (a few seconds later? or however long it takes before God judges!) damnation.

Obviously as long as a man is in a state of grace, he is not going to be damned, and if he dies in a state of grace, he cannot get damned.

Reigning with Christ, like souls of martyrs under the altar of heaven, are doing now.

And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

Some might argue the process of seduction here described began in AD 1033 when Normans and Byzantines quarrelled over Sicily, Byzantines believing they could hire people to do hard, bloody things that take a lot of getting used to before you do them well and that not leaving them unscathed, and yet not pay them, because they had enjoyed the honour of fighting for the Basileus and for Christendom. If so, the process of the loosing of Satan is slow, and still ongoing, and I am seeing both results of it and efforts to make it worse.

Gog and Magog at the four corners of dry land (Eretz in Hebrew is called the same as Eretz meaning earth - when you are welling to make statements like "the earth floats on the waters" you are telling us how dry land looks from the sea and limiting "earth" to just dry land and considering big seas as "outer space" ... a comprehensible terminology, if not the common one), very definitely was not yet in 1033. In our times there are some ethnic entities that can be described as existing in (beginning from North East corner, clockwise for them that look at the map) 1) Kamchatka, 2) Singapore-Sydney or Hobart, 3) Cape Horn or the more inhabited nearby lands in the South tip of Chile and Argentina, 4) and facing 1: Alaska. These groups are: 1) Whites, 2) Indo-Europeans, Yamnaya heritage, 3) Russians, 4) Anglo-Saxons or Germanics, 5) Ashkenazi Jews.

It is certain from another passage Jews will be at the four corners, namely where conversions are coming from, Apocalypse 7. Will converted Jews be Israelites and unconverted Christianity haters Magog? Or will they just be neighbours of and misunderstood or overpampered abetters or pseudo-abetters for some other nation doing the persecution inwards from the corners?

Unconverted Jews are besieging Christians and Muslims in East Jerusalem.

This verse is a fairly overwhelming argument that yes, the Millennium began in 33, because we see signs of its end!

The 3 and a 1/2 years could well be what Magog seduction is the general preparation of.

So, this verse is definitely compatible with us being not waiting for Millennium, but for general resurrection and judgement.

And they came upon the breadth of the earth,

The ethnicities described are not just present at Kamchatka, Hobart, Cape Horn and Alaska, but many other parts of the inhabited lands as well. A place where all are lacking could be termed wilderness. This process has gone on - if St. Augustine read well - since Columbus. Part of its meaning was of course Apocalypse 7 (understanding original inhabitants of Alaska as spiritual Israelites, once converted), but part of its outcome is what follows:

and encompassed the camp of the saints,

Don't you say so, Calvin! And Gustav Wasa, some Swedish Catholics have felt very encompassed since you! Guess St. Thomas More felt very uncomfortable a few weeks in the vicinity of Henry VIII.

And Voltaire, what atrocities have they not committed in your name!

Darwin, some clear non-Magogians felt both encompassed and naked since you changed the view one had on them.

Marx, falsifier of social justice, Brecht, falsifier of King Solomon's judgement ... some of your readers are clearly encompassing ... for instance Catholics.

and the beloved city.

Well, yes, East Jerusalem has had this feeling since ... 1947, 48? Perhaps 67?

And there came down fire from God out of heaven, and devoured them; and the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast And the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Not happened yet, but since close to previous chapter content, again a point for St. Augustine. SHALL BE. If this came 1000 years after these two were cast there, it might have been "were already" for "shall" - but for those disagreeing with St. Augustine, it could be a clumsy Greek translation of the Hebrew "imperfect" which is "past continuous, present continuous, future continuous" in main clauses and in subsidiare ones takes on added nuances of "contemporary action, subsequent action" and the meaning would have been that Hell wasn't over yet for those two guys.

And I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them; and they were judged every one according to their works. And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the pool of fire.

All of this is equally true whether the "end of the thousand years" comes at or 1000 years after the "end of the 1260 days" - whether the general judgement coincides with the second coming (St. Augustine) or arrives 1000 years later. But it is also a truth to ponder - not just to use as probe between Augustine and Justin.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Transfiguration of Christ
6.VIII.2022

Jasenovac - or what is wrong with "Fascism"

Wrangel - or What's Right With Fascism · Jasenovac - or what is wrong with "Fascism" · More than One Brand of Fascism

To many in the West, the word Fascism refers to a movement rejecting both Marxist revolutions and Capitalistic laissez-faire with exploitation, and usually excluding Social Demcracy which can also be so described, but which has some Marxist roots and therefore also agendas, like Feminism.

In this sense, I am a Fascist, and, as said, count Wrangel as one of the earliest.

However, in Eastern Europe, the word is used in another way. It basically means in former Communist countries "Hitler and his allies" and the focus is on walking over extant frontiers during World War II and also human rights violations.

I think, the word used this way should be replaced by the phrase "Hitler and his allies" - but I am not holding my breath for Serbs to replace Ustasha as "allies of Hitler" (or directly Ustasha) rather than simply as "Fascists" or for Poles to concede that Pilsudski's later years were a fairly typical Fascism (the way I and some in the West use the word) when they have so many neighbours using the word in a very different way.

In World War II, Francisco Franco was not an ally of Hitler. He was not an ally of the Ustasha. But usually he is termed Fascist dictator. And Dollfuss was killed, Schuschnigg was made captive on Hitler's orders or with his approval. Yet, they are called Austrofascists.

I think three of the Fascisms actually went bad, all three allied in World War II : Hitler's, Mussolini's and the Ustasha. I obviously appreciate that Tudjman preferred Franco over the Ustasha. Hitler's NSDAP went bad basically when it started, it was as obsessed with race as New England secularised Puritans (Lovecraft is a good story-teller, according to some, but would not make a good politician). Mussolini went from good to bad about when he changed preferences for Austrofascism into preferences for Hitler - which was after a fairly good first 15 years or so. And Ustasha went bad pretty quickly after getting to power - the Independent state was founded in 1941 6th of April and Jasenovac opened in August same year. So, of the three which went bad, only the Italian one had been good before.

When it comes to Pétain, I am not sure he ever wanted simply to save Jews, but he actually did so, because he did want the Free Zone to be, well, free ... and then in 1942, he was forced to start the Laval government, which was bad. What do you expect of someone a puppet régime of Hitler, once he starts shortening the strings? In my teens and twenties, I put Mussolini here too, I thought he only went bad with the Salò Republic (when he was a puppet régime), but, unfortunately, letting Schuschnigg down in 1938 and issuing the Carta della Razza in 1937, perhaps endorsing the use of gas against Ethiopian civilians even earlier, no, not quite good in the end on his own either. But he had been better before - giving the Church back some of its rights, ending the Communist revolutionary moves of Biennio Rosso, forcing factory owners to pay properly and not to overwork workers ... he started out at the very least OK.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Olaf's day
29.VII.2022

Wrangel - or What's Right With Fascism

Wrangel - or What's Right With Fascism · Jasenovac - or what is wrong with "Fascism" · More than One Brand of Fascism

Mussolini and his blackshirts may have named the movement, but the real founders were Denykin and Wrangel, of whom I obviously like the latter better:

Always with Honor - Pyotr Wrangel and the Last Chance to Save Russia from Communism | Polandball
1st July 2022 | CallMeEzekiel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJx8xXkvwVk

Ian N. Mills (Duke University) Wrote on Pagan Readers of Christian Literature

Fascinating reading. Did you know scholars had fairly long followed a stray remark by Tertullian (counterposed by one other remark of his) to prove Pagans didn't read the Bible?

A few other scholars had started to answer that actually NT books have quite a few apologetic features (which would be useless if authors - Ian Mills may be thinking of successive co-authors, I'd disagree, but such also would have written before Constantine, ex hypothesi, and still have to be counting on being read by non-Christians). Ian Mills adds the testimony of six men - among whom Sts Clement the Stromatist and Justin stick out to me, and then also Tatian in connection with a recent dialogue - who converted after reading. It's not until page 16/27 on the pdf that I find something I find a need to disagree with:

"There is no doubt that all the autobiographic narratives so far recounted reflect an unrealistically intellectualized account of Christian conversion."

Why?

If the point is, not all conversions are primarily intellectual adventures, I'd agree. But that's not to the point. The six people who did convert in this manner would be a drop in the sea against lots who converted for other reasons, perhaps. But the character of the study Ian Mills undertook, namely finding ex-pagans who became Christians on reading, would concentrate precisely this part of the conversions overall to his study. Girls who found Jesus on the Cross more romantic than a fat man of fifty selected by her father who needs the money and thinks he can push her because he's pagan, and suddenly finds out that as Christian 12 year old Barbara or Lucy disagrees would for instance clearly be outside this study. People plagued by a dissonance between a longing for purity and an ability to extract themselves from a non-wife lover's arms until hearing a bishop tell stories of saints, and having come to study under that bishop only for his rhetoric skills, equally. A friendly man to the poor who was chasing and saw a Cross and a Crucified between two antlers of a deer is also not quite the object of ...

Pagan Readers of Christian Scripture: The Role of Books in Early Autobiographical Conversion Narratives
Ian N Mills
https://www.academia.edu/40840640/Pagan_Readers_of_Christian_Scripture_The_Role_of_Books_in_Early_Autobiographical_Conversion_Narratives

... which is what I am now reading.

Some more examples who did read Bible parts before converting and did write autobiographies might be there, but they mainly converted for some other reason, and so left it out. The exact autobiography type which is the most likely to contain a prolonged (and therefore unambiguous) reference to reading Bible parts prior to converting, is that of a man converting for that kind of reason. It's the autobiography of the "intellectual convert" - of which I am at least around half of the importance, or probably even more, one.

So, up to page 16 out of 27, I have no objection to his study. Only on, this one I dealt with, is the first.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Elias of Mount Carmel
20.VII.2022

Did Catholic Authorities Oppose the Lightning Rod?

Screws from Late Middle Ages · Did Catholic Authorities Oppose the Lightning Rod?

It is easy to find general, sweeping statements, that Benjamin Franklin's lightning rod was opposed by religious authorities of some kind.

Here is one with some specifics:

ESD Journal : Franklin's Unholy Lightning Rod
Written by Al Seckel and John Edwards, 1984 / included November 25, 2002
http://www.esdjournal.com/articles/franklin/franklinrod.htm

I quote:

In America, Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor of Old South Church, blamed Franklin's invention of the lightning rod for causing the Massachusetts earthquake of 1755.

Who is this Thomas Prince?

Town Name - It is safe to say that the residents of Princeton have not been familiar with the character, social standing and even greatness of the Rev. Thomas Prince whose name the town bears, and who was in many respects a remarkable man.

Princeton Historical Society : Reverend Thomas Prince
https://sites.google.com/a/princetonmahistory.org/phs/people-groups/early-history/reverend-thomas-prince

If you scroll down a bit, you will find a statement matching that on the ESD Journal.

And, since the statement on Rev. Thomas Prince in either article omitted his precise religious affiliation, Anglican, Calvinist or other, the wikipedia page assigns him to the First Great Awakening and makes him an associate of George Whitefield.

And it seems Old South was a Presbyterian Church (not an Anglican or Episcopalian one).

Back to first link. It seems the writers Al Seckel and John Edwards at least tried to imply local opposition to lightning rods on the part of Catholic clergy.

In Austria, the Church of Rosenburg was struck so frequently and with such loss of life that the peasants feared to attend services. Several times the spire had to be rebuilt. It was not until 1778, 26 years after Franklin's discovery, that church authorities finally permitted a rod to be attached. Then all trouble ceased.

A typical case was the tower of St. Mark's in Venice. In spite of the angel at its summit, the bells consecrated to ward off devils and witches in the air, the holy relics in the church below, and the Processions in the adjacent square, the tower was frequently damaged or destroyed by lightning. It was not until 1766 that a lightning rod was placed upon it-and the tower has never been struck since.

Had the ecclesiastics of the Church of San Nazaro in Brecia given in to repeated urgings to install a lightning rod, they might have averted a terrible catastrophe. The Republic of Venice had stored in the vaults of this church several thousand pounds of gunpowder. In 1767, 17 years after Franklin's discovery, no rod having been placed on the church, it was struck by lightning and the gunpowder exploded. One-sixth of the city was destroyed and over 3,000 lives were lost because the priests refused to install the "heretical rod."

I have however not seen any Catholic clergyman given by name and text as opposing the lightning rod. Also, both for Rosenburg and St. Mark's there is no clear indication that the lightning rod was known prior to instalment.

And I have seen one counterexample:

Carl Gustaf Tessin var svensk minister i Wien i två omgångar; 1725 och 1735-36. I dennes dagbok står att läsa ”i Sankt Steffens (Stefansdomen) torn i Wien går från öfversta spetsen utföre genom kyrkohvalfvet och ner i jorden en tjock ståltråd, ditsatt för flere hundrade år sedan i afsigt att ditleda blixtstrålen, som ock oftast sker, då han löper längs tråden.”[2]

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Åskledare

This means: Carl Gustaf (Charles Gustavus) Tessin was Swedish minister to Vienna twice over; 1725 and 1735-36. In his diary one can read "in Seint Steffen's tower in Vienna, from the uppermost top down through the Church vault and down into the Earth a thick steel whire goes, added several centuries agao in the intent of leading the lightning, as is also often the case, as it leaps along the wire."

The footnote 2 attributes this to Tessin, Carl Gustaf (1824). Carl Gustaf Tessins dagbok : 1757 - if I get this right, it means, in 1757, after Tessin heard of Franklin's invention, he recalled (or at worst pretended to recall) a similar invention already in place since centuries (that is, since the Renaissance or Middle Ages) in the Cathedral tower of Vienna, where he had been a few decades earlier.

If this is true, the lightning rod was in fact not invented by Franklin, only reinvented by him, and had been invented, at least locally, in Vienna, among those benighted Catholics that I was born among ...

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Henry I, Emperor and Confessor
15.VII.2022

Sancti Henrici Primi, Imperatoris Romanorum et Confessoris, cujus dies natalis tertio Idus mensis hujus recensetur.

PS, do read the comments!