“[Jesus’ parables] are “a language which from beginning to end, thinks through the
Metaphor and never beyond…there is more in the parables taken
together than in any conceptual system about God. We are, in the Parables taken as a whole,
given much more to think through than the coherence of any concept offers…[We can] draw from the Parables nearly all the kinds of theologies which have divided Christianity
through the centuries … and taken all together, they say more than any rational theology…They give rise to thought [but cannot be reduced to] theological simplifications which we attempt to put in their place.”
Tag: metaphor
“In Saïs, the statue of Athena, whom they equate with Isis, bore the inscription: ‘I am all that has been, and is, and shall be; no mortal has yet raised my veil.’
—Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, § 9 (354 C).
“Christ did not hide truths in order to prevent them from being communicated, but in order to provoke desire for them by this very concealment.”
—Saint Augustine: Sermons, 51, 4, 5.
“The more these things seem to be obscured by figurative words, the sweeter they become when they are explained.”
—Saint Augustine: On Christian Doctrine, iv, vii, 15.
“But in order that manifest truths should not become tiring, they have been covered with a veil, while remaining unchanged, and thus they become the object of desire; being desired, they are in a way made young again; with their youth restored, they enter the spirit gently.”
—Saint Augustine: Letters, 137, V, 18.
“The plain fact is that not
all facts are plain…’The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi,’ said Heraclitus referring to Apollo the god
and symbol of wisdom, ‘neither speaks nor conceals but gives signs.’… There are
meanings of high, sometimes of very high importance, which cannot be stated in
terms strictly defined….Plain speech may sometimes have conceptual exactitude,
but it will be inaccurate with respect to the new thing that one wants to say, the
freshly imagined experience that one wants to describe and communicate.”
— Philip Wheelwright, The Burning Fountain: A Study in the Language of Symbolism
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), p. 86.
“These things are veiled in figures, in garments as it were, in order that they may exercise the mind of the pious inquirer, and not become cheap for being bare and obvious … For being remote, they are more ardently desired, and for being desired they are more joyfully discovered.”
—Saint Augustine: Against Lying, X, 24.
“Vielleicht ist nie etwas Erhabeneres gesagt oder eine Gedanke erhabener ausgedrückt worden als in jener Aufschrift über dem Tempel der Isis (der Mutter Natur): ‘Ich bin alles was da ist, was da war und was da sein wird, und meinen Schleier hat kein Sterblicher aufgedeckt.’”
“[Perhaps nothing more sublime has ever been said or a thought has been expressed more sublimely, than in that inscription on the temple of Isis (Mother Nature): ‘I am all that is, that has been, and that shall be, and no mortal has raised my veil.’]”
—Immanuel Kant: Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790. (§ 49, footnote.)
Little Bristling Soul 