A Spiritual Aeneid"This book is a religious autobiography. The matter of it is not original, and (I thank God) the conclusion of it is not original either. But, so long as minds differ, there must always be some difference in the most hackneyed of pilgrimages, as the pilgrims compare notes at the Confessio. I have tried to avoid all references that could be damaging to anybody but myself; if and where I have failed, I must take this opportunity to ask forgiveness. The publishing of autobiographies by the obscure is always, in any case, a target for criticism; but even obscure things have an interest; let us call it an autobiography. And before you say "self-advertisement" - think, what a bad advertisement. In explanation of the Aeneid-motif which runs through the chapter-headings and parts of the book; I had perhaps better give the obvious set of symbols. Troy is undisturbed and in a sense unreflective religion; in most lives it is overthrown, either to be rebuilt or to be replaced. The Greeks are the doubts that overthrow it. The "miniature Troy" of Helenus is the effort to reconstruct that religion exactly as it was. Carthage is any false goal that, for a time, seems to claim finality. And Rome is Rome."-- |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeneid afraid afterwards Alington Angli Anglican Anglican Sacramentalism asked attended authority Balliol believe Bishop boys Bruges Caldey Catholicism celebrated certainly chapel chaplain Church of England Church of Rome Communion Confession conscience course criticism devotion diaconate difficulties diocese Divine doctrines doubt ecclesiastical English Church Union Eton faith feel felt friends give Graham Street Hickleton Higher Criticism holiday Holy Holy Week hymns idea impression Kikuyu kind knew Latin matter ment merely mind Mirfield mission natural Nestorians never once ordinary ordination orthodox Oxford Oxford Movement point of view position Prayer Book preaching Pusey House question Reformation religion religious remember reunion Roman Catholic Rome Sacrament Saints seemed sense sermon Shrewsbury Society spiritual suggested summer Sunday suppose talk theological things Thirty-nine Articles thought tion told took Tractarian tradition Trinity undergraduate whole worship wrong
Popular passages
Page 254 - From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.
Page 253 - They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
Page 18 - Hos ego digrediens lacrimis adfabar obortis : ' Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta jam sua ; nos alia ex aliis in fata vocamur. vobis parta quies ; nullum maris aequor arandum...
Page 9 - Treason doth never prosper ; what's the reason ? For if it prosper none dare call it treason.
Page 136 - Sorrowing she [Rome] calls us like that Mother of old, who sought her Son and could not find him, as he sat refuting the doctors in the Temple; but we too must be about our Father's business, though we meet our Mother again only after a Gethsemane, it may be, a Calvary. And surely we dare not doubt that Jesus will be our Shepherd, till the time when he gathers his fold together ; and that though we do not live to see it, England will once again become the dowry of Mary, and the Church of England...
Page 189 - We were young, we were merry, we were very very wise, And the door stood open at our feast, When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes And a man with his back to the East.
Page 247 - I had been encouraged to suppose, and fully prepared to find, that the immediate result of submission to Rome would be the sense of having one's liberty cramped and restricted in a number of ways, necessary no doubt to the welfare of the Church at large, but galling to the individual.
Page 218 - Spera in Domino, et fac bonitatem : et inhabita terram, et pasceris in divitiis ejus.
Page 37 - Catonic pleasure in the defeated cause". It is hardly surprising, then, that the knowledge that there actually was a Cause "for which clergymen had been sent to prison, a Bishop censured, noble lives spent...
Bibliographic information
| Title | A Spiritual Aeneid |
| Author | Ronald Arbuthnott Knox |
| Publisher | Longmans, Green, 1918 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | 16 Jun 2006 |
| Length | 263 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |