Textus receptus

 "Textum ergo habes, nunc ab omnibus receptum:  in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus."

     Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ.  [Hē Kainē Diathēkē.]  Novum Testamentum. Ex regiis aliisque optimis editionibus, hac nova expressum:  cui quid accesserit, praefatio docebit.  Lvgd. Batavorum:  Ex Officina Elzeviriana, [1633], p. *2 verso ("TYPOGRAPHI LECTORIBUS de hac editione", "The printers to the readers of this edition").  My thanks to Suzanne Smith for the diversion, and to Armin Siedlecki for the proper "page" terminology.

St. Athanasius on Gen 2:17

"This 'you shall die by death,' what else might it be except not merely to die, but to remain in the corruption of death?"

     St. Athanasius, De incarnatione 3, trans. Behr (St. Athanasius the Great On the incarnation:  Greek original and English translation, Popular patristics series 44a (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011), 57).

BHS:  כִּ֗י בְּי֛וֹם אֲכָלְךָ֥ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מ֥וֹת תָּמֽוּת׃

LXX:  ᾗ δ᾽ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ φάγητε ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε.

Vulgate:  in quocumque enim die comederis ex eo, morte morieris.

"we were the purpose of his embodiment"

Τῆς γὰρ ἐκείνου ἐνσωματώσεως ἡμεῖς γεγόναμεν ὑπόθεσις

     St. Athanasius, De incarnatione 4, trans. Behr (St. Athanasius the Great On the incarnation:  Greek original and English translation, Popular patristics series 44a (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011), 59).

"God, . . . rich in means, employs all things for his hidden ends"

"Dieu, . . . fécond en moyens, emploie toutes choses à ses fins cachées".

     Fr. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, "Oraison funébre de Henriette-Marie de France, reine de la Grande-Bretagne" (Chaillot, 16 November 1669), in Bossuet: oraisons funèbres, panégyriques, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade 33, ed. the Abbé Bernard Velat (Paris: Librairie Galllimard, 1951): 73.

Beyond him

     "He lost his life—fifteen years that he had thought would be, and ought to have been, the best and most abundant; those are gone from the earth, lost in disappointment and grief and darkness and work without hope, and now he is only where he was when he began. But that is enough, and more. He is returning home—not only to the place but to the possibility and promise that he once saw in it, and now, as not before, to the understanding that that is enough. After such grevious spending, enough, more than enough, remains. There is more. He lost his life, and now he has found it again.
     "Words come to him: 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil'—the words of the old psalm that [his older sister] Nancy had made him repeat when he was a boy until he would remember it all his life. He had always been able to see through those words to what they were about. He could see the green pastures and the still waters and the shepherd bringing the sheep down out of the hills in the evening to drink. It comes to him that he never understood them before, but that he does now. The man who first spoke the psalm had been driven to the limit, he had seen his ruin, he had felt in the weight of his own flesh the substantiality of his death and the measure of his despair. He knew that his origin was in nothing that he or any man had done, and that he could do nothing sufficient to his needs. And he looked finally beyond those limits and saw the world still there, potent and abounding, as it would be whether he lived or died, worthy of his life and work and faith. He saw that he would be distinguished not by what he was or anything he might become but by what he served. Beyond him was the peace and rest and joy that he desired. Beyond the limits of a man’s strength or intelligence or desire or hope or faith, there is more. The cup runs over. While a man lies asleep in exhaustion and despair, helpless as a child, the soft rain falls, the trees leaf, the seed sprouts in the planted field. And when he knows that he lives by a bounty not his own, though his ruin lies behind him and again ahead of him, he will be at peace, for he has seen what is worthy."

     Wendell Berry of Jack Beechum, in The memory of Old Jack, chap. 7 ("Through the valley") (Port William novels & stories:  the postwar years, ed. Jack Shoemaker, Library of America (New York:  Library of America, 2024), 251-252).
 

"his Word . . . tells us of him who surpasses all telling"

"The Father is beyond our sight and comprehension; but he is known by his Word, who tells us of him who surpasses all telling."

"Patrem quidem invisíbilem et indeterminabilem, quantum ad nos est, cognoscit suum ipsius Verbum, et cum sit inenarrabilis, ipse enarrat eum nobis:"

     St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV.vi.3 (the numbering systems vary), as trans. Liturgy of the hours, Office of readings, Wednesday of Week 1 in Ordinary time.

"Jesus is not portrayed as friend to sex workers in any first- or second-century text"

"Having shown that Jesus is not portrayed as friend to sex workers in any first- or second-century text, I have looked to medieval fiction for the source of this misunderstanding[,] . . . [which] is medieval preaching and fiction."

     Anthony Le Donne, "Did Jesus befriend sex workers?," Journal for the study of the historical Jesus 20 (2022):  155 (147-155).

The promised land of eternal splendor

William West, c. 1845, Nottingham Castle

"May the splendor of your majesty, O Lord, we pray, shed its light upon our hearts, that we may pass through the shadows of this world and reach the brightness of our eternal home.  Through".

"Corda nostra, quaesumus, Domine, tuae maiestatis splendor illustret, quo mundi huius tenebras transire valeamus, et perveniamus ad patriam claritatis aeternae."

May the splendor of your majesty, O Lord, we pray, illuminate our hearts, by which [splendor] we may be enabled [(valeamus)] to pass through [(trans-)] the shadows of this world and come through [(per-)] to the fatherland of eternal brightness.

     Collect for Vigil of the Epiphany, Roman missal.  This is Corpus orationum 837a in the late 8th-century Gregorian (Deschusses, vol. 1, no. 20* on p. 689 from the Gregorianum Paduense; cf. no. 55 on p. 612), and other 8th-century sacramentaries, with the following differences:

"Corda nostra, quaesumus, domine, venturae festivitatis splendor illustret, quo (et) mundi huius tenebris carere valeamus et perveniamus ad patriam claritatis aeternae."

(The second half of Corpus orationum 837b is also close.)
     illustro can mean "clear up," and claritas, "clearness," i.e. "clarity."
     Could there be hints of the Exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Promised Land here?
     Treat the rest of the lovely prayers of Epiphany eventually!

"Say what you want about the Christians, but they can write a tune."

"it’s beautiful isn’t it?  Say what you want about the Christians, but they can write a tune."

     Mrs. Reed of "In the bleak mid-winter," Black doves, Episode 6 ("In the bleak midwinter"), c. 29:45 (23:10 to go).