Saturday, August 9, 2025

God is still, and will be forever incarnate

"The condescension of that Union, whereby His Divine and Human Natures are never to be divided, is for Eternity.  In all Eternity we shall, in the Light of the Godhead, see the especial lustre of those glorious Suns, the sacred Five, the Blessed Wounds, which for us He received.  In all Eternity, it will be a special glory to us, that it is our Nature, which forever exists enGodded, the own Body and Soul of God."

     E. B. Pusey, Address III, "God’s Love for each soul in the Incarnation," Eleven addresses during a retreat of the Companions of the Love of Jesus engaged in perpetual intercession for the conversion of sinners (Oxford:  James Parker, 1868), 26.  This, as I've said earlier, is an occurrence of the verb engod six years earlier than that (also from Pusey) in the OED at the moment (though I just submitted the correction).

Not mysteries (plural), but the mystery, one and whole

     "Our nature, in Jesus, was engodded, deified.  It shines throughout all space with the ineffable Glory of the Indwelling Godhead; but it was our nature, not ourselves.  And now, as the counterpart and complement of the Incarnation, as He took our manhood into God, He has sent His Spirit, The Holy Ghost, to dwell in us.  Truly it has been said, that men do amiss speak of mysteries of revelation.  For all is one mystery; all is one mysterious whole, of which you cannot detach part from part, without deforming the whole.  As well detach, if it were possible, one of the prismatic colours, and think that the light would remain ever the same, as think to sever from the rest one truth of God, the Father of lights, and think that the other truths would remain harmonious."

     E. B. Pusey, "[Grieve not the Spirit of God]," Sermon 14 in Sermons preached before the University of Oxford between A.D. 1859 and 1872 (Oxford:  J. Parker, 1872), 338-339.  Currently the OED gives Pusey 1874 as the first occurrence of the verb engod.  But here it is in 1872, also in Pusey.  Does it occur any earlier?  Yes, Pusey uses enGodded here in 1868, an "antedating" that I've just submitted via the OED's online form.  (But we need a far more sophisticated search than the rough-and-ready Hathi Trust searches I've just run.
     Interestingly, this was the Pusey's friend Newman's contention as well.)
     This by the way, is on the whole a good sermon, and would bear a re-reading.

Sunday, August 3, 2025

"It is from us what befalls us"

      Mohammad Taqi Bahar (1884–1951), “It is from us what befalls us [(Az mast keh bar mast)],” as trans. Abbas Amanant in Iran:  a modern history (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2017), chap. 6, p. 377.  Amanat cites Mohammad Taqi Bahar Malek al-Sho‘ara, Divan-e Ash’ar, ed. M. Bahar, 5th ed. (Tehran: Entesharat Tus, 1368/1984) 1:261–62.  I was put onto this by the Eli Lake podcast "Restless nation:  the making of modern Iran (Part 1)," Breaking history.  Beautiful poem.