I wish to argue here that the recurring pattern of descent and ascent, expressed mythically as katabasis and anabasis, and metaphysically in Neoplatonism as proodos and epistrophe, is not only a formal analogy to Christian theology. Rather, it is decisively reconfigured and fulfilled in the doctrines of kenosis and theosis. In Christianity, this pattern ceases to be merely narrative or purely metaphysical. It becomes Christological and participatory, thereby deepening and ful

“You are a dozen or more from among the six thousand characters I have written to represent the six-billion persons who will have lived in the world after my death. You are sketches that I did not quite fill out, you are people in my still quite sketchy world of the future. And yet I did all of you as well as I was able to.” Summer teaching—one class on economics and culture, another on Dante—together with the usual department grind, has eaten into the spare time I can carve

I answer that, It must be said that every evil in some way has a cause. For evil is the absence of the good, which is natural and due to a thing. But that anything fail from its natural and due disposition can come only from some cause drawing it out of its proper disposition. For a heavy thing is not moved upwards except by some impelling force; nor does an agent fail in its action except from some impediment. But only good can be a cause; because nothing can be a cause exce

There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth.— G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy "But laughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh." — Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose [Advanced Lafferty. What follows supplements my earlier post on the Laughing Christ and what Lafferty does with it in East of Laughter. The argument, in brief, is that East of Laughter rejects three

“It almost seems that we are no more than characters in a big sprawling novel that Atrox and perhaps some of his friends are writing,” Gorgonius hazarded. “It’s an idea that I try to chase away by throwing rocks at it, and it squawks and flies right back to me.” “It is more likely that we are all no more than characters in a big sprawling novel that God is writing,” Mary Brandy said, “and perhaps Atrox and some of his friends are permitted to write a phrase or two in it now a

History is not false but true when it is put dramatically. It is not true but false when it arrives anyhow, proceeds at random like an unconsidered run of nature, and ceases unravelled without the gathering of the threads into a conclusion. — Hilaire Belloc, "The Historian" In 1955, Hollis and Carter published a volume of Hilaire Belloc’s uncollected essays under the title One Thing and Another. Lafferty was an avid reader of Belloc, so it is unlikely that he did not know the

Telez: Obviously, you know men, how evil they are. Only God is good. Cambreau: But the good in man is God, Telez. Telez: Only God is good. Only God can forgive. They stole my crucifix, Cambreau. Without it, I’m lost. I’m afraid. Cambreau: A crucifix is a piece of wood, Telez. Only a piece of wood. The miracle is not in the wood, but in the heart. — Strange Cargo (1940) Time after time mankind is driven against the rocks of the horrid reality of a fallen creation. And time af

And the story FAITH SUFFICIENT is tied in with the Ministry business. I am a strongly believing Catholic myself, and one sentence of Christ that I never forget is "Other sheep I have that are not of this flock." He also says (through Saint Paul) that we should preach the faith 'in season and out of season.' But the manner of the preaching is left to each one. There is lots of grotesque preaching done, and I believe that it may be a subject of humor. And John Salt and his frie

“We already had the World of Fact. Oh, the poor, dingy, hopeless, small-minded World of Fact! It didn’t deserve much, but it deserved at least to have its nakedness clothed with metaphor and mythology. The World of Computers is bearable. The old World of Fact was ceasing to be. “Even the Quest for Reality of the talented but diminishing Group of Twelve has now changed (without their knowing it) into the Quest for Acceptable World Metaphor.” East of Laughter buries the lede, s

Giulio Romano, The Fall of the Giants, 1532–1534. Fresco, Sala dei Giganti, Palazzo Te, Mantua, Italy. "No, Atrox, you are wrong," Denis Lollardy said firmly. "You did not bury him in the ground, you buried him in your mind. And I found him there, for all of us can raid into your mind as you can raid into ours. And then I carved him out of fine travertine marble. He was one of my greatest forgeries, forgeries for which there was no physical original. Then I buried my magnific

“All of you children go into the dollhouse, and stay there for the present,” said Captain Keil. “I don't want you running around.” “I explained once that it was a clubhouse,” said Carnadine, her jaw grim . . . So first, the facts. We end with metaphors. “Enfant Terribles” (originally " Blood Off a Knife ") is an early Lafferty mystery, written in 1959 but not published until 1971, when it appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine . Two years after finishing it, Lafferty wro