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Post by Josh on Feb 12, 2010 19:07:09 GMT -8
So, one character I absolutely love from Christian History is St. Francis of Assis (1181-1226).
I'm reading G.K. Chesterton's biography just now.
I think I'll post some excerpts here as time allows. Please jump in if something sounds interesting! The quotes won't necessarily be on Francis himself, but just provoking thoughts from the book.
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Post by Josh on Feb 12, 2010 19:09:02 GMT -8
"Pagans were wiser than paganism; that is why the pagans became Christians"
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Post by Josh on Feb 12, 2010 19:10:51 GMT -8
On the 13th century, which we often view as the dark ages, Chesterton speaks with great sarcasm:
"It was a rude and simple society and there were no laws to punish a starving man for expressing his need for food, such as have been established in a more humanitarian age; and the lack of any organised police permitted such persons to pester the wealthy without any great danger"
;D
and this, comparing war back then to war today:
"It will be enough to say here that if one of these medieval wars had really gone on without stopping for a century [as moderns suppose], it might possibly have come within a remote distance of killing as many people as we kill in a year in one of our great modern scientific wars beteween our great modern industrial empires. But the citizens of the medieval republic were certainly under the limitation of only being asked to die for the things with which they had always lived, the houses they inhabited, the shrines they venerated and the rulers and representatives they knew; and had not the larger vision calling them to die for the latest rumours about remote colonies as reported in anonymous newspapers."
;D
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Post by Josh on Feb 12, 2010 19:11:54 GMT -8
On Francis:
"His life was one riot of rash vows; of rash vows that turned out right"
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