Written in Water #22: The Miracle of the Sparrows

All I have to show you is this bird

I made with fingers, spit and clay.

I breathed on it like Jesus had, I heard,

To make it come alive and fly away.

•

At the end of the Gospel of John, the evangelist writes,

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

John 21:25

I've always liked that as an ending. It feels like a recognition of the shortcomings of the story's form and an assertion of validity in a humble, eloquent way. There are other versions of Christ's story, the evangelist is saying, and they are no more or less valid than this one.

Expert

We define an expert as someone skilled or knowledgeable in a given field, or at least that's the simple version. I think the real definition of that is more nuanced, truly, has more to do with the perception of others than with verifiable competence.

Written in Water #23: Following Yonder Star

January 6th is the Feast of Epiphany, the official end of Christmas. It's when, traditionally, the tale of the Magi is told in churches. It bears telling again, for it is one of the strangest stories in a book full of stories whose strangeness we take for granted.

Matthew 5:11

Written in Water 21: For Whom the World is Flat

You can actually buy this shirt.

Before I start: I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks. A combination of illness (mine and each of the members of my family, in turn) and a short term work contract I couldn't turn down meant that I either couldn't find the time to write or couldn't, period. The film reviews will resume tomorrow, probably with a piece about Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Simeon Smith's guest post about Pan's Labyrinth.

But today let's talk about the world being flat, or round, or whatever shape it is, which was triggered when I read a couple of weeks ago that basketball legend turned sports pundit Shaquille O'Neal had made a statement to that effect. In fact he was kidding, but he wasn't the first prominent American – and all of them people of colour – to say that.

Written in Water, Digression: On the Magical Identity of Saints

They're already making icons of her. They have been for ages.

Yesterday, Mother Teresa got sainted. 

Written in Water 20: Beard-Hater

Bearded men and ideologies unpopular with the establishment, eh?

In June 363CE Julian, the Emperor of Rome, led a cavalry charge against a defeated Persian army. Only shortly before, Julian had won a victory outside the walls of the Persian capitol Ctesiphon, making his campaign in Persia the most successful the Romans had ever managed.

Maybe that made him reckless.

A strap broke on his breastplate; he shrugged it off, threw the offending piece of armour away.

And a spear came from nowhere, and lodged in his side, and he fell, and that night, in his tent, Julian died, discoursing with his comrades about the immortality of his soul, as Socrates had.

And the Roman army found itself far from home with no leader, and no clear route home.

And that was how Julian the Apostate, the last pagan Emperor of Rome, died.

Written in Water 17b: Adapting the Golden Ass

Note strategically placed sticker on shrinkwrap.

As a postscript to my piece about The Golden Ass, I recently got hold of Milo Manara's comic book adaptation of The Golden Ass, recently reissued in English. Because someone made a comic book version of The Golden Ass. And I like European comics.

It's... disappointing.

In reviewing Manara's book, I'll mention a depiction of a rape, along with objectification and misogyny. If these things upset you in any way, or might bring back things you'd rather not think about, best move on.

Written in Water #19: Enlightenment

A meditation. A confession.

Written in Water 18: Alypius's Fandom

(This isn't the intended update, but I kind of need my bookshelf for that one and I'm holiday, so Julian the Apostate is going to have to wait for a week or two.)

If you'd ever studied any kind of classical subject, you've probably come across part of this passage at some point. It's really popular (for instance it's on the GCSE Latin syllabus, in the Sources for Latin paper – it even made the exam last year).

Written in Water 17: Lector Intende, Laetaberis.

By Jean de Bosschère, from an early 20th century edition of The Golden Ass.

This is the first page of one of the most contradictory and bizarre novels ever written. It seems a rambling sort of preamble; in fact, it's heavy with occult significance.

Written in Water #16: Imaginal Armies, Part Two

The Theban Legion, early modern style.

In the last post I talked a bit about the mythology of the Roman Army, about how its representation in literature ensured that it would become remembered as the greatest military machine of antiquity, wreathed in glory, invincible and mighty, disciplined and perfect and all the other things that the armies of empires are. And how this might not have been the whole truth.

Written in Water #15: Imaginal Armies, Part One

The Roman Army wasn't immune to the collapse of history. As the Empire entered its final state of narrative disintegration, the army entered into the realm of myth, of story. An imaginal state, where the idea of the military forces of Rome transcended the reality. I have two stories to tell regarding this.

Before I get to the first, let's go back a bit. For context's sake.

Written in Water #14: Prophets of the Sands and Stones

St. Jerome in the Wilderness, Bernardino Pinturrichio, c.1475

It's one thing to maintain an active religious belief when society at large is against you, and much has been written, ancient and present day, about what it's like to be in what everyone else calls a cult, and like it or not, that's what Christianity was for the first two and a half centuries of its existence. The fact is, it takes a certain kind of steel in your back to keep it up when they're kicking down your door and barbecuing you.

Written in Water, Digression: Virgil, the Magical

agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.

Last night, before sleeping, I found my old copy of Aeneid IV, the story of Dido and Aeneas, and read it, in the Latin, and my heart broke over it.

I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Virgil.

Written in Water #13: On The Value of Invisible People

This grave portrait, from Roman Egypt, haunts me.

Today, I want to talk about invisibility.

Written in Water #12: Saints of the Sex Workers

Mary of Egypt, by José de Ribera, 1641.

When you talk about gender, particularly when dealing with issues from ages less sensitive, or when dealing with things that might be considered hate speech now, it is important to remind readers that the dissection of gendered slurs and just general misogyny are a par for the course in this sort of thing, and to warn that if these things distress or perhaps recall unpleasant and painful experiences, then perhaps this piece is better not read.

OK. If you're still here, let's begin.

Written in Water #11: Fauna of the Far-Away Places

St. Anthony and the Centaur, by Francesco Guarino, 1642.
I picked this one because the look on Anthony's face cracks me up.

As a kid, I was always fascinated by monsters. Movies like Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Clash of the Titans, Warlords of Atlantis, and a dozen others were always a source of excitement for me, and my favourite bits were always the bits with the amazing Harryhausen monsters. It was a picture of a Lemurian that made me care about the Theosophists. I got older and got into Dungeons & Dragons, and the monsters were always the thing I had most fun reading about.

Written in Water #10: The Word of God in the City of the Cannibals

"Excuse me, Jesus. How do we steer this thing again?"

Today, I want to talk about Bible outtakes. And that means angels, demons, vomiting statues and, most of all, cannibals. Lots of cannibals.

Written in Water #9b: A Brexit Story

This book? Every bit as awful as you'd expect.
Ends with him saying Turkey should join the EU.
Draw your own conclusions.

Yeah, all right, I wasn't going to talk about Brexit, seeing as how it's turned out worse than we could ever imagine, a horrifically compromised mess that has more in common with the plot of The Producers than actual politics ("I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast.... where did I go right?") but then I remembered the Roman Brexit and how it wound up, and how it falls into the same period of historical collapse that I've been writing about, which seems appropriate seeing how history is collapsing around our ears as I write.

Let's talk about how well Brexit went back in the day, back in the collapse of history.