François Fénelon

They were accepted and elaborated by the religious thinkers who hoped to harmonize and humanize theology and science.

Pascal, Bousset, and Fenelon, the finest minds in the French church, were eager Cartesians.

Footnote In spite of this, however, Descartes' works, in 1663, appeared in the index of forbidden books, and his doctrines were banned by royal decree from the French universities.

Jesuit influences, which were not at all favorable to native religion in France or elsewhere, may have been responsible for this obscurantist policy.

Then there is a much more rebellious approach.

Iskander Raymond looks at a seventeenth-century French archbishop who simply stole Homer's characters and dropped them into a subversive political thriller meant to secretly critique his king.

Putting these two methods side by side reveals something curious about how old myths survive.

Some demand absolute loyalty to the original sound, while others work best when someone hijacks the plot entirely to teach a prince how to rule.

She treats the text as a delicate structure that requires strict fidelity to survive intact.

Turning to Iskander Rahman, you find a completely different survival strategy for the exact same epic.

Rahman looks back at a 17th century French archbishop, Francois Fenelon, who ignored Homer's original meter entirely.

Instead, Fenelon simply hijacked the characters and warped the plot into a subversive political thriller designed to teach a French prince how to rule.

In expressing myself thus, I know that I shall shock many received ideas.

But see, is not leisure an essential spring in the social machine? Without it, the world would never have had a Newton, a Pascal, a Fenelon.

Mankind would have been ignorant of all arts, sciences, and of those wonderful inventions prepared originally by investigations of mere curiosity.

Thought would have been inert.

You are going to stab me right in sight of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described.

Heartless wretch! Will nothing make you relent—not even the sight of poor Josait here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young, as Fénelon would have said could he have written my adventures?” Do you know, interrupted Archie, you are at least as remarkable in poetry as you are in geometry.

Who can doubt it? answered Jules.

No matter.

The history of their respective victories and defeats could consequently be written.

So in the eighteenth century it was easy to perceive how many people Voltaire and Rousseau might be alienated from Bossuet and Fenelon.

But how shall we satisfy ourselves now whether, for instance, Christianity is holding its own? Who can tell what vagary or what compromise may not be calling itself Christianity? A bishop may be a modernist, a chemist may be a mystical theologian, a psychologist may be a believer in ghosts.

For science, too, which had promised to supply a new and solid foundation for philosophy, has allowed philosophy rather to undermine its foundation, and is seen eating its own words through the mouths of some of its accredited spokesmen, and reducing itself to something utterly conventional and insecure.

The history of their respective victories and defeats could consequently be written.

So in the eighteenth century it was easy to perceive how many people Voltaire and Rousseau might be alienated from Bossuet and Fenelon.

But how shall we satisfy ourselves now whether, for instance, Christianity is holding its own? Who can tell what vagary or what compromise may not be calling itself Christianity? A bishop may be a modernist, a chemist may be a mystical theologian, a psychologist may be a believer in ghosts.

For science, too, which had promised to supply a new and solid foundation for philosophy, has allowed philosophy rather to undermine its foundation, and is seen eating its own words through the mouths of some of its accredited spokesmen, and reducing itself to something utterly conventional and insecure.

The Bible was emphatically his counsel and monitor through life, and the fruits of its guidance are seen in the unsullied character which he bore through the turbid waters of political contention to his final earthly rest.

though long and fiercely opposed and contemned in life he had left no man behind him who would wish to fix a stain on the name he has inscribed so high on the roll of his country's most gifted and illustrious sons the intrinsic value of these letters their familiar and lucid style their profound and comprehensive views their candid and reverent spirit must win for them a large measure of the public attention and esteem but apart from even this the testimony so unconsciously borne by their pure-minded and profoundly learned author to the truth and excellence of the christian faith and records will not be lightly regarded it is no slight testimonial to the verity and worth of christianity that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom integrity and philanthropy have recognized and reverenced in jesus of nazareth the son of the living god to the names of Augustine, Xavier, Fenelon, Milton, Newton, Locke, Lavatar, Howard, Chateaubriand, and their thousands of compeers in Christian faith among the world's wisest and noblest, it is not without pride that the American may add, from among his countrymen, those of such men as Washington, Jay, Patrick Henry, and John Quincy Adams.

End of Section Zero Section 1 of Letters of John Quincy Adams to his son on the Bible and its teachings.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

My Lord, Now Full of Sweet Content by Madame Guillon Madame Guyon was a mystic, a friend of the great Fenelon, and an enthusiastic apostle of quietism.

Educated in a convent at Montargis, France, the town in which she was born, she devoted much study to the writings of St. Francis de Sales, Madame de Chantal, and Thomas Akempi, which largely determined the character of her faith.

Her marriage at the age of sixteen to the wealthy M. Guyon resulted unhappily.

You are going to stab me right in sight of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described.

Heartless wretch, will nothing make you relent? Not even the sight of poor Jose here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young, as Fenelon would have said could he have written my adventures.

Do you know, interrupted Archie, you are at least as remarkable in poetry as you are in geometry.

Who can doubt it? answered Jules.

The history of their respective victories and defeats could consequently be written.

So in the eighteenth century it was easy to perceive how many people Voltaire and Rousseau might be alienated from Bossuet and Fenelon.

But how shall we satisfy ourselves now whether, for instance, Christianity is holding its own? Who can tell what vagary or what compromise may not be calling itself Christianity? A bishop may be a modernist, a chemist may be a mystical theologian, a psychologist may be a believer in ghosts.

For science, too, which had promised to supply a new and solid foundation for philosophy, has allowed philosophy rather to undermine its foundation, and is seen eating its own words through the mouths of some of its accredited spokesmen, and reducing itself to something utterly conventional and insecure.