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Nov. 1st, 2011
Edward Taylor: The Bread of Life
Nov. 1st, 2011 10:08 pmBefore leaving the Puritans, we should get at least one poem by the other big name of the era, Edward Taylor. We will use the one on the Lord’s Supper. This is the Christian custom that a lot of non-Christians find to be especially off-putting, being rather suggestive of cannibalism as well as cultic and just plain weird.
It is based on the night before Christ was betrayed and captured by the Jewish and Roman authorities, to be crucified ultimately. On that night, as they partook of a festive meal, Christ instructed his disciples that they should eat the bread and understand it to be His flesh, and to drink the wine and understand it to be his blood, and this should become their ritual practice. In doing this they proclaim themselves to be of the body of Christ. Or at least this is my loose rendition. I was never a Catholic, and so I probably do not have it down very well.
Taylor goes further and discusses how man first took holy food for the soul more naturally before the fall from Paradise, and how man was deprived since then of holy food for his soul. The poem will also be easier to understand if you know that he calls the soul a bird of paradise that has been placed in a cage, the body. It was only when God sent Jesus down that this bird of paradise was able to eat its special holy food again. If you can get around the oddness of the concept, it is actually a pretty idea.
( Read more... )
It is based on the night before Christ was betrayed and captured by the Jewish and Roman authorities, to be crucified ultimately. On that night, as they partook of a festive meal, Christ instructed his disciples that they should eat the bread and understand it to be His flesh, and to drink the wine and understand it to be his blood, and this should become their ritual practice. In doing this they proclaim themselves to be of the body of Christ. Or at least this is my loose rendition. I was never a Catholic, and so I probably do not have it down very well.
Taylor goes further and discusses how man first took holy food for the soul more naturally before the fall from Paradise, and how man was deprived since then of holy food for his soul. The poem will also be easier to understand if you know that he calls the soul a bird of paradise that has been placed in a cage, the body. It was only when God sent Jesus down that this bird of paradise was able to eat its special holy food again. If you can get around the oddness of the concept, it is actually a pretty idea.
( Read more... )
Edward Taylor: The Bread of Life
Nov. 1st, 2011 10:08 pmBefore leaving the Puritans, we should get at least one poem by the other big name of the era, Edward Taylor. We will use the one on the Lord’s Supper. This is the Christian custom that a lot of non-Christians find to be especially off-putting, being rather suggestive of cannibalism as well as cultic and just plain weird.
It is based on the night before Christ was betrayed and captured by the Jewish and Roman authorities, to be crucified ultimately. On that night, as they partook of a festive meal, Christ instructed his disciples that they should eat the bread and understand it to be His flesh, and to drink the wine and understand it to be his blood, and this should become their ritual practice. In doing this they proclaim themselves to be of the body of Christ. Or at least this is my loose rendition. I was never a Catholic, and so I probably do not have it down very well.
Taylor goes further and discusses how man first took holy food for the soul more naturally before the fall from Paradise, and how man was deprived since then of holy food for his soul. The poem will also be easier to understand if you know that he calls the soul a bird of paradise that has been placed in a cage, the body. It was only when God sent Jesus down that this bird of paradise was able to eat its special holy food again. If you can get around the oddness of the concept, it is actually a pretty idea.
( Read more... )
It is based on the night before Christ was betrayed and captured by the Jewish and Roman authorities, to be crucified ultimately. On that night, as they partook of a festive meal, Christ instructed his disciples that they should eat the bread and understand it to be His flesh, and to drink the wine and understand it to be his blood, and this should become their ritual practice. In doing this they proclaim themselves to be of the body of Christ. Or at least this is my loose rendition. I was never a Catholic, and so I probably do not have it down very well.
Taylor goes further and discusses how man first took holy food for the soul more naturally before the fall from Paradise, and how man was deprived since then of holy food for his soul. The poem will also be easier to understand if you know that he calls the soul a bird of paradise that has been placed in a cage, the body. It was only when God sent Jesus down that this bird of paradise was able to eat its special holy food again. If you can get around the oddness of the concept, it is actually a pretty idea.
( Read more... )