The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Religion
The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Literature -- History and criticism
But there is yet another and worse wresting of the text. Who that reads
Lacunza, p. 108, last line but twelve, would not understand that the
Apocalypt had asserted this enthronement of the souls of the Gentile and
Judæo-Christian Martyrs which he beheld in the train or suite of the
descending Messiah; and that he had first seen them in the descent, and
afterward saw thrones assigned to them? Whereas the sentence precedes,
and has positively no connection with these souls. The literal
interpretation of the symbols c. xx. v. 4, is, "I then beheld the
Christian religion the established religion of the state throughout the
Roman empire;--emperors, kings, magistrates, and the like, all
Christians, and administering laws in the name of Christ, that is,
receiving the Scriptures as the supreme and paramount law. Then in all
the temples the name of Jesus was invoked as the King of glory, and
together with him the old afflicted and tormented fellow-laborers with
Christ were revived in high and reverential commemoration," &c. But that
the whole Vision from first to last, in every sentence, yea, every word,
is symbolical, and in the boldest, largest style of symbolic language;
and secondly, that it is a work of disputed canonicity, and at no known
period of the Church could truly lay claim to catholicity;--but for
this, I think this verse would be worth a cartload of the texts which
the Romanist divines and catechists ordinarily cite as sanctioning the
invocation of Saints.
Ib. p. 110.
You will say nevertheless, that even the wicked will be raised
incorruptible to inherit incorruption, because being once raised,
their bodies will no more change or be dissolved, but must continue
entire, for ever united with their sad and miserable souls. Well, and
would you call this corruption or incorruptibility? Certainly this is
not the sense of the Apostle, when he formally assures us, yea, even
threatens us, that corruption cannot inherit incorruption. 'Neither
doth corruption inherit incorruption'. What then may this singular
expression mean? This is what it manifestly means;--that no person,
whoever he may be, without any exception, who possesseth a corrupt
heart and corrupt actions, and therein persevereth unto death, shall
have reason to expect in the resurrection a pure, subtile, active and
impassible body.
This is actually dangerous tampering with the written letter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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