Synchronistically, I had just been reading the middle English poem _Pearl_
& thinking about the possible connexion with the Pearl story you direct us
to, Robin , so fascinatingly associated by Ted Hughes with the Gnostic
Sophia myth in Shakespeare's later plays, especially _Pericles_, where the
lower split off Sophia, like the Pearl, falls into a dark prison of
ignorance, a brothel in the Simon Magus story & _Pericles_. I am grateful
for the link to The White Robed Monks of St Benedict Source Documents 1A & B
and the Jungian material expounded there. I love reading about the yearning
for transcendence, though I keep failing to believe in its object. Ecstasy
can be attained, but transcendence of life/death is hard to imagine.
I am also (like Candice) reading the _Qur'an_, backwards in the edition of
the Islamic Call Society, Jamahirya Arab Libyan Popular Socialist, Tripoli,
translation by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, the 1st by an English Muslim,
as he proudly claims. It strikes me that it fairly stresses that not only
Jews & Christians can hope for God's mercy, as they claim, but unfairly
limits that grace or mercy to those believing in the (Godsent) Scripture,
disbelievers get short shrift. The stress on doing good is heart-warming ~
no Calvinist justification through wealth here. But the emphasis on
retaliation falls short of the Christian ethic, in my opinion, though most
Christians have fallen lamentably short of that. But at least Allah wishes
retaliation to be law-governed, not arbitrary. I haven't looked at this
since my youth (an old Everyman edition only skimmed through) & am glad a
former pupil had presented me with it, plus a book by an Islamic cleric
criticising Khomeini. I'm very interested to hear your further responses to
it, Candice.
best
Martin
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