The Quotable Sir John
“Too fair to worship, too divine to love.”
“A life of kindness is the primary meaning of divine worship.”
New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine #124
“Too fair to worship, too divine to love.”
The Belvedere Apollo, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
XV. Why we give worship to the Gods when they need nothing.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
Context: The divine itself is without needs, and the worship is paid for our own benefit. The providence of the Gods reaches everywhere and needs only some congruity for its reception. All congruity comes about by representation and likeness; for which reason the temples are made in representation of heaven, the altar of earth, the images of life (that is why they are made like living things), the prayers of the element of though, the mystic letters of the unspeakable celestial forces, the herbs and stones of matter, and the sacrificial animals of the irrational life in us.
From all these things the Gods gain nothing; what gain could there be to God? It is we who gain some communion with them.
“We believe that nothing worthy of our worship would want our worship.”
Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 18 (p. 401)
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest
Source: NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter
