| Author Quoted | Hieronymus |
| Title Quoted | Vita Sancti Pauli Eremitatae |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1967/05/14 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | As I have been asked to do a piece on Paul the Hermit,13 I reread Jerome's Vita today. A work of art, really. With plenty of monastic theology in its symbolism. A beautiful piece of writing, with deep mystical and psychological implications - so that whether or not it is "historical" is irrelevant. It awakens a kind of inner awareness of psychic possibilities which one so easily forgets and neglects. The return to unity, to the ground, the paradisial inner sacred space where the archetypal man dwells in peace and in God. The journey to that space, through a realm of aridity, dualism, dryness, death. The need of courage and of desire. Above all faith, praise, obedience to the inner voice of the Spirit, refusal to give up or to compromise. |
| Quotation Source | Learning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 235 |
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| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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