| Author Quoted | Vasilii Rozanov |
| Title Quoted | Face sombre du Christ |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1964/04/20 |
| Imprint | Paris : Gallimard. 1964 |
| Quotation | Deeply impressed by Rozanov in the heat behind the woodshed. A magnificent piece of writing about [Mariano Cardinal] Rampola [del Tindaro] celebrating the offices of Good Friday in St. Peter's. But above all this: "With the birth of Christ and the spread of the Gospel, all the fruits of the earth have become bitter"¦. It is impossible not to notice that one can become enthusiastic for art, for family, for politics or science only on condition that one does not look at Christ with full attention. Gogol looked attentively at Christ and threw away his pen and died." How true and how heart-rending: yet with what art it is said. And it depends what you mean by politics. Tsarist careerism-perhaps, or any kind of Byzantine - or Washingtonian - officialism. |
| Journal | Dancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 97-98 |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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