The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedDenis Rougement
Title QuotedWestern Quest: the Principles of Civilization
Date (Year/Month/Day)1959/11/04
ImprintNew York : Harper. 1957
Quotation"Les camps de concentration, les massacres, les tortures"¦nous rappelent queue est l'essence du paganisme: Le mepris de l'homme que l'on sacrifie sans pitie aux mythes et aux interêts." ["Concentration camps, massacres, tortures"¦reveal to us the essence of paganism: contempt for human beings who are sacrificed without pity for the sake of myths and ideologies."] Tresmontant. p. 125. De Rougemont traces personalism to the Council of Nicea. The concept yes. Tresmontant is right in showing how the Old Testament is in reality the first great charter of human rights-in opposition to all the other religious codes for which the individual does not count. But is this exaggerated? What about Confucius? Aman-enope?
Quotation SourceA Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3, 1952-1960.; Edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 340
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