Talk:Theophilus of Adana

Latest comment: 6 years ago by InternetArchiveBot in topic External links modified

Untitled

edit

There's something ironic in this legend of a man who would do anything to obtain a certain ecclesiatic office otherwise unavailable to him. For one thing, his name consists of Greek roots that mean "a friend to God." The name, as such, finds its way into the Germanic langages as "Gottlieb," meaning just about the same thing. The interesting thing, here, is that he would betray his namesake by entering into a pact with the Devil, and then obtain deliverance by praying to the Virgin Mary instead of God himself, who presumably interceded between the Devil and the Lord Himself to resolve the matter.

The interplay, however invisible and unobtrusive it may have been, begs the viewer to imagine the machinations of the classical gods in the Aeneid, where deities (for instance, Venus and Jupiter) were inclined to take an active role in mortal destiny.


---


Faust Reference

edit

I've brought the Faust reference in line with the Faust entry it links to, &added some relevant information to the variations section.

Kalindoscopy 13:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

The Faust tale has undergone numerous revisions, the one where Faust asscends to heaven is Goethe's, which reflects a philosophy where man's desire to ascend (ie. increase his power and knowledge through reason) is rewarded (in the case of Goethe's Faust, with heaven). Goethe wrote in the 19th century, and thus his Faust has little to do with the development of "witchcraft" as the entire furor surrounding witches for over 100 years. I've changed the ending referenced in this article to the "original", which appeared in the text translated from German in 1592 by "P. F. Gent". As it is much more illustrative of the fact that witchcraft had developed into the serious offence that it was considered during the various witch trials between the 13th and 16th century. The P. F. Gent edition, for example, ends with the warning that, the readers of Faust's tale ought, "to be careful of their vocation, and to be at defiance with all devilish workes, as God hath most precisely forbidden, to the end we should not invite the devil as a guest, nor giue him place as that wicked Faustus hath done". Revealing the original role of the tale as an instruction against sorcery (in addition to entertainment).

Ignus 04:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

That the entries clash might not be the most important issue: but observing the important change within the intent of the story, as it has developed, certainly is.

Kalindoscopy 20:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Theophilus of Adana. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:54, 30 December 2017 (UTC)Reply