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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE TO LOVES OF THE ANGELS. The Eastern story of the angels Harut and Marut, and the Rabbinical fictions of the loves of Uzziel and Shdmchazai, t are the only sources to which I need refer, for the origin of the notion on which this Romance is founded. In addition to the fitness of the subject for poetry, it struck me also as capable of affording an allegorical medium, through which might be shadowed out (as I have endeavoured to do in the following stories) the fall of the Soul from its original purity J ? the loss of light and happiness which it suffers, in the pursuit of thisworld's perishable pleasures ? and the punishments, both from conscience and Divine justice, with which impurity, pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of Heaven are sure to be visited. The beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche owes its chief charm to this sort of veiled meaning, and k has been my wish (however I may have failed in the attempt) to communicate to the following pages the same moral interest. See note on page 348. t Hyde, de Relig. Vet Persarum, p. 272. t The account which Macrobius givesl of the downward journey of the Soul, through that gate of the zodiac which opens into the lower spheres, is a curious specimen of the wild fancies that passed for philosophy in ancient times. In the system of Manes, the luminous or spiritual principla 1 In Somn. Scipionis, cap. 12. Among the doctrines, or notions, derived by Plato from the East, one of the most natural and sublime is that which inculcates the pre-existence of the soul, and its gradual descent into this dark material world, frojp that region of spirit and light which it is supposed to have once inhabited, and to which, after a long lapse of purification and trial, it will return. This belief, under..
| ISBN-13 | 9780217785914 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217785913 |
| Weight | 0.56 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.38 In |
| List Price | $26.12 |
| Format | Paperback |
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| Pages | 166 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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