A Thesis On the Minds of Men

[Birdnerdy 1539]

Spoiler

 

 

 

‘The Vision’, Siegfried of Luciensport, 1531 

 

“And Horen, may your people one day explore the Seven Skies.”

 

Well known and often quoted, we understand God’s blessing to Horen to be quite literal: mankind’s gift is salvation in the afterlife.

But the Word of God seldom bears but a single meaning. 

 

We boast, and history verifies - Horen and his tribe are the most ambitious of the descendants. We build temples of marble, raise monoliths to the sky, and write our own names into the grand tapestry of history in pursuit of the immortality denied to us. Why, if our labors are never destined to bear fruit? Will there ever be a Kingdom that never falls? How many families will endure forever? God only knows. 

 

Study the lives of the Saints, and you will learn that the greatest of men lead the holiest of lives. To be great in the world is to emulate Heaven. We are attracted to the power and grandeur of Empires, triumphs on the field and public forum, and masterpieces of the Arts, because of the air of intentionality, of purpose, that they radiate. One can see traces of the Divine for himself in the presence of a King, or in sublimities captured on canvas. All that is truly great on Earth belongs to God, not to man. When men abandon this truth favor of their own pride and hubris- that is when Empires fall, Kings lose their crowns, and the land falls into shadow. 

 

God’s gift is twofold, and bittersweet. Our souls are saved, but whilst we live, we long to roam the Skies, to adscend to something beyond the restraints that tie us to the ground. Our longings take shape in our labors- our poor attempts at capturing even a sliver of the complete, unknowable majesty of God on Earth. 

 

We must dedicate all our works fully to God. We must forsake our pride, wash ourselves clean of greed.

Mankind must understand that we possesses some fundamental desires that will never be satisfied on this Earth. 

 

Our lives will never be complete until we stand in the presence of God. 
Our hearts will never be released until we stand in the presence of God.
Our souls will never be at peace until we stand in the presence of God. 

 

 

-Neophyte Herod, 14th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1674
 

[Papa Liam 960]

[!] Caius appreciates the thesis, as it elaborates on the motif of pride -- the cardinal sin -- which he had discussed in depth with Father Elwood a few days prior.

 

"Herod is correct. Too often are men with sterling values ruined by their utmost hubris, and the inability to accept exterior critiques, and the fact that their opinions may not align with the Lord's divine wishes. The very men who pray to grow closer to God may very well lead to their own downfall, blinded by their desire for a material, earthly contentedness which exists only in the realms of fairy-tales. I applaud this selfless thesis."

 

Caius files the thesis away for later use, perhaps implementing it into a lesson plan for his philosophy class at the Academy.

[osumanduas 1442]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

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