| Author Quoted | Clement of Alexandria |
| Title Quoted | Protreptikos |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1961/08/07 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | Both Newman and Fenelon loved Clement of Alexandria, which is not at all surprising. To Newman he was "like music." This may look like a cliche but it is profound. For there are people one meets-in books and in life-with whom a deep resonance is at once established. For a long time I had no "resonanc" with Newman (cor ad cor loquitur [heart speaks to heart]). I was suspicious of letting him enter my heart. Clement the same. Now I want all the music of Clement, and am only with difficulty restrained from taking new books on Newman from the library while I have so many other things to read and finish. Resonances: one of the "choirs." Maritain, Van der Meer de Walcheren, Bloy, Green, Chagall, Satie-or a string sextet! Another earlier music: Blake, Eckhart, Tauler (Maritain got in here too), Coomaraswamy"¦etc. Music: the marvelous opening of the Protreptikos [of Clement of Alexandria]- the "new song"-the splendid image of the cricket flying to replace by his song the broken string in the Lyre of Eunomos at Delphi. Though he repudiates the myth he uses it splendidly. Humanity a musical instrument for God. |
| Quotation Source | Turning Toward the World: The Pivotal Years. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 4, 1960-1963.; Edited by Victor A. Kramer. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 149 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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