A trio of holy writer trivia:
Thoth, an ancient Egyptian god of the moon, later of wisdom, was the patron deity of scribes. Rather aptly, the god was always depicted as a man with the head of an ibis, or a primate. No, I am not making this up; the god of writers was either a birdbrain or a baboon.
St. Francis de Sales is the Catholic patron saint of writers. His name was an omen, as he became a bestselling author, but he refused to accept royalties for his book Introduction to the Devout Life, which is of course why we consider him a saint.
French author and philosopher, François Marie Arouet de Voltaire, predicted that within 100 years of his time that Christianity would vanish into the obscurity of history. 50 years after Voltaire died in 1778, the Geneva Bible Society used his house and printing press to produce Bibles (and the sound of the rpms coming from his grave made more noise than the printing press.)
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Ganesh, too.
ReplyDeleteLove the Voltaire example. Yeah, that Christianity thing. It ought to be fasing into obscurity any year now.
ReplyDeleteUh, that should be either "fading" or "phasing"....or should I just pretend to be inventing a new word?
ReplyDeleteVoltaire's prediction just goes to show that even the brilliant philosophical types can be way off the mark.
ReplyDeleteSomething that had been around for 17 centuries, give or take, during his lifetime fading away? Nah... don't see it.
The bit about Thoth is cool I've seen the bird guy a lot when I skim thru Egyptian history. never knew he was a patron to writer types.
I like this kind of stuff. :) Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI second pixel faerie's words. Love this kind of trivia!
ReplyDeleteChiming in with Nalini and Pixel Faerie. Thanks for the information!
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