Idyll Two: Northwest Croatia
THE SIX-WINGED SERAPH: A NOVELLA
INTRODUCTION
https://medium.com/@agencex/the-six-winged-seraph-3828091be588
IDYLL TWO: NORTHWEST CROATIA
EPIGRAPH
“It would seem that St. Francis beheld the heavens above him occupied by a vast winged being like a seraph spread out like a cross. There seems some mystery about whether the winged figure was itself crucified or in a posture of crucifixion, or whether it merely enclosed in its frame of wings some colossal crucifix. But it seems clear that there was some question of the former impression; for St. Bonaventure distinctly says that St. Francis doubted how a seraph could be crucified, since those awful and ancient principalities were without the infirmity of the Passion […]. St. Francis saw above him, filling the whole heavens, some vast immemorial unthinkable power, ancient like the Ancient of Days, whose calm men had conceived under the form of winged bulls or monstrous cherubim, and all that winged wonder was in pain like a wounded bird. This seraphic suffering, it is said, pierced his soul with a sword of grief and pity; it may be inferred that some sort of mounting agony accompanies the ecstasy. Finally after some fashion the apocalypse faded from the sky and the agony within subsided; and the silence and the natural air filled the morning twilight…
