The Curse on Knowledge.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Then asked if we had not met before,
At the Spanish Minister’s soiree?
And, as I scanned his face once more,
I found I had known him for many a day.
Source notes
1 ‘Chald. Genesis,’ by George Smith, p. 84.
2 This text was engraved by Mrs. Rose Mary Crawshay on a tomb she had erected in honour of her humble neighbour, Mr. Norbury, who sought knowledge for its own sake. Few ancient scriptures could have supplied an inscription so appropriate.
3 Mr. Baring-Gould, quoting this (from Anastasius Sinaita, Ὁδηγός, ed. Gretser, Ingolst. 1606, p. 269), attributes this shining face of Seth to his previous character as a Sun-god. (‘Old Test. Legends,’ i. 84.)
4 King’s ‘Gnostics,’ p. 53, n.
5 Tertullian’s phrase, ‘The Devil is God’s Ape,’ became popular at one time, and the Ape-devil had frequent representation in art—as, for instance, in Holbein’s ‘Crucifixion’ (1477), now at Augsburg, where a Devil with head of an ape, bat-wings, and flaming red legs is carrying off the soul of the impenitent thief. The same subject is found in the same gallery in an Altdorfer, where the Devil’s face is that of a gorilla.