Tags
agora, Diogenes, Epicureans, Halirrhothius, ineffability, Mars Hill, orator, Paul, sestina, Stoics, Unknown God
Paul was in the agora (market-place)
and saw the altar to The Unknown God.
Unimpressed by ineffability,
he was moved to make a proclamation.
Being keen on words and declaration,
he spelled out the Creator’s qualities.
A skilled orator, he had qualities
respected by debaters in that place.
Converts were won by his declaration.
Diogenes submitted to Paul’s God
and was made Bishop by proclamation:
an agent for Ineffability.
Could God retain ineffability
and yet reveal immanent qualities?
His Son, some say, was the Proclamation-
the One prepared to come down to this place,
to manifest the true nature of God
the Father – a fleshly declaration.
Not speculation, but declaration
validated ineffability.
Paul introduced the Personhood of God
and defined the Almighty’s qualities.
Stoics, Epicureans in that place
felt the power of his proclamation.
The gods had made their own proclamation
on that very site and a declaration
of guilt had been conferred in that same place,
for crimes besmirch ineffability:
Halirrhothius judged for qualities
inconsistent with the ways of a god.
On that steep Hill of Mars, who was the god
of War, Paul made a love proclamation.
He swept away the fickle qualities
of their deities. His declaration
was that Divine Ineffability
condescended to one time and one place.
Paul’s proclamation; God’s declaration:
Ineffability’s limitation
of qualities, so we transcend our place.