Wednesday, October 5, 2005

If you have pity on Nineveh, then I shall sit and see what will become of the city, wherein, indeed, are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between you and mammon. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
—Matthew 12:41. See also Luke 11, 30,23

The greatest technical and artistic geniuses were powerless to make any change in the utterly uncouth royal fortresses of Nineveh. The meanness of their ground plan and the slavishness of their sculptures were law for centuries.
—Jacob Burckhardt

Nineveh was later destroyed, unlamented.

The gates of the rivers opened, and the palace dissolved. . . . Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? . . . There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?
— Nahum 2:6, 3:7, 19

You and your Father destroy and refrain from destroying, whereas I desire you to come. Not Anathema but Maranatha.