Word: alexandrian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bodies must be in perfect circles at uniform speed. Aristotle returned to the idea of an immobile earth and placed it in the center of nine concentric, transparent spheres, outside which was the Unmoved Mover who kept the whole machinery turning. To make the heavens jibe with Aristotle, the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy, in the 2nd century A.D., posited a universe of wheels within wheels called epicycles. Of this system, the best comment is perhaps that of Alphonso X of Castile, who said: "If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I should have recommended something simpler...
Like the other books of Durrell's Alexandrian cycle, Mountolive has vivid imagery (the impact of the desert night is like "the flutter of eyelashes against the mind") and penetrant thought (no such thing as art exists for artists and the public; "it only exists for critics and those who live in the forebrain"). The book also has scenes of ghastly hilarity, as when Mountolive stumbles inadvertently into a brothel of child prostitutes and nearly loses his reason as well as his wallet...
Before last week's opening service began, the invited dignitaries from other churches entered the cathedral in solemn procession-among them Alexandrian Archimandrite Parthenios Coinidis, Armenian Bishop Bessak Toumayan in his tall black hat, white-hatted Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Pitirim of Minsk (Cyprus' Archbishop Makarios had been invited by Dr. Fisher, but to everyone's relief failed to turn up). Then came the overseas bishops of Canterbury's jurisdiction-the Anglican colonies and provinces. The procession showed the Anglicans' racial diversity. Among 32 members of mission dioceses, there were nine black bishops from West Africa...
...whom Pope Benedict XIV established a separate patriarchical see in 1742. This group is one of nine Eastern churches which differ in liturgy from Latin rite Catholics but are in communion with Rome in all matters of faith and morals. The other Eastern rites: Byzantine, Alexandrian, Antiochian, Chaldean...
...Shattuck complains : "A secondhand bookstore wouldn't be supported in this town." Says Joseph Baker, professor of English at the State University of Iowa: "Even the intellectuals do not read as much as they did a generation ago, and those who make literature their specialty tend to be Alexandrian-they talk of form, metaphor, style, leaving the important matters to sociology and psychology...