Susannah Without the Cherub single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Susannah Without the Cherub
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'In Fragment A of "Jubilate Agno" (1758-63) Christopher Smart intones, "Let Susanna bless with the Butterfly - beauty hath wings, but chastity is the Cherub."

The allusion is to the history of Susannah and the elders, one of the Additions to the Book of Daniel - along with the Prayer of Azariah, and the story of Bel and the dragon - that enters the Christian Bible by way of the Septuagint and, more surely, Theodotion's translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. In placing the story at the end of the book of Daniel, St Jerome allowed it into the Vulgate, the new Latin translation of the Bible. During the Reformation, however, Protestants relegated the story to the Apocrypha, although the Fathers of the Council of Trent in their fourth session (April 18, 1546) confirmed Jerome's judgment, declaring the whole of the Vulgate to be binding for the faithful.' (Author's abstract)

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    y separately published work icon Southerly A Nest of Bunyips vol. 71 no. 3 2011 Z1860341 2011 periodical issue 2011 pg. 76-97
Last amended 15 May 2012 15:01:43
76-97 Susannah Without the Cherubsmall AustLit logo Southerly
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