where "seem to have reached" is equivalent to "thou who hast reached," with that delicate shade of difference only which belongs to Greek rather than to English diction. Thus the verb [Greek text] is repeatedly used in the New Testament as an expletive, not meaningless to the ear, though adding no distinct idea which can be expressed in a single word, [Greek text], (St. Matt. iii. 9,) means to all intents, simply, "Say not in yourselves," and [Greek text] (Gal. ii. 9) means, "who were really the pillars they seemed to be." Such passages, it is true, prove nothing as to Tennyson's use of the word seem, but they do illustrate it. The perfect godhead of Christ is brought out fully in the sermon preached by Averill in Aylmer's Field. "The Lord from heaven, born of a village girl, carpenter's son," is there styled in the prophet's words, "Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God."
When the Laureate prays that his very worth may be forgiven, he employs the language of deep humility which meets us so constantly in the writings of Catholic saints. It reminds us of their prayers to the Father of Lights that the best they have ever done may be pardoned, that their tears may be washed, their myrrh incensed, their spikenard's scent perfumed, and their breathings after God fumigated. It is no shallow view that he takes of repentance when he makes Queen Guinevere ask:
"What is true repentance but in thought—
Not e'en in inmost thought to think again
The sins that made the past so pleasant to us?"
Idylls of the King.
He has been accused of making St. Simeon Stylites a self-righteous saint. That he makes him ambitious of saintdom is true, but this hope which he "will not cease to grasp," is fostered by no sense of his own merits, but, on the contrary, springs from the deepest possible conviction of his unworthiness. He describes himself as
"The basest of mankind,
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,
Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet
For troops of devils mad with blasphemy."
He proclaims from his pillar, his "high nest of penance,"
"That Pontius and Iscariot by his side
Showed like fair seraphs."
He details, indeed, in language strikingly intense, his sufferings, prayers, and penances; but he disclaims all praise on account of them, and ascribes all his patience to the divine bounty. He does not breathe or "whisper any murmur of complaint," while he tells how his teeth
"Would chatter with the cold, and all his beard
Was tagged with icy fringes in the moon;"
how his "thighs were rotted with the dew;" and how