Black-and-white engraving of Samson standing among the collapsing temple columns while a crowd falls and flees down the steps.

Faith · Art

Samson in the Temple of the Philistines in Gustave Doré's Engraving of 1866

Samson destroys the pagan temple in which the Philistines are celebrating their victory over him. And the reader comes at last to understand that the hero's extraordinary strength lay not in his hair, but in his obedience to God. Engraving by Gustave Doré, 1866

NB! · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

Lucas Cranach the Elder and we remind you that there are 8 days left until the end of Lent, and wish everyone a sense of proportion

Faith · Art · Museums

Donatello’s “Feast of Herod” in Lille and the Innovative Perspective of the Marble Relief

How Did Donatello Achieve in Marble the Same Effect That Da Vinci Achieved in Oil Painting? Now held in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, the "Feast of Herod" is one of Donatello's greatest masterpieces. The marble version may perhaps yield to the dramatic intensity

NB! · Faith · Art · Books · Observations

Caravaggio's "Sacrifice of Isaac" on the Cover of Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling"

Caravaggio's "Sacrifice of Isaac" on the cover of Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling". A marriage made in heaven

NB! · Faith · Observations · Humour

So "he flew away, but promised to return" is, quite literally, about Christ

Faith · Art · Science · Nature

In the Middle Ages the rabbit was linked with virgin conception

In the Middle Ages the rabbit was linked with virgin conception. It is no accident that the rabbit appears in the iconography of the Virgin, for instance beside Titian's Madonna. It was believed that a doe rabbit could produce young without mating with a male; this notion in

Faith · Books

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things

For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth these three: faith, hope, charity; but the greatest of these is charity. The First Epistle of Paul the

NB! · Archive · Faith · Society · Ethnography

Members of the Russian Doukhobor sect in Saskatchewan in 1907: the Doukhobors fled persecution at home with the sponsorship of Leo Tolstoy and other benefactors, and founded a prosperous diaspora in Canada

Faith · Observations · Society

Thank God, Easter Symbolism Has Not Yet Been Banned in Europe

A reminder: in certain countries, which we shall not name, Christmas markets may now be called merely "festive" ones, and as for the crucifix vanishing from images of churches, we know about that not by hearsay alone

NB! · Faith · Art

Saint Mary of Egypt as a Recluse, Boetius Adams Bolswert, after Abraham Bloemaert, c. 1619

NB! · Faith · Society · People · Rome

Pope Francis's First Public Appearance After Hospitalisation

Archive · Faith · Art · Books

Christian Faith, bearing New Testament symbols (the crucifix, the keys of Heaven, the attributes of the Eucharist, the papal tiara, the four Evangelists and the Fountain of Life), sheds divine light upon Europe

Christian Faith, bearing New Testament symbols (the crucifix, the keys of Heaven, the attributes of the Eucharist, the papal tiara, the four Evangelists and the Fountain of Life), sheds divine light upon Europe. Faith of the Old Testament, in a horned headdress, with the tablets of the commandments and a