Speech to the Council
Sep 19, 1248 Anno Domini

O my brothers, O my sisters,

When is a man forgotten?

Venus suffered on the cross and Venus lives on. Yet when I mention Eke, your souls are taken by a stream of disgust. Were they not both sons of God?

But the Venusians say that Venus is the highest and I must obey the Venusians.

Why is a man buried in black?

Is it to cover shame? And whose shame do men share? Eke's or Venus's? And why was Venus crowned in purple? Is it not to flaunt victory?
O brethren, I ask of thee, what shade dost thou follow?

I come not to praise Eke, nor do I come to condemn Venus. For what am I but dust? And when has dust ever judged the stars?

Yet I ask thee this: If it is Venus thou cloak purple, why was it blood that poured from his side?
If blood, then human. If human, mortal.

Still the Venusians say that Venus was the highest and I must obey the Venusians.

My tongue speaks thy own doubts, thy cry after dark:

Why Venus and not Eke?
Why one cross remembered over the other?

Return, my brethren, to that faith which is older than Venus, stronger than the temples, deeper than the hymns.

Mark me well: the day cometh when purple is torn and the crown is ash.

For it is written in the measure of years: that shadow which comes every seventy and seven years of the seventh century, is looming upon us.

For soon, my brethren, very soon, the eclipse draweth near.