In the sixth century Johannes Lydus revealed that the city of Rome had three names. The one related to mystic rites was Eros, while the hieratic one was Flora and the political one was Rome. The events we shall discuss took place at Rome, and under the influence of an Eros of sorts. We shall call the heroine “Flora” for reasons to be set forth later. The whole story is told by the early Christian apologist Justin.

Most historians of the French Revolution accept the now familiar contention that village curés and vicaires sided with the Third Estate in 1789, presumably out of class solidarity born of common origins and personal contact with the sad lot of ordinary people. Historians also agree that most of these “patriot” curiés (as those who supported reforms and the Third Estate in 1789 called themselves) later deserted the Revolution once it became clear that what the Third had in mind included sweeping restraints on the once vaunted power and property of the church and on the spiritual autonomy and authority of the French clergy.

A French visitor to a nineteenth-century Irish Catholic parish in the United States described the scene as follows: Behold them, when the sanctuary bell announces the moment of consecration; they raise their hands, they extend their arms in the form of a cross, they pray and sigh aloud; at times some leave their pew and prostrate themselves in the aisle, in order to assume a more suppliant and adoring attitude. … If you wait until the end of mass, you will be further edified. You will see them approach as near as possible to the high altar, before which they bow profoundly, making several genuflections, and frequently remain for a moment almost prostrate to the ground. From here they go to kneel at the altar of the Blessed Virgin, then before that of St. Joseph. Then follows a last and touching station before the body of the dead Christ which the Italians call the pietá; they pray here for a few moments, and respectfully press their lips to the five wounds of the Saviour. At the door of the church they take holy water, sign themselves with it repeatedly, and sprinkle their faces with it; then turning to the tabernacle they make a last genuflection, as if to bid farewell to our Lord, and finally withdraw.

The twenty-fourth of September 1905 started as a typical Sunday in Zion City, Illinois. Promptly at 2:00 P.M. John Alexander Dowie ascended the platform of Shiloh Tabernacle, robed in the brightly embroidered garments of an Old Testament High Priest. He was acknowledged by the seven thousand souls who sat before him as the Messenger of the Covenant, the third and final incarnation of the prophet Elijah, and the General Overseer and First Apostle of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion. The 6,600 acres of farms, homes, factories, and businesses surrounding the tabernacle were exclusively his. And for all practical purposes, so were the people. One contemporary journalist judged that Dowie had come to possess the “most autocratic power it is possible to wield in this republic,” while another concluded that “no man… of our time has ever secured anything like the personal following he has.” Near the end of the five hour service the prophet changed into his white expiation robes and, as he had done on countless Sundays in the past, prepared to bless and distribute the Holy Sacraments. But this time, in the semi-darkness of the early evening, he seemed to stagger and slump to the floor. The people soon learned that Dowie had suffered a crippling stroke. They also soon knew that their effort to build a biblical Zion on the “sky-skirted prairie” north of Chicago was in shambles.