From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordFellowship is participation in something held in common and, by extension, company among those who share it.
- In TraherneThe mystery is not exhausted by contemplating redemption.
- In this editionFellowship means more than friendly feeling.
- A place to beginThe world’s inheritance is introduced through the fellowship of a previously hidden mystery.
Meaning
Fellowship is participation in something held in common and, by extension, company among those who share it. The biblical phrase “fellowship of the mystery” gives the word a strongly theological setting.
Use in the book
The mystery is not exhausted by contemplating redemption. It includes the end for which redemption was accomplished: communion with God in glory. Fellowship can therefore unite persons who have never met bodily, including angels and believers whose hidden lives the child did not know existed. Discovering these others corrects the fantasy that an isolated revelation to oneself would be the highest gift. Shared enjoyment supplies support and confirms that the good exceeds a private intellectual possession.
Places to read
- I.3The world’s inheritance is introduced through the fellowship of a previously hidden mystery.
- I.5That fellowship includes participation in the glory for which Christ redeemed humanity.
- II.25Human understanding permits admission into the fellowship and order of angels.
- III.28Previously unseen contemplatives prove companions and a help in the pursuit of felicity.
In this edition
Fellowship means more than friendly feeling. In these passages it names a real participation in objects, life, and glory, while bodily proximity is not always required.