From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordTo illustrate can mean to make illustrious, illuminate with splendour, or shed glory upon.
- In TraherneTraherne’s account of the divine image moves from seeing to containing, loving, and shining.
- In this editionThe 2026 note glosses the older sense as making illustrious.
- A place to beginThe perfected creature shines in affection and illustrates its objects with beauty and glory.
Meaning
To illustrate can mean to make illustrious, illuminate with splendour, or shed glory upon. The common modern sense of explaining by an example or picture is not the principal sense here.
Use in the book
Traherne’s account of the divine image moves from seeing to containing, loving, and shining. A soul communicates itself in beams of affection and illustrates the things it illuminates. The repeated light language is therefore active and evaluative: love adds the honour of being known and prized to the objects it encounters. This is not a claim that thought manufactures those objects or that affection changes their material composition. It describes a spiritual relation in which their beauty becomes manifest and is answered by the beholder’s own generosity.
Places to read
- III.61The perfected creature shines in affection and illustrates its objects with beauty and glory.
In this edition
The 2026 note glosses the older sense as making illustrious. The neighbouring “illuminates” confirms that the sentence concerns radiance and glorification rather than explanatory examples.
Source note
Primary text: III.61; historical gloss: 2026 edition note to III.61.