{
  "id": "CH08.P013",
  "oid": 206,
  "kind": "paragraph",
  "label": null,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "work_metadata": {
    "title": "Orthodoxy",
    "authors": [
      "G. K. Chesterton"
    ],
    "description": "G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (1908), his account of how he came to Christian belief: the full text with annotations, cited sources and commentary.",
    "original_publication_year": 1908,
    "alternate_titles": [],
    "subjects": [
      "Christian apologetics",
      "Christianity",
      "Philosophy of religion",
      "Paradox",
      "G. K. Chesterton",
      "English literature, 20th century"
    ],
    "metadata_version": 2,
    "metadata_updated_at": "2026-11-07T20:29:57Z"
  },
  "parent": "CH08",
  "ancestors": [
    "CH08"
  ],
  "prev": "CH08.P012",
  "next": "CH08.P014",
  "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH08.P013",
  "text": "Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediæval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things.",
  "length_cp": 1317,
  "sha256": "647b20c5af6b5b80ad5de41586601c52a6ecb8e46290342f71bc91699061dd9c",
  "children": [],
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      "id": "a_apyge7qs",
      "oid": 165532,
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      "revision_oid": 165533,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:31:03Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T18:31:03Z",
      "title": "Chinese Buddhist saints with more than one kind of gaze",
      "work": "orthodoxy",
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "anchors": [
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          "exact": "the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut",
          "start": 572,
          "end": 615,
          "prefix": "hortest statement of it is that ",
          "suffix": ", while the Christian saint alwa",
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        }
      ],
      "metadata": {
        "run": "chapter-08-restart-2026-11-07",
        "paragraph_investigator": "P013",
        "task": [
          {
            "approach": "Assumed knowledge and unusual language",
            "question": "How well does the contrast between closed-eyed, harmonious Buddhist saints and alert, emaciated Christian saints describe Chinese Buddhist sculpture?"
          }
        ],
        "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
      },
      "url": "/a/a_apyge7qs"
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  "cited_by": [
    {
      "id": "a_rf4hlvbl",
      "oid": 165706,
      "revision": 1,
      "revision_oid": 165707,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "title": "The freedom concealed in dogma: orthodoxy as a resource for reform",
      "work": "orthodoxy",
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "anchors": [
        {
          "unit": "CH08",
          "oid": 11,
          "role": null,
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        }
      ],
      "metadata": {
        "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07",
        "pass": "argument",
        "task": "Developing argument of chapter VIII, The Romance of Orthodoxy",
        "object": "CH08",
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