Golden Chain

“Faith is the golden chain to link the penitent sinner unto God” (Jeremy Taylor). The allusion is to a passage in Homer’s I liad (i. 19–30), where Zeus says, If a golden chain were let down from heaven, and all the gods and goddesses pulled at one end, they would not be able to pull him down to earth; whereas he could lift with ease all the deities and all created things besides with his single might.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.