Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  As for England, nine Franciscans, four of them clerics, only one of whom was in priest’s orders, landed at Dover, 1224, and went to Canterbury, and then to London. The account of their early labors on English soil, by Thomas of Eccleston, a contemporary,851 is one of the freshest and most absorbing relations of English affairs in the Middle Ages. At Canterbury they were entertained by the monks of Feskamp, and at London by the Black Friars. At Oxford they received a warm welcome. Grosseteste announced their advent with a sermon from the words, "They that sat in darkness have seen a great light." It was as if the door to a new religious era had been opened. Of their settlement in St. Ebbe’s parish, Oxford, it was said that "there was sown a grain of mustard seed which grew to be greater than all the trees." They were quickly settled at Cambridge, Norwich, Northampton, Yarmouth, and other centres. They were the first popular preachers that England had seen, and the first to embody a practical philanthropy.852 The condition of English villages and towns at that day was very wretched. Skin diseases were fearfully prevalent, including leprosy. Destructive epidemics spread with great rapidity. Sanitary precautions were unknown. Stagnant pools and piles of refuse abounded.853 Partly from necessity and partly from pure choice these ardent religionists made choice of quarters in the poorest and most neglected parts of the towns. In Norwich they settled in a swamp through which the city sewerage passed. At Newgate, now a part of London, they betook themselves to Stinking Lane. At Cambridge they occupied the decayed gaol. No wonder that such zeal received recognition. The people soon learned to respect the new apostles. Adam Marsh joined them, and he and Grosseteste, the most influential English ecclesiastic of his day, lectured in the Franciscan school at Oxford. The burgesses of London and other towns gave them lands, as did also the king, at Shrewsbury. In 1256 the number of English friars had increased to 1242, settled in forty-nine different localities.854 The Franciscans also gave an impetus to learning; they set up schools, as at Oxford, where Robert Grosseteste delivered lectures for them. Most of the great English Schoolmen belonged to the Franciscan order. Eccleston describes the godly lives of the early English Franciscans, their abstinence, and their lightheartedness.855 Less than fifty years after their advent, one of their number, Robert Kilwarby, was sitting in the archepiscopal chair of Canterbury; to another Franciscan, Bonaventura, was offered the see of York, which he declined.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  He says that he was the charactēr of God’s very essence. In Greek, charactēr means two things – first, a seal, and, second, the impression that the seal leaves on the wax. The impression has the exact form of the seal. So, when the writer to the Hebrews said that Jesus was the charactēr of the being of God, he meant that he was the exact image of God. Just as, when you look at the impression, you see exactly what the seal which made it is like, so when you look at Jesus you see exactly what God is like. In his commentary, the nineteenth-century scholar and churchman C. J. Vaughan has pointed out that this passage tells us six great things about Jesus. (1) The original glory of God belongs to him. Here is a wonderful thought. Jesus is God’s glory; therefore, we see with amazing clarity that the glory of God consists not in crushing men and women and reducing them to miserable submission and slavery, but in serving them and loving them and in the end dying for them. It is not the glory of shattering power but the glory of suffering love. (2) The destined empire belongs to Jesus. The New Testament writers never doubted his ultimate triumph. Think of it. They were thinking of a Galilaean carpenter who was crucified as a criminal on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. They themselves faced savage persecution and were the humblest of people. As the Yorkshire poet Sir William Watson said of them: So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ. And yet they never doubted the eventual victory. They were quite certain that God’s love was backed by his power and that in the end the kingdoms of the world would be the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. (3) The creative action belongs to Jesus. The early Church held that the Son had been God’s agent in creation, that in some way God had originally created the world through him. They were filled with the thought that the one who had created the world would also be the one who redeemed it. (4) The sustaining power belongs to Jesus. These early Christians had a tremendous grip of the doctrine of providence. They did not think of God as creating the world and then leaving it to itself. Somehow and somewhere, they saw a power that was carrying the world and each life on to a destined end. They believed, as Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam: That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. (5) To Jesus belongs the redemptive work. By his sacrifice, he paid the price of sin; by his continual presence, he liberates from sin.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  But the really amazing thing is that, according to the Exodus story, Moses not only made these regulations for the night on which the children of Israel were leaving Israel; he also laid it down that they were to be observed annually for all time. That is to say, he never doubted the success of the enterprise, never doubted that the people would be delivered from Egypt and that some day they would reach the promised land. Here was a band of wretched Israelite slaves about to set off on a journey across an unknown desert to an unknown promised land, and here was the whole power of Egypt hot upon their heels; yet Moses never doubted that God would bring them safely through. He was supremely the man who had the faith that, if God gave his people an order, he would also give them the strength to carry it out. Moses knew very well that God does not summon his servants to a difficult and challenging task and leave it at that; he goes with them every step of the way. (5) There was the momentous act of the crossing of the Red Sea. The story is told in Exodus 14. There, we read of how the children of Israel were wondrously enabled to pass through and of how the Egyptians were engulfed when they tried to do the same. It was at that moment that the faith of Moses communicated itself to the people and drove them on when they might well have turned back. Here, we have the faith of a leader and of a people who were prepared to attempt the impossible at the command of God, realizing that the greatest barrier in the world is no barrier if God is there to help us to get over it. Moses possessed the faith to attempt what appeared to be the most insurmountable barriers, in the certainty that God would help the one who refused to turn back and insisted on going on. Finally, this passage not only tells us of the faith of Moses; it also tells us of the source of that faith. Verse 27 tells us that he was able to face all things as one who sees the God who is invisible. The outstanding characteristic of Moses was the close intimacy of his relationship with God. In Exodus 33:9–11, we read of how he went into the tabernacle: ‘Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.’ In Numbers 12:7–8, we read of God’s verdict on him when there were those who were ready to rebel against him: ‘with him I speak face to face’.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  God cannot reveal more than human beings can understand. His revelation comes through human minds and hearts. That is exactly what the writer to the Hebrews saw. He says that the revelation of God which came through the prophets was in many parts (polumerōs) and in many ways (polutropōs). There are two ideas there. (1) The revelation of the prophets had a magnificent diversity which made it a tremendous thing. From age to age, they had spoken, always fitting their message to the age, never letting it be out of date. At the same time, that revelation was fragmentary and had to be presented in such a way that the limitations of the time would understand. One of the most interesting things is to see how, time after time, the prophets are characterized by one idea. For instance, Amos is ‘a cry for social justice’. Isaiah had grasped the holiness of God. Hosea, because of his own bitter home experience, had realized the wonder of the forgiving love of God. Out of their own experience of life and out of the experience of Israel, the prophets had each grasped and expressed a fragment of the truth of God. None had grasped the fullness of truth in its entirety; but with Jesus it was different. He was not a fragment of the truth; he was the whole truth. In him, God displayed not some part of himself but all of himself. (2) The prophets used many methods. They used the method of speech. When speech failed, they used the method of dramatic action (cf. 1 Kings 11:29–32; Jeremiah 13:1–9, 27:1–7; Ezekiel 4:1–3, 5:1–4). The prophets had to use human methods to transmit their own part of the truth of God. Again, it was different with Jesus. He revealed God by being himself. It is not so much what he said and did that shows us what God is like; it is what he was. The revelation of the prophets was great and came in many forms, but it was fragmentary and presented by such methods as they could find to make it effective. The revelation of God in Jesus was complete and was presented in Jesus himself. In a word, the prophets were the friends of God; but Jesus was the Son. The prophets grasped part of the mind of God; but Jesus was that mind. It is to be noted that it is no part of the purpose of the writer to the Hebrews to belittle the prophets; it is his aim to establish the supremacy of Jesus Christ. He is not saying that there is a break between the Old Testament revelation and that of the New Testament; he is stressing the fact that there is continuity, but continuity that ends in consummation. The writer to the Hebrews uses two great pictures to describe what Jesus was. He says that he was the apaugasma of God’s glory.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  There was David, who had once been a shepherd boy and who, to his own and everyone else’s astonishment, was anointed king in preference to all his brothers (1 Samuel 16:1– 13). There was Samuel, born to his mother so late in life (1 Samuel 1), again and again moving alone as the only strong and faithful man of God among an easily frightened, discontented and rebellious people. There were the prophets, one after another bearing a faithful and isolated witness to God. The whole list is made up of individuals who faced incredible odds for God. It cites people who never believed that God was on the side of the big battalions and who were willing to take tremendous and even terrifying risks for him – those who cheerfully and courageously and confidently accepted God-given tasks that, on human terms, were impossible. They were all individuals who were never afraid to stand alone and to face immense odds for the sake of their loyalty to God. The honour roll of history is of people who chose to be in God’s minority rather than with the world’s majority. In the second part of the passage, the writer to the Hebrews tells what these remarkable individuals and others like them did, in a series of short, sharp phrases. For most of us, much of their impact may be lost, for this reason: phrase after phrase is a reminiscence. For those who knew the Scriptures well in their Greek version, phrase after phrase would ring a bell in the mind. The word used for mastering kingdoms is the word that Josephus, the Jewish historian, used of David. The phrase used for did righteousness is the description of David in 2 Samuel 8:15. The expression used for shutting the mouths of lions is that used of Daniel in Daniel 6:18, 23. The phrase about quenching the power of fire goes straight back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3:19–28. To speak about escaping the edge of the sword was to direct people’s thoughts to the way in which Elijah escaped threatened assassination in 1 Kings 19:1ff., as did Elisha in 2 Kings 6:31ff. The trumpet-call about being strong in warfare and routing the ranks of aliens would immediately make people think of the unforgettable glories of the Maccabaean days. The phrase about being made strong out of weakness might conjure up a number of pictures. It might paint the mental picture of the extraordinary healing of Hezekiah after he had turned his face to the wall to die (2 Kings 20:1–7). Perhaps more likely in the time in which the writer to the Hebrews wrote, it would remind his hearers of that epic but bloodthirsty incident told in the Book of Judith, one of the apocryphal books. There was a time when Israel was threatened by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar led by his general Holofernes.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  CHAPTER VIII. CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. Sources. The teaching and example of Christ as exhibited in the Gospels, and of the apostles in the Acts and Epistles; compared and contrasted with the rabbinical ethics and the state of Jewish society, and with the Greek systems of philosophy and the moral condition of the Roman empire, as described in the writings of Seneca, Tacitus, the Roman satirists, etc. Literature. I. The respective sections in the Histories of the Apost. Church by Neander: I. 229–283 (Germ. ed.); Schaff: §§ 109–123 (pp. 433–492); Lange: II. 495– 534; Weizsäcker: 647–698. II The works on the Theology of the Apostolic Age, by Schmid, Reuss, Baur, Weiss, etc. III. The Systems of Christian Ethics by Schleiermacher, Rothe, Neander, Schmid, Wuttke, Harless, Martensen, Luthardt, and Lecky’s History of European Morals (1869), vol I. 357 sqq. IV. A. Thoma (pastor in Mannheim): Geschichte der christlichen Sittenlehre in der Zeit des Neuen Testamentes, Haarlem, 1879 (380 pp.). A crowned prize-essay of the Teyler Theol. Society. The first attempt of a separate critical history of N. T. ethics, but written from the negative standpoint of the Tübingen school, and hence very unsatisfactory. It is divided in three parts: I. The Ethics of Jesus; II. The Ethics of Paul; III. The Ethics of the Congregation. V. Works which treat of Christian life in the post-apostolic age (Cave, Arnold, Schmidt, Chastel, Pressensé, etc.) will be noticed in the second period. § 44. The Power of Christianity. Practical Christianity is the manifestation of a new life; a spiritual (as distinct from intellectual and moral) life; a supernatural (as distinct from natural) life; it is a life of holiness and peace; a life of union and communion with God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; it is eternal life, beginning with regeneration and culminating in the resurrection. It lays hold of the inmost centre of man’s personality, emancipates him from the dominion of sin, and brings him into vital union with God in Christ; from this centre it acts as a purifying, ennobling, and regulating force upon all the faculties of man—the emotions, the will, and the intellect—and transforms even the body into a temple of the Holy Spirit. Christianity rises far above all other religions in the theory and practice of virtue and piety. It sets forth the highest standard of love to God and to man; and this not merely as an abstract doctrine, or an object of effort and hope, but as a living fact in the person of Jesus Christ, whose life and example have more power and influence than all the maxims and precepts of sages and legislators. Deeds speak louder than words. Praecepta docent, exempla trahunt. The finest systems of moral philosophy have not been able to regenerate and conquer the world. The gospel of Christ has done it and is doing it constantly.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  People of all sexes frequently turn up at Big Sur and announce that they want to join the Sex Cult. Miller gives them bus fare and a good dinner and sends them on their way. Orwell has written one of the best essays on Miller, although he takes a sociological approach and tries to place Miller as a Depression writer or something of the sort. What astonished Orwell about Miller was the difference between his view and the existential bitterness of a novelist like Céline. Céline’s Voyage au bout de la Nuit describes the meaninglessness of modern life and is thus a prototype of twentieth-century fiction. Orwell calls Céline’s book a cry of unbearable disgust, a voice from the cesspool. And Orwell adds that the Tropic of Cancer is almost exactly the opposite! Such a thing as Miller’s book “has become so unusual as to seem almost anomalous, [for] it is the book of a man who is happy.” Miller also reached the bottom of the pit, as many writers do; but how, Orwell asks, could he have emerged unembittered, whole, laughing with joy? “Exactly the aspects of life that fill Céline with horror are the ones that appeal to him. So far from protesting, he is accepting. And the very word ‘acceptance’ calls up his real affinity, another American, Walt Whitman.” This is, indeed, the crux of the matter and it is unfortunate that Orwell cannot see past the socio-economic situation with Whitman and Miller. Nevertheless, this English critic recognizes Miller’s mastery of his material and places him among the great writers of our age; more than that, he predicts that Miller will set the pace and attitude for the novelist of the future. This has not happened yet, but I agree that it must. Miller’s influence today is primarily among poets; those poets who follow Whitman must necessarily follow Miller, even to the extent of giving up poetry in its formal sense and writing that personal apocalyptic prose which Miller does. It is the prose of the Bible of Hell that Blake talked about and Arthur Rimbaud wrote a chapter of. What is this “acceptance” Orwell mentions in regard to Whitman and Henry Miller? On one level it is the poetry of cosmic consciousness, and on the most obvious level it is the poetry of the Romantic nineteenth century. Miller is unknown in this country because he represents the Continental rather than the English influence. He breaks with the English literary tradition just as many of the twentieth-century Americans do, because his ancestry is not British, and not American colonial.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  15 For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the Store, the school and the church, like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible. Then I met, or rather got to know, the lady who threw me my first life line. Mrs. Bertha Flowers was the aristocrat of Black Stamps. She had the grace of control to appear warm in the coldest weather, and on the Arkansas summer days it seemed she had a private breeze which swirled around, cooling her. She was thin without the taut look of wiry people, and her printed voile dresses and flowered hats were as right for her as denim overalls for a farmer. She was our side's answer to the richest white woman in town. Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged, but then no one would have thought of getting close enough to Mrs. Flowers to ruffle her dress, let alone snag her skin. She didn't encourage familiarity. She wore gloves too. I don't think I ever saw Mrs. Flowers laugh, but she smiled often. A slow widening of her thin black lips to show even, small white teeth, then the slow effortless closing. When she chose to smile on me, I always wanted to thank her. The action was so graceful and inclusively benign. She was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be. Momma had a strange relationship with her. Most often when she passed on the road in front of the Store, she spoke to Momma in that soft yet carrying voice, “Good day, Mrs. Henderson.” Momma responded with “How you, Sister Flowers?” Mrs. Flowers didn't belong to our church, nor was she Momma's familiar. Why on earth did she insist on calling her Sister Flowers? Shame made me want to hide my face. Mrs. Flowers deserved better than to be called Sister. Then, Momma left out the verb. Why not ask, “How are you, Mrs. Flowers?” With the unbalanced passion of the young, I hated her for showing her ignorance to Mrs. Flowers. It didn't occur to me for many years that they were as alike as sisters, separated only by formal education. Although I was upset, neither of the women was in the least shaken by what I thought an unceremonious greeting. Mrs. Flowers would continue her easy gait up the hill to her little bungalow, and Momma kept on shelling peas or doing whatever had brought her to the front porch. Occasionally, though, Mrs. Flowers would drift off the road and down to the Store and Momma would say to me, “Sister, you go on and play.” As I left I would hear the beginning of an intimate conversation. Momma persistently using the wrong verb, or none at all. “Brother and Sister Wilcox is sho'ly the meanest—” “Is,” Momma? “Is”? Oh, please, not “is,” Momma, for two or more.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  He loves the person who is ready to venture for his name. The prudent, comfort-loving individual is the very opposite of God. The one who goes out into the unknown and keeps going on will in the end arrive at God. THE SUPREME SACRIFICE Hebrews 11:17–19 It was by faith that Abraham offered up Isaac when he was put to the test. He was willing to offer up even his only son, although it had been said to him: ‘It is in Isaac that your descendants will be named.’ He was willing to do this, for he reckoned that God was able to raise him even from the dead. Hence he did receive him back, which is a parable of the resurrection. THE Isaac story, told in Genesis 22:1–18, is that most dramatic account of how Abraham met the supreme test of the demand for the life of his own son. To some extent, this story has fallen into disrepute. Some people argue that it presents an unacceptable view of God. Or it is held that the point of the story is that it was in this way that Abraham learned that God did not desire human sacrifice. No doubt that is true; but, if we want to see this story at its greatest and as the writer to the Hebrews saw it, we must take it at its face value. It shows the response of a man who was asked to offer his own son to God. (1) This story teaches us that we must be ready to sacrifice what is dearest to us for the sake of loyalty to God. There have been many who have sacrificed their careers to what they took to be the will of God. J. P. Struthers was the minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Greenock, a little congregation which, it is neither false nor unkind to say, had a great past but no future. Had he been willing to forsake this church, any pulpit in the land was open to him and the most dazzling ecclesiastical rewards were his; but he sacrificed them all for the sake of what he considered to be loyalty to God’s will. Sometimes, people may have to sacrifice personal relationships.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  1 Love Vowed to the Dead T HE SHYOGUN* YOSHlMASA, A FORMER RULER of Japan, had, beside a passionate general love for all arts and delicate pleasures, a particular love for incense. He had made a collection of the various incense from the trees of every province of Japan, and his sense of smell was so nice that he could appreciate the most subtle difference in their perfume. One cold autumn evening he was talking with his friends of his dear incense. Night was drawing on, and a breath of air came suddenly into the room carrying a soft and delicious scent. Neither he nor his friends had ever known so tender a perfume. He ordered one of his attendants to search the palace for its origin; but it could not be found in the palace. Then he sent his favourite, Toshikiyo Tambanokami, to find out where that incense burned, and he immediately set out with his two servants. The scent was very faint, but, when they had crossed the meadows to the bank of the river Kamo, it became stronger. It floated from the other bank of the river, so Toshikiyo crossed by a ford. This was the evening of the sixth of November, and dark, for there was no moon. They crossed the river by the pale light of the stars set high in heaven. On the other bank they found a man seated upon a rock, wearing an old cloak made of Straw and a rush hat. In his sleeves he held a censer. He had an air of peace and serenity. Toshikiyo asked him: 'Dear Stranger, why are you alone in such a place so late at night?' And while he was speaking, he smelt the perfume for which he sought, rising from the Stranger's censer. The other replied: 'I am watching the flight of the river Kamo's singing plovers.' Toshikiyo was impressed by this answer. . To be able to listen to the plovers of the river on so cold and dark a night, the man must be finely cultured and could not be of low class. He said to him more politely: 'Excuse my curiosity, but I come at the command of my master, the Shyôgun Yoshimasa, to seek the man who diffuses so sweet a perfume. Who are you, Stranger?' The man answered: '1 am not a priest who has renounced all worldly matters for the love of Buddha. Neither am I an ordinary man. Behold me rather a traveller, with no place to lay my head. I am more than sixty-six years old, but my feet are Still firm and I can walk freely.' And he arose and Started toward the pines by the water side. It was a plain reply, yet full of mystery. Toshikiyo was even more surprised than before; he held the stranger back and asked him: 'I beg you to tell me the name of the incense you burn.

• From The Girls (2016)

  “I think I saw you the other day,” I said. “By the Hi-Ho?” She didn’t respond, giving me nothing to grab on to. “You were with some girls?” I said. “And a bus came?” “Oh,” she said, her face reanimating. “Yeah, that idiot was real mad.” She relaxed into the memory. “I have to keep the other girls in line, you know, or they’d just fall all over themselves. Get us caught.” I was watching Suzanne with an interest that must have been obvious: she let me look at her without any self-consciousness. “I remembered your hair,” I said. Suzanne seemed pleased. Touching the ends, absently. “I never cut it.” I would find out, later, that this was something Russell told them not to do. Suzanne nestled the toilet paper to her chest, suddenly proud. “You want me to give you some money for this?” She had no pockets, no purse. “Nah,” I said. “It’s not like it cost me anything.” “Well, thanks,” she said, with obvious relief. “You live around here?” “Pretty close,” I said. “With my mom.” Suzanne nodded. “What street?” “Morning Star Lane.” She made a hum of surprise. “Fancy.” I could see it meant something to her, me living in the nice part of town, but I couldn’t imagine what, beyond the vague dislike for the rich that all young people had. Mashing up the wealthy and the media and the government into an indistinct vessel of evil, perpetrators of the grand hoax. I was only just starting to learn how to rig certain information with apology. How to mock myself before other people could. “What about you?” She made a fluttery motion with her fingers. “Oh,” she said, “you know. We’ve got some things going on. But a lot of people in one place”—she held up the bag—“means a lot of asses that need wiping. We’re low on money, at this exact moment, but that’ll turn, soon, I’m sure.” We. The girl was part of a we, and I envied her ease, her surety of where she was aimed after the parking lot. Those two other girls I’d seen

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Virgin Mary marks the turning point in the history of the female sex. As the mother of Christ, the second Adam, she corresponds to Eve, and is, in a spiritual sense, the mother of all living.628 In her, the "blessed among women," the whole sex wass blessed, and the curse removed which had hung over the era of the fall. She was not, indeed, free from actual and native sin, as is now, taught, without the slightest ground in Scripture, by the Roman church since the 8th of December, 1854. On the contrary, as a daughter of Adam, she needed, like all men, redemption and sanctification through Christ, the sole author of sinless holiness, and she herself expressly calls God her Saviour.629 But in the mother and educator of the Saviour of the world we no doubt may and should revere, though not worship, the model of female Christian virtue, of purity, tenderness, simplicity, humility, perfect obedience to God, and unreserved surrender to Christ. Next to her we have a lovely group of female disciples and friends around the Lord: Mary, the wife of Clopas; Salome, the mother of James and John; Mary of Bethany, who sat at Jesus’ feet; her busy and hospitable sister, Martha; Mary of Magdala, whom the Lord healed of a demoniacal possession; the sinner, who washed his feet with her tears of penitence and wiped them with her hair; and all the noble women, who ministered to the Son of man in his earthly poverty with the gifts of their love,630 lingered last around his cross,631 and were the first at his open sepulchre on the, morning of the resurrection.632 Henceforth we find woman no longer a slave of man and tool of lust, but the pride and joy of her husband, the fond mother training her children to virtue and godliness, the ornament and treasure of the family, the faithful sister, the zealous servant of the congregation in every work of Christian charity, the sister of mercy, the martyr with superhuman courage, the guardian angel of peace, the example of purity, humility, gentleness, patience, love, and fidelity unto death. Such women were unknown before. The heathen Libanius, the enthusiastic eulogist of old Grecian culture, pronounced an involuntary eulogy on Christianity when he exclaimed, as he looked at the mother of Chrysostom: "What women the Christians have!" § 47. Christianity and the Family. H. Gregoire: De l’influence du christianisme sur la condition des femmes. Paris, 1821. F. Münter: Die Christin im heidnischen Hause vor den Zeiten Constantin’s des Grossen. Kopenhagen, 1828. Julia Kavanagh: Women of Christianity, Exemplary for Acts of Piety and Charity. Lond., 1851; N. York, 1866. Thus raising the female sex to its true freedom and dignity, Christianity transforms and sanctifies the entire family life. It abolishes polygamy, and makes monogamy the proper form of marriage; it condemns concubinage with all forms of unchastity and impurity.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Moses gave up earthly glory for the sake of the people of God. Christ gave up his glory for the sake of all humanity, and accepted scourging and shame and a terrible death. Moses in his day and generation shared in the sufferings of Christ, choosing the loyalty that led to suffering rather than the comfort which led to earthly glory. He knew that the prizes of earth were contemptible compared with the ultimate reward of God. (3) The day came when Moses, because of his intervention on behalf of his people, had to leave Egypt and go to Midian (Exodus 2:14– 22). Because of the order in which it comes, that must be what verse 27 refers to. Some people have found difficulty here, because the Exodus narrative says that it was because Moses feared Pharaoh that he fled to Midian (Exodus 2:14), while Hebrews says that he went out not fearing the blazing wrath of the king. There is no real contradiction. It is simply that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews saw even more deeply into the story. For Moses to go to Midian was not an act of fear; it was an act of courage. It showed the courage of the man who has learned to wait. The Stoics were wise; they held that people should not throw their lives away by needlessly provoking the wrath of a tyrant. Seneca wrote: ‘The wise man will never provoke the wrath of mighty men; nay, he will turn aside from it, in just the same way as sailors in sailing will not deliberately court the danger of the storm.’ At that moment, Moses might have gone on – but his people were not ready. If he had gone on recklessly, he would simply have thrown his life away, and the deliverance from Egypt might never have happened. He was big enough and brave enough to wait until God said: ‘Now is the hour.’ Moffatt quotes a saying of the biblical scholar A. S. Peake: ‘The courage to abandon work on which one’s heart is set and accept inaction cheerfully as the will of God is of the rarest and highest kind and can be created and sustained only by the clearest spiritual vision.’ When our natural instincts say: ‘Go on,’ it takes a big and a brave person to wait. It is human to be afraid of missing the chance; but it is important to wait for the time of God – even when it seems like throwing a chance away. (4) There came the day when Moses had to make all the arrangements for the first Passover. The account is in Exodus 12:12–48. The unleavened bread had to be made; the Passover lamb had to be slain; the doorpost had to be smeared with the blood of the lamb so that the Angel of Death would see the blood and pass over that house and not slay the first-born in it.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Distinct from the Cathari and other sects in origin and doctrine, but sharing with them the condemnation of the established Church, were the Waldenses. The Cathari lived completely apart from the Catholic Church. The Waldenses, leaning upon the Scriptures, sought to revive the simple precepts of the Apostolic age. They were the strictly biblical sect of the Middle Ages. This fact, and the pitiless and protracted persecutions to which they were subjected, long ago won the sympathies of the Protestant churches. They present a rare spectacle of the survival of a body of believers which has come up out of great tribulation. Southern France was their first home, but they were a small party as compared with the Albigenses in those parts. From France they spread into Piedmont, and also into Austria and Germany, as recent investigations have clearly brought out. In Italy, they continue to this day in their ancestral valleys and, since 1870, endowed with full rights of citizenship. In Austria, they kept their light burning as in a dark place for centuries, had a close historic connection with the Hussites and Bohemian Brethren, and prepared, in some measure, the way for the Anabaptists in the time of the Reformation. The Waldenses derive their origin and name from Peter Waldus or Valdez,1055 who died before 1218, as all the contemporary writers agree. They were also called Poor Men of Lyons, from the city on the Rhone where they originated, and the Sandalati or Sandalled, from the coarse shoes they wore.1056 The name by which they were known among themselves was Brethren or the Poor of Christ,1057 based probably upon Matt. 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." According to the Anonymous writer of Passau, writing in the early years of the fourteenth century, some already in his day carried the origin of the sect back to the Apostles. Until recently all Waldensian writers have claimed for it Apostolic origin or gone at least as far back as the seventh century. Professor Comba, of the Waldensian school in Florence, has definitely given up this theory in deference to the investigations of Dieckhoff, Herzog, and other German scholars. Of Waldo’s life little is known. A prosperous merchant of Lyons, he was aroused to religious zeal by the sudden death of a leading citizen of the city, of which he was a witness, and by a ballad he heard sung by a minstrel on the public square. The song was about St. Alexis, the son of wealthy parents who no sooner returned from the marriage altar than, impressed by the claims of celibacy, he left his bride, to start on a pilgrimage to the East. On his return he called on his relatives and begged them to give him shelter, but they did not recognize who he was till they found him dead. The moral drawn from the tale was: life is short, the times are evil, prepare for heaven.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  From this time forward Ambrose lived wholly for the church, and became one of the greatest bishops of ancient Christendom, full of Roman dignity, energy, and administrative wisdom, and of the unction of the Holy Ghost. He began his work with the sale of his great estates and of his gold and silver for the benefit of the poor; reserving an allowance for his pious sister Marcella or Marcellina, who in early youth had taken the vow of virginity. With voluntary poverty he associated the strictest regimen of the ascetic spirit of his time; accepted no invitations to banquets; took dinner only on Sunday, Saturday, and the festivals of celebrated martyrs; devoted the greater part of the night to prayer, to the hitherto necessarily neglected study of the Scriptures and the Greek fathers, and to theological writing; preached every Sunday, and often in the week; was accessible to all, most accessible to the poor and needy; and administered his spiritual oversight, particularly his instruction of catechumens, with the greatest fidelity. The Arians he vigorously opposed by word and act, and contributed to the victory of the Nicene faith in the West. In this work he behaved himself towards the Arian empress Justina with rare boldness, dignity, and consistency, in the heroic spirit of an Athanasius. The court demanded the cession of a catholic church for the use of the Arians, and claimed for them equal rights with the orthodox. But Ambrose asserted the entire independence of the church towards the state, and by perseverance came off victorious in the end. It was his maxim, that the emperor is in the church, but not over the church, and therefore has no right to the church buildings. He did not meddle in secular matters, nor ask favor of the magistracy, except when he could put in a word of intercession for the unfortunate and for persons condemned to death in those despotic times. This enabled him to act the more independently in his spiritual office, as a real prince of the church, fearless even of the emperor himself. Thus he declared to the usurper Maximus, who desired church fellowship, that he would never admit him, unless he should do sincere penance for the murder of the emperor Gratian. When the Roman prefect, Symmachus, the noblest and most eloquent advocate of the decaying heathenism of his time, implored the emperor Valentinian, in an apology for the altar of Victory which stood in the hall of the Roman senate, to tolerate the worship and the sanctuaries of the ancient gods, Ambrose met him with an admirable reply, and prevented the granting of his request.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The Perfect Priest and the Perfect SacrificeWhat was needed was a perfect priest and a perfect sacrifice, someone who could bring to God a sacrifice that once and for all opened the way of access to him. That, said the writer to the Hebrews, is exactly what Christ did. He is the perfect priest because he is both perfectly human and perfectly God. In his humanity, he can take us to God; and in his Godhead, he can take God to us. He has no sin. The perfect sacrifice he brings is the sacrifice of himself, a sacrifice so perfect that it never needs to be made again. To the Jews, the writer to the Hebrews said: ‘All your lives, you have been looking for the perfect priest who can bring the perfect sacrifice and give you access to God. You have him in Jesus Christ and in him alone.’ To the Greeks, the writer to the Hebrews said: ‘You are looking for the way from the shadows to reality; you will find it in Jesus Christ.’ To the Jews, the writer to the Hebrews said: ‘You are looking for that perfect sacrifice which will open the way to God which your sins have closed; you will find it in Jesus Christ.’ Jesus was the one person who gave access to reality and access to God. That is the key thought of this letter. The Riddle of the New TestamentSo much is clear; but, when we turn to the other questions of introduction, Hebrews is wrapped in mystery. The New Testament scholar E. F. Scott wrote: ‘The Epistle to the Hebrews is in many respects the riddle of the New Testament.’ When it was written, to whom it was written, and who wrote it are questions at which we can only guess. The very history of the letter shows how its mystery is to be treated with a certain reserve and suspicion. It was a long time before it became an unquestioned New Testament book. The first list of New Testament books, the Muratorian Canon, compiled about AD 170, does not mention it at all. The great Alexandrian scholars of the second and third centuries, Clement and Origen, knew it and loved it but agreed that its place as Scripture was disputed. Of the great African fathers of the same period, Cyprian never mentions it and Tertullian knows that its place was disputed. Eusebius, the early church historian, says that it ranked among the disputed books. It was not until the time of Athanasius, in the middle of the fourth century, that Hebrews was definitely accepted as a New Testament book, and even the founder of the Reformation, Martin Luther, was not too sure about it. It is strange to think how long this great book had to wait for full recognition.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  For when the faces of these people come before us in our emulation, they will, as it were, illumine our road and will lift us up to those standards of perfection which we have imagined in our minds. It would be still better if we were to suggest this to our minds, “What would this that I have said sound like to Homer, if he were standing by, or to Demosthenes, or how would they have reacted to it?” In truth it is a supreme test to imagine such a judgment court and theatre for our own private productions, and, in imagination, to submit an account of our writings to such heroes as judges.’ Actors would act with increased intensity if they knew that one of the greatest of their profession was sitting in the stalls watching them. Athletes would double their efforts if they knew that the stadium was full of famous Olympic athletes watching their performance. It is of the very essence of the Christian life that it is lived in the gaze of the heroes of the faith who lived, suffered and died in their day and generation. How can anyone avoid the struggle for greatness when an audience like that is looking down on us? (3) In the Christian life, we have a handicap. If we are encircled by the greatness of the past, we are also encircled by the handicap of our own sin. No one would attempt to climb Mount Everest weighed down with a whole load of unnecessary baggage. If we want to travel far, we must travel light. There is in life an essential duty to discard things. There may be habits, pleasures, self-indulgences or associations which hold us back. We must shed them as athletes take off their tracksuits when they go to the starting blocks; and often we will need the help of Christ to enable us to do so. (4) In the Christian life, we have a means. That means is steadfast endurance. The word is hupomonē, which means not the patience which sits down and accepts things but the patience which takes charge of them. It is not some romantic notion which lends us wings to fly over the difficulties and the hard places. It is a determination, unhurrying and yet un-delaying, which goes steadily on and refuses to be deflected. Obstacles do not daunt it and discouragements do not take its hope away. It is the steadfast endurance which carries on until, in the end, it gets there. (5) In the Christian life, we have an example. That example is Jesus himself. For the goal that was set before him, he endured all things; to win it meant the way of the cross.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  of the whole Greek church; it had no direct conflict with Augustinianism, for Chrysostom died several years before the opening of the Pelagian controversy. He opposed the Arians and Novatians, and faithfully and constantly adhered to the church doctrine, so far as it was developed; but he avoided narrow dogmatism and angry controversy, and laid greater stress on practical piety than on unfruitful orthodoxy.2020 Valuable as the contributions of Chrysostom to didactic theology may be, his chief importance and merit lie not in this department, but in homiletical exegesis, pulpit eloquence, and pastoral care. Here he is unsurpassed among the ancient fathers, whether Greek or Latin. By talent and culture he was peculiarly fitted to labor in a great metropolis. At that time a bishop, as he himself says, enjoyed greater honor at court, in the society of ladies, in the houses of the nobles, than the first dignitaries of the empire.2021 Hence the great danger, of hierarchical pride and worldly conformity, to which so many of the prelates succumbed. This danger Chrysostom happily avoided. He continued his plain monastic mode of life in the midst of the splendor of the imperial residence, and applied all his superfluous income to the support of the sick and the stranger. Poor for himself, he was rich for the poor. He preached an earnest Christianity fruitful in good works, he insisted on strict discipline, and boldly attacked the vices of the age and the hollow, worldly, hypocritical religion of the court. He, no doubt, transcended at times the bounds of moderation and prudence, as when he denounced the empress Eudoxia as a new Herodias thirsting after the blood of John; but he erred "on virtue’s side," and his example of fearless devotion to duty has at all times exerted a most salutary influence upon clergymen in high and influential stations. Neander not inaptly compares his work in the Greek church with that of Spener, the practical reformer in the Lutheran church of the seventeenth century, and calls him a martyr of Christian charity, who fell a victim in the conflict with the worldly spirit of his age.2022 In the pulpit Chrysostom was a monarch of unlimited power over his hearers. His sermons were frequently interrupted by noisy theatrical demonstrations of applause, which he indignantly rebuked as unworthy of the house of God.2023 He had trained his natural gift of eloquence, which was of the first order, in the school of Demosthenes and Libanius, and ennobled and sanctified it in the higher school of the Holy Spirit.2024 He was in the habit of making careful preparation for his sermons by the study of the Scriptures, prayer, and meditation; but he knew how to turn to good account unexpected occurrences, and some of his noblest efforts were extemporaneous effusions under the inspiration of the occasion.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Before his conversion he, followed a particular system of philosophy, first the Manichaean, then the Platonic; after his conversion he embraced the Christian philosophy, which is based on the divine revelation of the Scriptures, and is the handmaid of theology and religion; but at the same time he prepared the way for the catholic ecclesiastical philosophy, which rests on the authority of the church, and became complete in the scholasticism of the middle age. In the history of philosophy he deserves a place in the highest rank, and has done greater service to the science of sciences than any other father, Clement of Alexandria and Origen not excepted. He attacked and refuted the pagan philosophy as pantheistic or dualistic at heart; he shook the superstitions of astrology and magic; he expelled from philosophy the doctrine of emanation, and the idea that God is the soul of the world; he substantially advanced psychology; he solved the question of the origin and the nature of evil more nearly than any of his predecessors, and as nearly as most of his successors; he was the first to investigate thoroughly the relation of divine omnipotence and omniscience to human freedom, and to construct a theodicy; in short, he is properly the founder of a Christian philosophy, and not only divided with Aristotle the empire of the mediaeval scholasticism, but furnished also living germs for new systems of philosophy, and will always be consulted in the speculative establishment of Christian doctrines. III. Apologetic works against Pagans and Jews. Among these the twenty-two books, De Civitate Dei, are still well worth reading. They form the deepest and richest apologetic work of antiquity; begun in 413, after the occupation of Rome by the Gothic king Alaric, finished in 426, and often separately published. They condense his entire theory of the world and of man, and are the first attempt at a comprehensive philosophy of universal history under the dualistic view of two antagonistic currents or organized forces, a kingdom of this world which is doomed to final destruction and a kingdom of God which will last forever.2182 IV. Religious-Theological works of a general nature (in part anti-Manichaean): De utilitate credendi, against the Gnostic exaltation of knowledge (392); De fide et symbolo, a discourse which, though only presbyter, he delivered on the Apostles’ Creed before the council at Hippo at the request of the bishops in 393; De doctrina Christiana iv libri (397; the fourth book added in 426), a compend of exegetical theology for instruction in the interpretation of the Scriptures according to the analogy of the faith; De catechizandis rudibus, likewise for catechetical purposes (400); Enchiridion, or De fide, spe et caritate, a brief compend of the doctrine of faith and morals, which he wrote in 421, or later, at the request of Laurentius; hence also called Manuale ad Laurentium. V. Polemic-Theological works. These are the most copious sources of the history of doctrine.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  devoted to Rome, but in his later years became involved in sacerdotal jealousies and strifes. He introduced order into the distracted church and some degree of education among the clergy. He was a man of autocratic temper, great executive ability, and, having been directly sent from Rome, he carried with him double authority. "He was the first archbishop," says Bede, "to whom the whole church of England submitted." During his administration the first Anglo- Saxon mission to the mother-country of the Saxons and Friesians was attempted by Egbert, Victberet, and Willibrord (689 to 692). His chief work is a "Penitential" with minute directions for a moral and religious life, and punishments for drunkenness, licentiousness, and other prevalent vices.40 The Venerable Bede was the first native English scholar, the father of English theology and church history. He spent his humble and peaceful life in the acquisition and cultivation of ecclesiastical and secular learning, wrote Latin in prose and verse, and translated portions of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon. His chief work is his—the only reliable—Church History of old England. He guides us with a gentle hand and in truly Christian spirit, though colored by Roman views, from court to court, from monastery to monastery, and bishopric to bishopric, through the missionary labyrinth of the miniature kingdoms of his native island. He takes the Roman side in the controversies with the British churches.41 Before Bede cultivated Saxon prose, Caedmon (about 680), first a swine-herd, then a monk at Whitby, sung, as by inspiration, the wonders of creation and redemption, and became the father of Saxon (and Christian German) poetry. His poetry brought the Bible history home to the imagination of the Saxon people, and was a faint prophecy of the "Divina Comedia" and the "Paradise Lost."42 We have a remarkable parallel to this association of Bede and Caedmon in the association of Wiclif, the first translator of the whole Bible into English (1380), and the contemporary of Chaucer, the father of English poetry, both forerunners of the British Reformation, and sustaining a relation to Protestant England somewhat similar to the relation which Bede and Caedmon sustain to mediaeval Catholic England. The conversion of England was nominal and ritual, rather than intellectual and moral. Education was confined to the clergy and monks, and consisted in the knowledge of the Decalogue, the Creed and the Pater Noster, a little Latin without any Greek or Hebrew. The Anglo-Saxon clergy were only less ignorant than the British. The ultimate triumph of the Roman church was due chiefly to her superior organization, her direct apostolic descent, and the prestige of the Roman empire. It made the Christianity of England independent of politics and court-intrigues, and kept it in close contact with the Christianity of the Continent. The advantages of this connection were greater than the dangers and evils of insular isolation. Among all the subjects of Teutonic tribes, the English became the most devoted to the Pope. They sent more pilgrims to Rome and more money into the papal treasury than any other nation. They invented the Peter’s Pence. At least thirty of their kings and queens, and an innumerable army of nobles ended their days in cloistral retreats. Nearly all of the public lands were deeded to churches and monasteries. But the exuberance of monasticism weakened the military and physical forces of the nation Danish and the Norman conquests. The power and riches of the church secularized the clergy, and necessitated in due time a reformation. Wealth always tends to vice, and vice to decay. The Norman conquest did not change the ecclesiastical relations of England, but infused new blood and vigor into the Saxon race, which is all the better for its mixed character. We add a list of the early archbishops and bishops of the four principal English sees, in the order of their foundation:43 Canterbury London Rochester. York Augustin 597 Mellitus 604 Justus 604 Paulinus 625 Laurentius 604 [Cedd in Essex 654] Romanus 624 Chad 665 Mellitus 619 Wini 666 Paulinus 633 Wilfrid, consecrated 665, in possession 669 Justus 624 Erconwald 675 Ithamar 644 Honorius 627 Waldhere 693 Damian 655 669 Deusdedit 655 Ingwald