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)

  On his visit to Lyons, 1250, Grosseteste’s memorandum against the abuses of the clergy was read in the pope’s presence. "Not in dispensing the mass but in teaching the living truth" does the work of the pastor consist, so it declared. "The lives of the clergy are the book of the laity." Adam Marsh, who was standing by, compared the arraignment to the arraignments of Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo. According to Matthew Paris, on the night of Grosseteste’s death strange bells were heard. Miracles were reported performed at his tomb, and the rumor ran that, when Innocent was proposing to have the bishop’s body removed from its resting-place in the cathedral, Grosseteste appeared to the pope in a dream, gave him a sound reprimand, and left him half dead. The popular veneration was shown in the legend that on the night of Innocent IV’s death the bishop appeared to him with the words, "Aryse, wretch, and come to thy dome." In the earlier part of his life, Grosseteste preached in Latin; in the latter he often used the vernacular. He was the greatest English preacher of his age. He was not above the superstitions of his time, and one of his famous sermons was preached before Henry III. at the reception of the reputed blood of Christ.2002 His writings are full of Scriptural quotations, and he urged the importance of the study of the Scriptures at the university, and the dedication of the morning hours to it, and emphasized their authority.2003 Wyclif quoted his protest against the practices of Rome,2004 and he has been regarded as a forerunner of the English Reformation. Of Grosseteste’s writings the best known was probably his de cessatione legalium, the End of the Law, a book intended to convince the Jews. With the aid of John of Basingstoke, he translated the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which Basingstoke had found in Constantinople.2005 He seems to have been a man of sterling common sense, as the following counsels indicate. To a friar he said:, Three things are necessary for earthly well-being, food, sleep, and a merry heart." To another friar addicted to melancholy, he prescribed, as penance, a cupfull of the best wine. After the medicine had been taken, Grosseteste said, "Dear brother, if you would frequently do such penance, you would have a better ordered conscience."2006 Matthew Paris (V. 407) summed up the bishop’s career in these words:— "He was an open confuter of both popes and kings, the corrector of monks, the director of priests, the instructor of clerks, the supporter of scholars, a preacher to the people, a persecutor of the incontinent, the unwearied student of the Scriptures, a crusher and despiser of the Romans. At the table of bodily meat, he was hospitable, eloquent, courteous, and affable; at the spiritual table, devout, tearful, and contrite. In the episcopal office he was sedulous, dignified, and indefatigable." CHAPTER XVI.POPULAR WORSHIP AND SUPERSTITION.§ 130. The Worship of Mary.

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

  704), the ninth successor of Columba, in consequence of a visit to the Saxons, conformed his observance of Easter to the Roman Church; but his brethren refused to follow him in this change. After his death, the community of Iona became divided on the Easter question, until the Columban monks, who adhered to the old custom, were by royal command expelled (715). With this expulsion terminates the primacy of Iona in the kingdom of the Picts. The monastic church was broken up or subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular clergy. § 19. The Culdees. After the expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom of the Picts in the eighth century, the term Culdee or Ceile De, or Kaledei, first appears in history, and has given rise to much controversy and untenable theories.91 It is of doubtful origin, but probably means servants or worshippers of God.92 it was applied to anchorites, who, in entire seclusion from society, sought the perfection of sanctity. They succeeded the Columban monks. They afterwards associated themselves into communities of hermits, and were finally brought under canonical rule along with the secular clergy, until at length the name of Culdee became almost synonymous with that of secular canon. The term Culdee has been improperly applied to the whole Keltic church, and a superior purity has been claimed for it. There is no doubt that the Columban or the Keltic church of Scotland, as well as the early Irish and the early British churches, differed in many points from the mediaeval and modern church of Rome, and represent a simpler and yet a very active missionary type of Christianity. The leading peculiarities of the ancient Keltic church, as distinct from the Roman, are: 1. Independence of the Pope. Iona was its Rome, and the Abbot of Iona, and afterwards of Dunkeld, though a mere Presbyter, ruled all Scotland. 2. Monasticism ruling supreme, but mixed with secular life, and not bound by vows of celibacy; while in the Roman church the monastic system was subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular clergy. 3. Bishops without dioceses and jurisdiction and succession. 4. Celebration of the time of Easter. 5. Form of the tonsure. It has also been asserted, that the Kelts or Culdees were opposed to auricular confession, the worship of saints, and images, purgatory, transubstantiation, the seven sacraments, and that for this reason they were the forerunners of Protestantism. But this inference is not warranted. Ignorance is one thing, and rejection of an error from superior knowledge is quite another thing. The difference is one of form rather than of spirit. Owing to its distance and isolation from the Continent, the Keltic church, while superior to the churches in Gaul and Italy—at

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

  Pope Gregory the Great, one of the most humane of the popes, presented bondservants from his own estates to convents, and exerted all his influence to recover a fugitive slave of his brother.337 A reform Synod of Pavia, over which Pope Benedict VIII., one of the forerunners of Hildebrand, presided (A.D. 1018), enacted that sons and daughters of clergymen, whether from free-women or slaves, whether from legal wives or concubines, are the property of the church, and should never be emancipated.338 No pope has ever declared slavery incompatible with Christianity. The church was strongly conservative, and never encouraged a revolutionary or radical movement looking towards universal emancipation. But, on the other hand, the Christian spirit worked silently, steadily and irresistibly in the direction of emancipation. The church, as the organ of that spirit, proclaimed ideas and principles which, in their legitimate working, must root out ultimately both slavery and tyranny, and bring in a reign of freedom, love, and peace. She humbled the master and elevated the slave, and reminded both of their common origin and destiny. She enjoined in all her teaching the gentle and humane treatment of slaves, and enforced it by the all-powerful motives derived from the love of Christ, the common redemption and moral brotherhood of men. She opened her houses of worship as asylums to fugitive slaves, and surrendered them to their masters only on promise of pardon.339 She protected the freedmen in the enjoyment of their liberty. She educated sons of slaves for the priesthood, with the permission of their masters, but required emancipation before ordination.340 Marriages of freemen with slaves were declared valid if concluded with the knowledge of the condition of the latter.341 Slaves could not be forced to labor on Sundays. This was a most important and humane protection of the right to rest and worship.342 No Christian was permitted by the laws of the church to sell a slave to foreign lands, or to a Jew or heathen. Gregory I. prohibited the Jews within the papal jurisdiction to keep Christian slaves, which he considered an outrage upon the Christian name. Nevertheless even clergymen sometimes sold Christian slaves to Jews. The tenth Council of Toledo (656 or 657) complains of this practice, protests against it with Bible passages, and reminds the Christians that "the slaves were redeemed by the blood of Christ, and that Christians should rather buy than sell them."343 Individual emancipation was constantly encouraged as a meritorious work of charity well pleasing to God, and was made a solemn act.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  This may be a disappointment to some. I have nothing but admiration for those who have devoted their lives to the study of gospel sources and origins. This study remains a hugely important subject within the larger enterprise. But again, for the purposes of this book, I am going to assume that it is possible, from the documents we actually have, as opposed to the hypothetical documents that may lie behind them, to ask the central question: What story did the gospels think they were telling? Even if the traditional picture proposed by most twentieth-century scholarship is correct, that Matthew and Luke both used, as basic sources, Mark, on the one hand, and a second source, generally known as Q, on the other; or even if one of the alternative proposals now on the table is preferred, perhaps the one in which Luke used Matthew as well as Mark and no Q is postulated; or even if matters are yet more complicated, with multiple oral and written sources now almost impossible to reconstruct—even if any of these proposals is correct, we are still left with the documents we actually have in front of us, and it still makes sense to ask what story they think they are telling. The same goes for what is called form criticism. Again, the question form critics ask (What were the original forms in which the traditions were told and transmitted, and what can we learn about the early church from the study of these forms?) is a perfectly sensible and good question, but it isn’t my question in this project. I think, for quite other reasons, that the way form criticism has normally been done needs a great deal of rethinking, but that is another story. * In the same way—just to complete the holy trio—I am not doing what is often called redaction criticism. I am not lining up the gospels to see how, granted some theory about sources, they have altered one another’s material and thereby tipped their hand, revealing their theological or ecclesial leanings. That too is a worthy discipline, though with the fragmentation of synoptic studies in recent years the quest for such “redactive” hints is far more problematic than used to be thought. Rather, what I am doing here is more like that second cousin of redaction criticism sometimes called composition criticism. We actually have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  We could still ask this question, in fact, even if it could be proved that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, or never did most of the things ascribed to him, or was never crucified or raised from the dead. In such a case, of course, we would conclude that their story is fiction in the full sense. (All writing, all history, is “fiction” in the sense that someone has constructed it, put it together, decided what to put in and leave out, and determined how to structure the whole. But the word “fiction” is normally used, of course, to denote stories that do not correspond to anything that ever actually happened in real life.) But, even if the gospels were “fiction” in that full sense, it would still be perfectly possible, and worthwhile, to ask: What story or stories do these writers think they are telling? That is the question, bracketing out issues of historical referent, that I shall be addressing in this book. In the same way, I shall not be raising or addressing questions about the prehistory of the gospels or indeed about their date, authorship, or possible place of composition. This may be a disappointment to some. I have nothing but admiration for those who have devoted their lives to the study of gospel sources and origins. This study remains a hugely important subject within the larger enterprise. But again, for the purposes of this book, I am going to assume that it is possible, from the documents we actually have, as opposed to the hypothetical documents that may lie behind them, to ask the central question: What story did the gospels think they were telling? Even if the traditional picture proposed by most twentieth-century scholarship is correct, that Matthew and Luke both used, as basic sources, Mark, on the one hand, and a second source, generally known as Q, on the other; or even if one of the alternative proposals now on the table is preferred, perhaps the one in which Luke used Matthew as well as Mark and no Q is postulated; or even if matters are yet more complicated, with multiple oral and written sources now almost impossible to reconstruct—even if any of these proposals is correct, we are still left with the documents we actually have in front of us, and it still makes sense to ask what story they think they are telling. The same goes for what is called form criticism. Again, the question form critics ask (What were the original forms in which the traditions were told and transmitted, and what can we learn about the early church from the study of these forms?) is a perfectly sensible and good question, but it isn’t my question in this project. I think, for quite other reasons, that the way form criticism has normally been done needs a great deal of rethinking, but that is another story.*

• From How God Became King (2012)

  I think of Mark 10:35–45, where the “servant” work of the “son of man” demonstrates the new kind of power that is to be unleashed in the world, confronting the rulers of the world with God’s new way. I think of the Emmaus road story, where the risen Jesus declares that the divine plan always involved the Messiah suffering and then “coming into his glory” (Luke 24:26). We note that “coming into his glory” does not mean simply “going to heaven” in the normal sense; “glory” is a way of saying “sovereign majesty,” so that the saying exactly combines the two themes we are looking at. The crucifixion was the appropriate and long-prophesied way by which the Messiah would come to be king of all the world, and Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, describes how that works out. I think too of John’s interpretation of the same theme. As so often in the fourth gospel, it is spread subtly but richly throughout the narrative. When the soldiers dress Jesus up in a purple robe, they do so in order to mock him, but John tells us of it in order to declare that Jesus is indeed the one in purple, the one before whom the nations will bow. Pilate circles around the possibility that Jesus is in some sense “king of the Jews,” but without realizing that, according to the Jews’ own ancient traditions, their king is to be king of the whole world. John knows that he is telling a story of someone dying the death of a criminal. He is determined that his readers will “hear” the story also as the death of the rightful king. Jesus’s kingdom will not come by violence (18:36). It will come through his own death. When he is lifted up from the earth, he will draw all people to himself (12:32) . The “Title” on the Cross This leads us exactly to the “title” on the cross. The Latin word titulus was used to describe the public notice that would be attached to the cross of a condemned criminal, indicating the charge that had led to this extreme verdict. (The practice was well known in European countries until at least the nineteenth century.) Though skeptics have challenged many features of the gospel narratives, this one is generally regarded as very well established, because it fits with normal Roman practice, it is recorded in all four gospels, and it is hardly the sort of thing someone would make up (Jesus’s execution was a very public affair, and many people would have seen the notice for themselves).

• From How God Became King (2012)

  For anyone who has grasped the picture of the kingdom so far, each of these elements has a missionary orientation. The Holy Spirit is given not simply so that God’s redeemed people may be blessed with his presence and love, though that does indeed follow, but so that we may be witnesses to Jesus and his resurrection, so that we may be for the world what Jesus was for Israel (John 20:19–24). The Spirit is the one who enables the church to extend the work of the kingdom, and the transformation that takes place personally and corporately within and among those who are thus energized for the work is the necessary by-product of that vocation. To read the creed from a “kingdom” point of view is thus to look outward and to invoke the Spirit, not to provide private “blessings” (they may or may not come; they are not the point), but to glorify Jesus in the wider world. That too is the reason why there is a “holy catholic church.” It isn’t there because God simply wanted to found an institution in which his people could sit down and feel safe. It is a worldwide community that (as has been rightly said) exists by mission as fire exists by burning. And that, in turn, is why the “communion of saints” matters; read the book of Revelation and see. Those who have gone before us include, especially, those who have lived, suffered, and died to bear witness to Jesus as the world’s true Lord over against the other “lords” that try to claim our allegiance. To be “in communion” with them is far more than simply hoping that our departed loved ones will actually still, in some sense, be in touch with us, that there will be some kind of mystical contact beyond the grave. It is to share in fellowship and solidarity with all those who have been the “kingdom people” of their day and to gain strength and courage from them for our own witness. It was highly significant, in view of the vocation he already sensed, that Dietrich Bonhoeffer chose to write his doctoral dissertation, “Communion Sanctorum,” on this clause.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I learn quickly about myself that I am a sucker for doctors, which is no surprise – I’ve always loved their authority and in truth, I’ve had crushes on many of them throughout my life, even convincing myself that some have been in love with me too (the most devastating being the doctor who joked that my allergic reaction to my wedding band was perhaps an allergic reaction to my husband, which I took as a veiled suggestion that I should consider him instead, until Jessica broke it to me that this doctor was gay and often spotted around the Village with a parrot on his shoulder). Ditto for firemen – if you’re part of the FDNY, I’ve probably clicked on your profile first out of respect and second because you’re probably young and hot. I also confirm that I am, true to being my mother’s daughter, an educational snob: if you have an Ivy League School attached to your bio, I am definitely pretending those close-mouthed smiles are you being coy and not having some strange tooth situation. And finally, I have to face that I am more shallow than I thought: a defined six-pack lets me forgive any man who posts a bathing suit shot of himself – unless he is visibly erect, in which case even the six-pack can’t save him. Conversational flirtations begin in earnest. There is a middle-school English teacher with a degree from Penn who seems funny and wry, with a close-cropped beard and friendly eyes. He asks me what kind of freelance work I do (thanks a lot, Karen) and when I reply that I am really a stay-home PTA mom, he writes back, “PTA! That’s hot.” This should give me pause but does not until later, when during an otherwise pleasant conversation, he asks me what I’m wearing and if I could dress up for him as a PTA mom. I ask with befuddlement why I would dress up as something that I in fact already am and when he replies, “Because I’ve been a very bad boy,” I promptly learn how to unmatch with someone. The kind and considerate businessman who raced home from work to coach his daughter’s soccer team? We are trying to nail down a date to get together when he tells me he needs to run something by me before we meet in person and that he hopes it won’t scare me away. “I’m intrigued,” I write back to him, code for “I’m terrified.” He responds that he had been married for many years to a woman who did not enjoy oral sex and that he needs to know not only that I am open to it but also that I will allow him to spend uninterrupted hours exploring my pussy with his tongue.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  As a scientist, Julia has a PhD in biochemistry from Columbia University, and spent seventeen years as a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fields of genetics and evolutionary-developmental biology. juliaserano.com. Praise for WHIPPING GIRL Named one of 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time by Ms. magazine “Seminal.” — Variety “It’s official: Whipping Girl is a twenty-first-century feminist classic. It’s also a gift to a culture (still) struggling to face its own misogyny. Serano’s writing is clear, gracious, and incredibly illuminating.” —Jennifer Baumgardner, activist, filmmaker, and author of Manifesta “A foundational text for anyone hoping to understand transgender politics and culture in the US today, particularly as experienced and shaped by trans women.” —NPR “Through literate discussions of historical references, psychological and psychiatric studies, and sociological data, the reader cannot help but receive an education. With Whipping Girl , Serano has, depending upon your vantage point, either opened a door into a new world or widened the scope of an already informed discussion of gender, transsexuality and femininity.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Not since bell hooks has someone so turned feminism on its head and located the heart of sexism in such a revelatory way.” — Toronto Xtra “Serano’s thinking continues to challenge and delight— Whipping Girl is a foundational text that will prove to be timeless.” —Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism and Sex Object “Rarely do I believe hyperbolic back-cover blurbs claiming ‘We desperately need this book.’ But this one’s absolutely accurate.” — NOW Toronto “Julia Serano did not invent transfeminism, but she’s done more to promote its ideas and demonstrate its necessity than any other writer. Her analysis of the misogyny at the root of transphobia is vital. This book should be taught in every introduction to gender and women’s studies class in the country—read it, teach it, learn from it, and act on it.” —Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History and distinguished chair in women’s leadership, Mills College “In this collection of essays, Serano not only slams misconceptions of transsexuality but also provides a searing interrogation of calcified ideas of ‘femininity’ as frivolous and weak. A transfeminist manifesto for the third wave, this book shows just how revolutionary embracing femininity can be.” — Bustle “A series of articulate, compelling, and provocative essays. Serano largely succeeds in breaking down complex issues and offering deep insights that will be valued by anyone interested in transsexualism or gender studies.” — Publishers Weekly “Julia Serano is the wise, acerbic brain at the center of the transgender movement. The original edition of Whipping Girl forever connected trans theory to feminism and queer studies; this new edition updates that work as well as providing a compelling new preface that reflects the movement’s enormous progress as well as the progress that remains to be made. Julia Serano is more than a brilliant writer and theorist; she’s also a tremendously compassionate, humane woman whose work has enlarged the lives of all her readers.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Now, as soon as I mentioned this, my friend said, “Oh, I had no idea that you had a ‘tranny fetish.’” So I sarcastically thanked him for insinuating that the only reason why a person might find someone like myself attractive is if they suffered from a sort of “sexual perversion.” After reprimanding him, I went on to say that there are a number of personality traits that I find attractive in women: passion, creativity, sense of humor, and self-confidence. And it has been my experience that trans women tend to have these qualities in full force. While some male “admirers” of trans women tend to fetishize us for our femininity or our imagined sexual submissiveness, I find trans women hot because we are anything but docile or demure. In order to survive as a trans woman, you must be, by definition, impervious, unflinching, and tenacious. In a culture in which femaleness and femininity are on the receiving end of a seemingly endless smear campaign, there is no act more brave—especially for someone assigned a male sex a birth—than embracing one’s femme self. And unlike those male “tranny chasers” who say that they like “T-girls” because we are supposedly “the best of both worlds,” I am attracted to trans women because we are all woman! My femaleness is so intense that it has overpowered the trillions of lame-ass Y chromosomes that sheepishly hide inside the cells of my body. And my femininity is so relentless that it has survived over thirty years of male socialization and twenty years of testosterone poisoning. Some kinky-identified thrill-seekers may envision trans women as androgyne fuck fantasies, but that’s only because they are too self-absorbed to appreciate how completely fucking female we are. At this point in the conversation, my friend tried to play what he probably thought was his trump card. He asked me, “Well, what if you found out that the trans woman you were attracted to still had a penis?” I laughed and replied that I am attracted to people, not to disembodied body parts. And I would be a selfish, ignorant, and unsatisfying lover if I believed that my partner’s genitals existed primarily for my pleasure rather than her own. All that you ever need to know about genitals is that they are made up of flesh, blood, and millions of tiny, restless nerve endings—anything else that you read into them is mere hallucination, a product of your own overactive imagination. To paraphrase that famous saying, the opposite of attraction is not repulsion, it’s indifference.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.When I look into trans women’s eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators. In trans women’s eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman’s eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that’s seemingly fueled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one’s femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness, or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are “fabulous,” but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!It was at that point in the conversation that I realized that perhaps I find trans women attractive because I see a little bit of myself in them. In their eyes, I see a part of myself that nobody else ever seems to see, the part that those who haven’t had a trans female experience never seem to understand. And perhaps it’s narcissistic to be attracted to someone who reminds me a bit of myself.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  What truly unites feminists is not a shared history (as we each bring a unique set of life experiences to the table), but our shared commitment to fighting against the devaluation of femaleness and femininity in our society and the double standards that are placed onto both sexes. In this respect, cissexual female and MTF spectrum feminists do have a lot in common. It’s not just that MTF spectrum folks need feminism, but that feminism needs to embrace MTF experiences and perspectives. The fact that the lion’s share of the anti-trans sentiment specifically targets those of us on the MTF spectrum indicates that we are marked, not for failing to conform to gender norms per se but because we “choose” to be female and/or feminine. For feminism to ignore the society-wide effemimania and trans-misogyny we face is to allow one of the most pervasive forms of traditional sexism to go unchecked. Indeed, for feminists to continue to dismiss effemimania solely because it targets those who are male-bodied is particularly shortsighted. After all, as previously mentioned, much of the sexist behavior exhibited by cissexual men arises directly out of their being forced to disavow and mystify femininity from an early age. In this respect, MTF spectrum folks can provide feminism with crucial insight into the workings of effemimania and offer strategies to potentially challenge it. Additionally, those of us who transition to female can provide firsthand accounts of the very different ways that women and men are treated in the world—a perspective that is especially relevant today given how common it is for people to naively claim that we as a society have transcended sexism and moved into a “postfeminist” era. But perhaps most of all, what MTF spectrum trans people can offer feminism is a very different and far more empowering perspective on femininity. Over the years, many feminists have argued that femininity undermines women, or that it’s purposefully designed to subordinate women to men. Such a view no doubt stems from the experiences of those women who have felt that the expectation of femininity has been forced upon them against their will.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  That is the question, bracketing out issues of historical referent, that I shall be addressing in this book. In the same way, I shall not be raising or addressing questions about the prehistory of the gospels or indeed about their date, authorship, or possible place of composition. This may be a disappointment to some. I have nothing but admiration for those who have devoted their lives to the study of gospel sources and origins. This study remains a hugely important subject within the larger enterprise. But again, for the purposes of this book, I am going to assume that it is possible, from the documents we actually have, as opposed to the hypothetical documents that may lie behind them, to ask the central question: What story did the gospels think they were telling? Even if the traditional picture proposed by most twentieth-century scholarship is correct, that Matthew and Luke both used, as basic sources, Mark, on the one hand, and a second source, generally known as Q, on the other; or even if one of the alternative proposals now on the table is preferred, perhaps the one in which Luke used Matthew as well as Mark and no Q is postulated; or even if matters are yet more complicated, with multiple oral and written sources now almost impossible to reconstruct—even if any of these proposals is correct, we are still left with the documents we actually have in front of us, and it still makes sense to ask what story they think they are telling. The same goes for what is called form criticism. Again, the question form critics ask (What were the original forms in which the traditions were told and transmitted, and what can we learn about the early church from the study of these forms?) is a perfectly sensible and good question, but it isn’t my question in this project. I think, for quite other reasons, that the way form criticism has normally been done needs a great deal of rethinking, but that is another story. * In the same way—just to complete the holy trio—I am not doing what is often called redaction criticism. I am not lining up the gospels to see how, granted some theory about sources, they have altered one another’s material and thereby tipped their hand, revealing their theological or ecclesial leanings. That too is a worthy discipline, though with the fragmentation of synoptic studies in recent years the quest for such “redactive” hints is far more problematic than used to be thought. Rather, what I am doing here is more like that second cousin of redaction criticism sometimes called composition criticism. We actually have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It makes good sense to ask of them, as it does of a Jane Austen novel or a Shakespeare play: What story was the author telling, and how did he or she go about it? That is the question I shall be trying to address.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  One final question. Why were some pagans attracted enough to Judaism to become “God-fearers” or “God-worshipers”—semi-Jews by whatever name one chooses to call them? Apart from social, political, economic, or personal reasons, there was one very special religious factor. Greek and then Roman thinkers appreciated and admired Jewish aniconic monotheism, that is, the belief that there was but one transcendent and un-image-able divinity. Marcus Terentius Varro is described in Menahem Stern’s Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism as “the greatest scholar of republican Rome and the forerunner of the Augustan religious restoration” (1.207). Varro’s Res Divinae was written between 63 and 47 B.C.E., but this citation is preserved only in St. Augustine’s City of God: [Varro] also says that for more than one hundred and seventy years the ancient Romans worshiped the gods without an image. “If this usage had continued to our own days,” he says, “our worship of the gods would be more devout.” And in support of this opinion he adduces, among other things, the testimony of the Jewish race. And he ends with the forthright statement that those who first set up images of the gods for the people diminished reverence in their cities as they added to error, for he wisely judged that gods in the shape of senseless images might easily inspire contempt. (4.31) Similar praise appears in Strabo of Amaseia in Pontus, who lived between 64 B.C.E. and 21 C.E. In his Geography, written under the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, he says, Moses…one of the Egyptian priests…went away from there to Judaea, since he was displeased with the state of affairs there, and was accompanied by many people who worshiped the Divine Being. For he said, and taught, that the Egyptians were mistaken in representing the Divine Being by the images of beasts and cattle, as were also the Libyans; and that the Greeks were also wrong in modelling gods in human form; for, according to him, God is the one thing alone that encompasses us all and encompasses land and sea—the thing which we call heaven, or universe, or the nature of all that exists. What man, then, if he has sense, could be bold enough to fabricate an image of God resembling any creature amongst us? Nay, people should leave off all image-carving, and, setting apart a sacred precinct and a worthy sanctuary, should worship God without an image. (16.2.35) No doubt there were many other reasons ranging from social supports to moral ideals that attracted pagans to Jewish customs and traditions. But aniconic monotheism must be given full emphasis as that which most deeply attracted some and, of course, most deeply repelled others.

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

  By agriculture, he meant the study of the vegetable and animal worlds, and such questions as the adaptation of soil to different classes of plants. In the treatment of optics he presents the construction of the eye and the laws of vision. Mathematics are the foundation of all science and of great value for the Church. Alchemy deals with liquids, gases, and solids, and their generation. A child of his age, Bacon held that metals were compound bodies whose elements can be separated.1596 In the department of astrology, in accordance with the opinions prevailing in his day, he held that the stars and planets have an influence upon all terrestrial conditions and objects, including man. Climate, temperament, motion, all are more or less dependent upon their potency. As the moon affects the tides, so the stars implant dispositions good and evil. This potency influences but does not coerce man’s free will. The comet of 1264, due to Mars, was related to the wars of England, Spain, and Italy.1597 In the department of optics and the teachings in regard to force, he was far ahead of his age and taught that all objects were emitting force in all directions. Experimental science governs all the preceding sciences. Knowledge comes by reasoning and experience. Doubts left by reasoning are tried by experience, which is the ultimate test of truth. The practical tendency of Bacon’s mind is everywhere apparent. He was an apostle of common sense. Speaking of Peter of Maricourt of Paris, otherwise unknown, he praises him for his achievements in the science of experimental research and said: "Of discourses and battles of words he takes no heed. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, indeed of everything in the heavens and the earth. He is ashamed that things should be known to laymen, old women, soldiers, and ploughmen, of which he is himself ignorant." He also confessed he had learned incomparably more from men unlettered and unknown to the learned than he had learned from his most famous teachers.1598 Bacon attacked the pedantry of the scholastic method, the frivolous and unprofitable logomachy over questions which were above reason and untaught by revelation. Again and again he rebuked the conceit and metaphysical abstruseness of the theological writers of his century, especially Alexander of Hales and also Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. He used, at length, Alfarabius, Avicenna, Algazel, and other Arabic philosophers, as well as Aristotle. Against the pride and avarice and ignorance of the clergy he spoke with unmeasured severity and declared that the morals of Seneca and his age were far higher than the morals of the thirteenth century except that the ancient Romans did not know the virtues of love, faith, and hope which were revealed by Christ.1599 He quoted Seneca at great length. Such criticism sufficiently explains the treatment which the English Franciscan received.

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

  Harnack and others have made the objection that the Cologne divine does not dwell upon the forgiveness of sins. This omission may be overlooked, when we remember the prominence given in his teaching to regeneration and man’s divine sonship. His most notable departure from scholasticism consists in this, that he did not dwell upon the sacraments and the authority of the Church. He addressed himself to Christian individuals, and showed concern for their moral and spiritual well-being. Abstruse as some of his thinking is, there can never be the inkling of a thought that he was setting forth abstractions of the school and contemplating matters chiefly with a scientific eye. He makes the impression of being moved by strict honesty of purpose to reach the hearts of men.464 His words glow with the Minne, or love, of which he preached so often. In one feature, however, he differed widely from modern writers and preachers. He did not dwell upon the historical Christ. With him Christ in us is the God in us, and that is the absorbing topic. With all his high thinking he felt the limitations of human statement and, counselling modesty in setting forth definitions of God, he said, "If we would reach the depth of God’s nature, we must humble ourselves. He who would know God must first know himself."465 Not a popular leader, not professedly a reformer, this early German theologian had a mission in preparing the way for the Reformation. The form and contents of his teaching had a direct tendency to encourage men to turn away from the authority of the priesthood and ritual legalism to the realm of inner experience for the assurance of acceptance with God. Pfleiderer has gone so far as to say that Eckart’s "is the spirit of the Reformation, the spirit of Luther, the motion of whose wings we already feel, distinctly enough, in the thoughts of his older German fellow-citizen."466 Although he declared his readiness to confess any heretical ideas that might have crept into his sermons and writings, the judges at Rome were right in principle. Eckart’s spirit was heretical, provoking revolt against the authority of the mediaeval Church and a restatement of some of the forgotten verities of the New Testament. § 30. John Tauler of Strassburg. To do Thy will is more than praise, As words are less than deeds; And simple trust can find Thy ways We miss with chart of creeds. – Whittier. Our Master. Among the admirers of Eckart, the most distinguished were John Tauler and Heinrich Suso. With them the speculative element largely disappears and the experimental and practical elements predominate. They emphasized religion as a matter of experience and the rule of conduct. Without denying any of the teachings or sacraments of the Church, they made prominent immediate union with Christ, and dwelt upon the Christian graces, especially patience, gentleness and humility. Tauler was a man of sober mind, Suso poetical and imaginative.

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

  The author has had no apologetic concern to contradict the old notion, perhaps still somewhat current in our Protestant circles, that the Middle Ages were a period of superstition and worthy of study as a curiosity rather than as a time directed and overruled by an all-seeing Providence. He has attempted to depict it as it was and to allow the picture of high religious purpose to reveal itself side by side with the picture of hierarchical assumption and scholastic misinterpretation. Without the mediaeval age, the Reformation would not have been possible. Nor is this statement to be understood in the sense in which we speak of reaching a land of sunshine and plenty after having traversed a desert. We do well to give to St. Bernard and Francis d’Assisi, St. Elizabeth and St. Catherine of Siena, Gerson, Tauler and Nicolas of Cusa a high place in our list of religious personalities, and to pray for men to speak to our generation as well as they spoke to the generations in which they lived. Moreover, the author has been actuated by no purpose to disparage Christians who, in the alleged errors of Protestantism, find an insuperable barrier to Christian fellowship. Where he has passed condemnatory judgments on personalities, as on the popes of the last years of the 15th and the earlier years of the 16th century, it is not because they occupied the papal throne, but because they were personalities who in any walk of life would call for the severest reprobation. The unity of the Christian faith and the promotion of fellowship between Christians of all names and all ages are considerations which should make us careful with pen or spoken word lest we condemn, without properly taking into consideration that interior devotion to Christ and His kingdom -which seems to be quite compatible with divergencies in doctrinal statement or ceremonial habit. On the pages of the volume, the author has expressed his indebtedness to the works of the eminent mediaeval historians and investigators of the day, Gregorovius, Pastor, Mandell Creighton, Lea, Ehrle, Denifle, Finke, Schwab, Haller, Carl Mirbt, R. Mueller Kirsch, Loserth, Janssen, Valois, Burckhardt-Geiger, Seebohm and others, Protestant and Roman Catholic, and some no more among the living. It is a pleasure to be able again to express his indebtedness to the Rev. David E. Culley, his colleague in the Western Theological Seminary, whose studies in mediaeval history and accurate scholarship have been given to the volume in the reading of the manuscript, before it went to the printer, and of the printed pages before they received their final form.

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

  More distinct and advanced were the utterances of Marsiglius of Padua. His writings abound in incisive thrusts against the prevailing ecclesiastical system, and lay down the principles of a new order. In the preparation of his chief work, the Defence of the Faith,—Defensor pacis,—he had the help of John of Jandun.136 Both writers were clerics, but neither of them monks. Born about 1270 in Padua, Marsiglius devoted himself to the study of medicine, and in 1312 was rector of the University of Paris. In 1325 or 1326 he betook himself to the court of Lewis the Bavarian. The reasons are left to surmisal. He acted as the emperor’s physician. In 1328 he accompanied the emperor to Rome, and showed full sympathy with the measures taken to establish the emperor’s authority. He joined in the ceremonies of the emperor’s coronation, the deposition of John XXII. and the elevation of the anti-pope, Peter of Corbara. The pope had already denounced Marsiglius and John of Jandun137 as "sons of perdition, the sons of Belial, those pestiferous individuals, beasts from the abyss," and summoned the Romans to make them prisoners. Marsiglius was made vicar of Rome by the emperor, and remained true to the principles stated in his tract, even when the emperor became a suppliant to the Avignon court. Lewis even went so far as to express to John XXII. his readiness to withdraw his protection from Marsiglius and the leaders of the Spirituals. Later, when his position was more hopeful, he changed his attitude and gave them his protection at Munich. But again, in his letter submitting himself to Clement VI., 1343, the emperor denied holding the errors charged against Marsiglius and John, and declared his object in retaining them at his court had been to lead them back to the Church. The Paduan died before 1343.138 The personal fortunes of Marsiglius are of small historical concern compared with his book, which he dedicated to the emperor. The volume, which was written in two months,139 was as audacious as any of the earlier writings of Luther. For originality and boldness of statement the Middle Ages has nothing superior to offer. To it may be compared in modern times Janus’ attack on the doctrine of papal infallibility at the time of the Vatican Council.140 Its Scriptural radicalism was in itself a literary sensation.

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

  He says concerning the matter: "Our Lord commanded us in times of persecution to yield and to fly. He taught this, and he practised it himself. For since the martyr’s crown comes by the grace of God, and cannot be gained before the appointed hour, he who retires for a time, and remains true to Christ, does not deny his faith, but only abides his time." The poetical legend of the seven brothers at Ephesus, who fell asleep in a cave, whither they had fled, and awoke two hundred years afterwards, under Theodosius II. (447), astonished to see the once despised and hated cross now ruling over city and country, dates itself internally from the time of Decius, but is not mentioned before Gregory of Tours in the sixth century. Under Gallus (251–253) the persecution received a fresh impulse thorough the incursions of the Goths, and the prevalence of a pestilence, drought, and famine. Under this reign the Roman bishops Cornelius and Lucius were banished, and then condemned to death. Valerian (253–260) was at first mild towards the Christians; but in 257 he changed his course, and made an effort to check the progress of their religion without bloodshed, by the banishment of ministers and prominent laymen, the confiscation of their property, and the prohibition of religious assemblies. These measures, however, proving fruitless, he brought the death penalty again into play. The most distinguished martyrs of this persecution under Valerian are the bishops Sixtus II. of Rome, and Cyprian of Carthage. When Cyprian received his sentence of death, representing him as an enemy of the Roman gods and laws, he calmly answered: "Deo gratias!" Then, attended by a vast multitude to the scaffold, he proved once more, undressed himself, covered his eyes, requested a presbyter to bind his hands, and to pay the executioner, who tremblingly drew the sword, twenty-five pieces of gold, and won the incorruptible crown (Sept. 14, 258). His faithful friends caught the blood in handkerchiefs, and buried the body of their sainted pastor with great solemnity. Gibbon describes the martyrdom of Cyprian with circumstantial minuteness, and dwells with evident satisfaction on the small decorum which attended his execution. But this is no fair average specimen of the style in which Christians were executed throughout the empire. For Cyprian was a man of the highest social standing and connection from his former eminence, as a rhetorician and statesman. His deacon, Pontius relates that "numbers of eminent and illustrious persons, men of mark family and secular distinction, often urged him, for the sake of their old friendship with him, to retire." We shall return to Cyprian again in the history of church government, where he figures as a typical, ante-Nicene high-churchman, advocating both the visible unity of the church and episcopal independence of Rome. The much lauded martyrdom of the deacon St.

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

  He stands alone, like a beacon upon a waste, or a rock in the broad ocean. His sceptre was the bow of Ulysses, which could not be drawn by any weaker hand. In the dark ages of European history the reign of Charlemagne affords a solitary resting-place between two long periods of turbulence and ignominy, deriving the advantages of contrast both from that of the preceding dynasty and of a posterity for whom he had formed an empire which they were unworthy and unequal to maintain." G. P. R. James (History of Charlemagne, Lond., 1847, p. 499): "No man, perhaps, that ever lived, combined in so high a degree those qualities which rule men and direct events, with those which endear the possessor and attach his contemporaries. No man was ever more trusted and loved by his people, more respected and feared by other kings, more esteemed in his lifetime, or more regretted at his death. Milman (Book V. ch. 1): "Karl, according to his German appellation, was the model of a Teutonic chieftain, in his gigantic stature, enormous strength, and indefatigable activity; temperate in diet, and superior to the barbarous vice of drunkenness. Hunting and war were his chief occupations; and his wars were carried on with all the ferocity of encountering savage tribes. But he was likewise a Roman Emperor, not only in his vast and organizing policy, he had that one vice of the old Roman civilization which the Merovingian kings had indulged, though not perhaps with more unbounded lawlessness. The religious emperor, in one respect, troubled not himself with the restraints of religion. The humble or grateful church beheld meekly, and almost without remonstrance, the irregularity of domestic life, which not merely indulged in free license, but treated the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at his pleasure. Once we have heard, and but once, the church raise its authoritative, its comminatory voice, and that not to forbid the King of the Franks from wedding a second wife while his first was alive, but from marrying a Lombard princess. One pious ecclesiastic alone in his dominion, he a relative, ventured to protest aloud.’) Guizot (Histoire de la civilisation en France, leçon XX.): "Charlemagne marque la limite à laquelle est enfin consommée la dissolution de l’ancien monde romain et barbare, et où commence la formation du monde nouveau." Vétault (Charlemagne, 455, 458): "Charlemagne fut, en effet, le père du monde moderne et de la societé européenne .... Si Ch. ne peut être légitemement honoré comme un saint, il a droit du moins à la première place, parmis tous les héros, dans l’admiration des hommes; car on ne trouverait pas un autre souverain qui ait autant aimé l’humanité et lui ait fait plus de bien. Il est le plus glorieux, parce que ... il a mérite d’ être proclamé le plus honnête des grands hommes." Giesebrecht, the historian of the German emperors, gives a glowing description of Charlemagne (I.