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.

Page 163 of 288 · 20 per page

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  B. Several monastic movements advocated a return to the earliest form of monastic life—the eremitical life of the desert fathers. 1. The earliest of these somewhat hybrid eremitical monasteries was Camaldoli, founded by St. Romauld in the mountains of Tuscany. 2. Another was Vallombrosa, founded by a Florentine in the hills south of Florence. 3. The most successful was La Grande Chartreuse, founded near Grenoble, France, by St. Bruno in 1084. a. In the 12 th through 14th centuries, many so-called Carthusian monasteries were founded in Europe; these are called charterhouses in English. b. The Carthusians were known for their austerity and had something of a motto: “Never reformed because never deformed.” C. Cluny did not separate itself enough from “the world,” and even for many devout and zealous Christians the hermit orders separated themselves too much. III. By far, the most popular and important monastic movement in this period was the founding and development of the Cistercian Order, established at Citeaux (Cistercium in Latin), France, in 1098. A. The basic idea of Citeaux was for monks to “get back to basics,” which included manual labor and, more generally, Benedictine simplicity. B. Although Citeaux was unlike Benedict’s Montecassino in several ways (it is impossible simply to transpose an exact pattern of life to a group of monks removed by more than 500 years), the Cistercians became a wildly successful “solution” to the problems of monasticism at the time. C. When the Cistercians established daughter houses, they were expected to conform strictly to the life at Citeaux; hence, it is fair to refer to Cistercians as the first monastic order, governed by a constitution and involving meetings of superiors to refine the Cistercian life. IV. In 1112, a young man named Bernard entered the monastery of Citeaux along with 30 of his relatives; three years later, Bernard was sent to be the founding abbot of a new monastery of Clairvaux. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 44

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Here at least, thought Nessim, building something with my own hands will keep me stable and unreflective — and he studied the horny old hands of the Greek with admiring envy as he thought of the time they had killed for him, of the thinking they had saved him. He read into them years of healthy bodily activity which imprisoned thought, neutralized reflection. And yet … who could say? Those long years of school-teaching: the years in the monastery: and now the long winter solitude which closed in around the oasis, when only the boom and slither of the sea and the whacking of palm-fronds were there to accompany one’s thoughts.… There is always time for spiritual crises, he thought, as he doggedly mixed cement and dry sand in a wooden mortar. But even here he was not to be left alone for Justine, with that maddening guilty solicitude which she had come to feel for the man whom she loved, and yet was trying to destroy, appeared with her trio of Arabs and took up her summer quarters at the oasis. A restless, moody, alert familiar. And then I, impelled by the fearful pangs her absence created in me, smuggled a note to her telling her either that she must return to the city or persuade Nessim to invite me out to the Summer Palace. Selim duly arrived with the car and motored me out in a sympathetic silence into which he did not dare to inject the slightest trace of contempt. For his part Nessim received me with a studied tenderness; in fact, he was glad to see us again at close quarters, to detach us from the fictitious framework of his agents’ reports and to judge for himself if we were … what am I to say? ‘In love?’ The word implies a totality which was missing in my mistress, who resembled one of those ancient goddesses in that her attributes proliferated through her life and were not condensed about a single quality of heart which one could love or unlove. ‘Possession’ is on the other hand too strong: we were human beings not Brontë cartoons. But English lacks the distinctions which might give us (as Modern Greek does) a word for passion-love.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  As a doctor he spends much of his working-time in the government clinic for venereal disease. (He once said dryly: ‘I live at the centre of the city’s life — its genito-urinary system: it is a sobering sort of place.’) Then, too, he is the only man whose paederasty is somehow no qualification of his innate masculinity of mind. He is neither a puritan nor its opposite. Often I have entered his little room in the Rue Lepsius — the one with the creaking cane chair — and found him asleep in bed with a sailor. He has neither excused himself at such a time nor even alluded to his bedfellow. While dressing he will sometimes turn and tenderly tuck the sheet round his partner’s sleeping form. I take this naturalness as a compliment. He is a strange mixture; at times I have heard his voice tremble with emotion as he alludes to some aspect of the Cabal which he has been trying to make comprehensible to the study-group. Yet once when I spoke enthusiastically of some remarks he had made he sighed and said, with that perfect Alexandrian scepticism which somehow underlay an unquestionable belief in and devotion to the Gnosis: ‘We are all hunting for rational reasons for believing in the absurd.’ At another time after a long and tiresome argument with Justine about heredity and environment he said: ‘Ah! my dear, after all the work of the philosophers on his soul and the doctors on his body, what can we say we really know about man? That he is, when all is said and done, just a passage for liquids and solids, a pipe of flesh.’ He had been a fellow-student and close friend of the old poet, and of him he spoke with such warmth and penetration that what he had to say always moved me. ‘I sometimes think that I learned more from studying him than I did from studying philosophy. His exquisite balance of irony and tenderness would have put him among the saints had he been a religious man. He was by divine choice only a poet and often unhappy but with him one had the feeling that he was catching every minute as it flew and turning it upside down to expose its happy side. He was really using himself up, his inner self, in living. Most people lie and let life play upon them like the tepid discharges of a douche-bag. To the Cartesian proposition: “I think, therefore I am”, he opposed his own, which must have gone something like this: “I imagine, therefore I belong and am free”.’ Of himself Balthazar once said wryly: ‘I am a Jew, with all the Jew’s bloodthirsty interest in the ratiocinative faculty. It is the clue to many of the weaknesses in my thinking, and which I am learning to balance up with the rest of me — through the Cabal chiefly.’ * * * * *

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  B. Leo condemned the buying and selling of church offices, the practice of simony, which was largely responsible for worldly and political men holding so many bishoprics. V. After Leo IX’s death in 1054, the popes and their officials worked hard to make permanent the changes established by Leo. A. During this time, the cardinals were established as papal electors. B. A decree was issued that banned the practice of lay investiture. 1. Lay investiture is the practice of laymen, such as the emperor, investing a bishop with the spiritual symbols of office. 2. This practice essentially allowed laymen to select bishops, usually for reasons not related to their pastoral abilities. VI. In 1073, Cardinal Hildebrand, the sole remaining cardinal from the pontificate of Leo IX, was elected pope and took the name Gregory VII. A. Gregory struggled aggressively for authority over the church. 1. He took up the issue of lay investiture. 2. He even claimed the power to depose an emperor. B. Gregory came into conflict with the emperor Henry IV. 1. The specific issue was lay investiture. 2. The larger issue was the leadership of Christian society. C. In a dramatic moment, after Gregory suspended Henry from his position as emperor, Gregory met with Henry IV at Canossa. 1. Henry came as a penitent sinner. 2. As a priest, Gregory offered forgiveness and reinstated the emperor. D. Ultimately, this agreement did not hold. 1. The pope again deposed Henry. 2. The emperor refused to recognize Gregory as pope. 3. The German nobles supported Gregory, while most German bishops supported the emperor. E. In the ensuing struggles, Henry took the city of Rome, and Gregory fled to Salerno, where he died. VII. The so-called Investiture Contest was eventually settled in a compromise that was closer to the papal than to the imperial position. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 41 VIII. This period of church reform left lasting legacies. A. It reestablished the universal jurisdiction of the popes. B. The idea that an emperor was God’s chief representative on Earth and that he had responsibility for the church, a position that had been held for almost 300 years, was essentially dismissed. C. From time to time, popes enlisted the laity to enforce their pronouncements; for example, congregants were told not to attend a mass said by a married priest. Later, there would be lay-led movements for greater reform, some declared heretical and others incorporated into the church. IX. Leo IX and Gregory VII were savvy leaders who understood political, as well as moral, authority. A. Both were courageous leaders, recognizing that the status quo was unacceptable to God. B. Both were willing to take on incredibly powerful forces and risked rebellion from clerics who were comfortable with the way things were. C. Whatever their mistakes, Leo and Gregory were relentless in freeing the church from secular domination. Essential Reading: Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State, 1050–1300, to p. 95.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  But the whole thing itself, this immense imaginary construction, has stood the tests of time and taste, and has never been out of print – probably never will be. Half a century after its completion those florid vulgarities, those modernist pretensions, seem no more than incidental to its unique flavour, which lingers in the mind long after its labyrinthine plots (for they are myriad, and muddling) have been forgotten. The Alexandria Quartet is one of a kind, and as I see it, on the whole a masterpiece. NOTE The characters in this story, the first of a group, are all inventions together with the personality of the narrator, and bear no resemblance to living persons. Only the city is real. I am accustoming myself to the idea of regarding every sexual act as a process in which four persons are involved. We shall have a lot to discuss about that. S. FREUD: Letters There are two positions available to us – either crime which renders us happy, or the noose, which prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesitation, lovely Thérèse, and where will your little mind find an argument able to combat that one? D. A. F. DE SADE: Justine To EVE these memorials of her native city PART I The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of spring. A sky of hot nude pearl until midday, crickets in sheltered places, and now the wind unpacking the great planes, ransacking the great planes.… I have escaped to this island with a few books and the child — Melissa’s child. I do not know why I use the word ‘escape’. The villagers say jokingly that only a sick man would choose such a remote place to rebuild. Well, then, I have come here to heal myself, if you like to put it that way.… At night when the wind roars and the child sleeps quietly in its wooden cot by the echoing chimney-piece I light a lamp and walk about, thinking of my friends — of Justine and Nessim, of Melissa and Balthazar. I return link by link along the iron chains of memory to the city which we inhabited so briefly together: the city which used us as its flora — precipitated in us conflicts which were hers and which we mistook for our own: beloved Alexandria! I have had to come so far away from it in order to understand it all! Living on this bare promontory, snatched every night from darkness by Arcturus, far from the lime-laden dust of those summer afternoons, I see at last that none of us is properly to be judged for what happened in the past. It is the city which should be judged though we, its children, must pay the price. * * * * *

• From Less (2017)

  A party was called for, of course, and the old gang all came back together—Leonard Ross, Otto Handler, Franklin Woodhouse, Stella Barry—piled into the shack on the Vulcan Steps, and patted Robert on the back; Less had never seen him so bashful with his pals, so obviously delighted and proud. Ross went right up to him, and Robert bowed his head, leaning into the tall Lincolnesque writer, and Ross rubbed his scalp as if for good luck or, more probably, as if they had done this when they were young. They laughed and talked about it ceaselessly—what they were like when they were young—which baffled Less, because they seemed just the same age as when he met them. A number had given up drink, including Robert by then, so what they drank was coffee, from a beat-up metal urn, and some of them passed around a joint. Less resumed his old role and stood to the side, admiring them. At some point, Stella saw him from across the room and went over with her stork walk; she was all bones and sharp edges, a too-tall, unpretty woman who celebrated her flaws with confidence and grace, so they became, to Less, beautiful. “I hear you’ve taken up writing too, Arthur,” she said in her scratchy voice. She took his glass of wine and sipped from it, then handed it back to him, her eyes full of devilry. “Here’s my only advice. Don’t win one of these prizes.” She herself had won several, of course; she was in the Wharton Anthology of Poetry, which meant she was immortal. Like Athena coming down to advise young Telemachus. “You win a prize, and it’s all over. You lecture for the rest of your life. But you never write again.” She tapped a nail on his chest. “Don’t win one.” Then she kissed him on his cheek. That was the last time they ever were together, the Russian River School.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  I recognize Dr. Atlas as one who writes in full, knowing detail about what I call in my work ‘the generational wound.’” —Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Reyés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves “With elegance, Galit Atlas explains the troubling and nourishing aspects of our emotional inheritances. She deftly shows why the hurts and stuckness that can plague us can be faced and, yes, dissolved. Contemporary psychoanalysis at its best. And good storytelling too.” —Susie Orbach, author of Fat Is a Feminist Issue “Galit Atlas has given us a gift with her book Emotional Inheritance. With warmth and compassion, she is able to show the reader the ways our present challenges could be linked to our inherited past. Using patient stories and her own experiences, we are taken on a journey of discovery. By sharing these stories, she gives us a glimpse behind our own curtains and helps us understand that if we are open to the possibility of hope, now might be the right time to break the silence our ancestors have held for so long.” —Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Happiness “Galit Atlas’s Emotional Inheritance is insightful, perceptive, and provocative—but also tender, touching, and personal. Talented clinicians are not always talented writers, but Dr. Atlas is, and her stories will stay with you. The world of epigenetics is in its infancy for most of us, but Dr. Atlas uses ordinary language to explain how we are born with psychological legacies that we cannot escape but which we can, with her help, understand.” —Juliet Rosenfeld, author of The State of Disbelief “This book is full of great wisdom, expertise, and humanity. An important, terrific, gripping read.” —Dr. Anne Alvarez, author of Live Company “ Emotional Inheritance offers extraordinary insight to readers who feel stuck in lifelong patterns and sense they are haunted by ghosts from their family’s past. Dr. Atlas deftly shares her own history and those of her patients while seamlessly weaving in the relevant psychological research. Dr. Atlas’s book reads like a propulsive page-turner while also offering deep psychological insights about inherited trauma and family secrets. This book will undoubtedly change lives and help readers unlock their unfulfilled potential.” —Christie Tate, author of Group “Galit Atlas takes up Tolstoy’s assertion—‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’—as she narrates the ways in which traumas are uniquely held within families. Atlas tells the layered stories of her patients as their traumas reverberate with her own history of trauma and loss. The intimacy of the storytelling captures the recognition and repair that Atlas undertakes with her patients. Together they exhume the secrets and the ghosts that carry and bury trauma, pulling the reader into the present through the past, in order to break into the potential that is the future. Such potential is not a simple, sunny vale.

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

  3. Modern authorities. Mosheim: De reb. Christ. ante Const. M. etc., last section (p. 958 sqq. In Murdock’s Engl. transl., vol. ii. p. 454–481). Nath. Lardner, in the second part of his great work on the Credibility of the Gospel History, see Works ed. by Kippis, Lond. 1838, vol. iv. p. 3–55. Abbé de Voisin: Dissertation critique sur la vision de Constantin. Par. 1774. Gibbon: l.c. chs. xiv. and xvii.–xxi. Fr. Gusta: Vita di Constantino il Grande. Foligno, 1786. Manso: Das Leben Constantins des Gr. Bresl. 1817. Hug (R.C.): Denkschrift zur Ehrenrettung Constant. Frieb. 1829. Heinichen: Excurs. in Eus. Vitam Const. 1830. Arendt (R.C.): Const. u. sein Verb. zum Christenthum. Tüb. (Quartalschrift) 1834. Milman: Hist. of Christianity, etc., 1840, book iii. ch. 1–4. Jacob Burckhardt: Die Zeit Const. des Gr. Bas. 1853. Albert de Broglie: L’église et l’empire romain au IVme siècle. Par. 1856 (vols. i. and ii.). A. P. Stanley: Lectures on the Hist. of the Eastern Church, 1862, Lect. vi. p. 281 sqq. (Am. Ed.). Theod. Keim: Der Uebertritt Constantins des Gr. zum Christenthum. Zürich, 1862 (an apology for Constantine’s character against Burckhardt’s view). The last great imperial persecution of the Christians under Diocletian and Galerius, which was aimed at the entire uprooting of the new religion, ended with the edict of toleration of 311 and the tragical ruin of the persecutors.1 The edict of toleration was an involuntary and irresistible concession of the incurable impotence of heathenism and the indestructible power of Christianity. It left but a step to the downfall of the one and the supremacy of the other in the empire of the Caesars. This great epoch is marked by the reign of Constantine I.2 He understood the signs of the times and acted accordingly. He was the man for the times, as the times were prepared for him by that Providence which controls both and fits them for each other. He placed himself at the head of true progress, while his nephew, Julian the Apostate, opposed it and was left behind. He was the chief instrument for raising the church from the low estate of oppression and persecution to well deserved honor and power. For this service a thankful posterity has given him the surname of the Great, to which he was entitled, though not by his moral character, yet doubtless by his military and administrative ability, his judicious policy, his appreciation and protection of Christianity, and the far-reaching consequences of his reign. His greatness was not indeed of the first, but of the second order, and is to be measured more by what he did than by what he was. To the Greek church, which honors him even as a canonized saint, he has the same significance as Charlemagne to the Latin.

• From Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (2004)

  Is it hopeless to hope for love on the battlefield of greed, ambition, and cruel adultery? Is the woman who lays her gift of lilies—or is it thorns?—at the base of an altar worshiping not love, but an idol, a graven image of fame and wealth and power? Is the real goal of the royal mistress, as one eighteenth-century French courtier put it, to “find glory in a whoredom that is part of History”?19 But in the patchwork of light and dark and good and evil that is human nature, our spotlight illuminates virtues as well. In it we see Agnes Sorel, sitting before a hearth doing needlework, gently persuading a cowardly Charles VII to drive the English from French soil; the courageous Gabrielle d’Estrées, who faced cannonballs on the battlefield to stay by the side of Henri IV, ably ending a bloody civil war with clever diplomatic persistence; Madame de Pompadour, mentor of artists and writers, eagerly turning in her silver, furniture, and priceless diamonds to build hospitals and pay the soldiers of Louis XV. We see Wilhelmine Rietz, willing to face imprisonment and possibly death rather than leave Frederick William II to die without her by his side. We behold loyalty in the face of betrayal in Maria Walewska, long ago dismissed by Napoleon while pregnant with his child, trudging up a steep hill on Elba to visit in exile a man whose princess bride and fawning courtiers have forgotten him. We see Katharina Schratt, stout and matronly, tiny glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, sitting on a concrete garden bench reading dispatches to eighty-year-old Emperor Franz Josef, whose eyes have failed. And Camilla Parker-Bowles, offering calm advice and loving support to a man torn between duty and inclination. Those who tread the earth wearing crowns—and we the crownless—all worship at altars of greed, ambition, and desire. But sometimes flowers sprout in the blood-soaked battlefield or the fire-ravaged forest, and a glorious tree grows from an unlikely crack in a crumbling wall. Afraid to see the truth of what we have been worshiping, we cast down our eyes. Yet if we look up, we might find that our altar has no idols, or that the idols we put there have fallen and we behold something else shining in their place. In searching the darkness, we have found light. NotesIntroduction1. D’Orliac, p. 171.2. Delpech, p. 23.3. Andrews, p. 161.4. Bray, pp. 467–468.5. Pöllnitz, pp. 251–252.6. Hume, p. 208.7. Trench, p. 182.8. Hervey, vol. 1, p. 42.9. Trench, p. 172.10. Memoirs, p. 183.11. Hardy, p. 42.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  TJae student who is interested may consult the works above referred to for the views of the writers themselves, and for criticism of their views: Zahn, ZkWkL* 1889, pp. 4St~466; Gloel, Die jUngsie Kritik afe* GolQforbri$fe&i Erlangen, 1890; Schmidt, Der Galaterbrief tm Feuer far Krilik, Leipzig, 180.2; Godet, Introduction to the Epistles of SL jPttuti 1894, pp. 230 jf.; Knowling, Witness of the J£pi$tl®$, Lon- don, 189*, chap. Ill; and T^titnony of St. Paul to Christ* New York, 1905, Preface and Lectures I and III; Schmlcdd, article, "Galatians," In Encyc* Bib, vol. II, cols. 1617-1623; Clemen, Paulns^ Giesseji, 1904, vol. I, pp. 6-42; Lake* Marlm* Ephtles of St. JP^wl, London, 1911, chap. ¥11; ef. literaturo referred to by Moff. Introd., p. $07, Knowl~ Ing, and Schmfedel, op. cit* Modern criticism as represented by scholars of all schools of thought, with the few exceptions noted, ratifies the tradition of centuries that the letter to the Galatians was written, as it claims to have been* by Paul, the Christian apostle of the first century. The internal evidence of the letter, with the vivid difttioAure of a commanding personality and a tense and in- tensely interesting situation, and the correspondence of that ait nation with that which is reflected In the other literature to from the author and period, supple- by the evidence, rather though it is, furnish no ground or occasion t Indeed, for other opinion* * J, Jfttf «f#i ««QI; Ks Aw Cf. aiHid I JNTRODUCXIOfl^T' ", ;\\ 'U 'v'''"' VII, ANALYSIS OF I* INTRODUCTION, i1-10. 1. Salutation, including assertion of the writer^ tolic authority i1*4. 2. Expression of indignant surprise at the threatened abandonment of his teaching by the GalatiasiH, in which is disclosed the occasion of the i*>10. II. PERSONAL PORTION OF THE LKTTKR. The general theme established by thr Independence (if all human authority relation to Christ: i^-a11, i« Proposition; Paul received his not but immediately from God i11 IS* a. Evidence subntanttattng the wf hia of various of hin life i1*-^1. a. Kvidenca Ills tile hN tw» !l# i* llit of hi* and Ms after i1*"1** c. a VH!I in hi* i |f| f *. A tho iif tii^ it if in aari C I*-** c hi* nit i la llf one i1 lft. / li^ In at *«•», f. tnd i»f Hi A| » §i to It fur thf abo ti of tit te INTRODUCTION III, REFUTATOR^ PORTION OF THE LETTER. The doctrine that men, both Jews and Gentiles, become acceptable to God through faith rather than by works of law, defended by refutation of the arguments of the judaisers, and chiefly by showing that the "heirs of Abraham" are such by faith, not by works of law. Chaps. 3, 4. i. Appeal to the early Christian experience of the Galatians 3t-6. 3* Argument from the faith of Abraham, refuting the contention of his opponents that only through conformity to law could men become "sons of Abraham "3^.

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

  In general the hierarchy formed a powerful and wholesome check on the imperial papacy, and preserved the freedom and independence of the church toward the temporal power. That age had only the alternative of imperial or episcopal despotism; and of these the latter was the less hurtful and the more profitable, because it represented the higher intellectual and moral interests. Without the hierarchy, the church in the Roman empire and among the barbarians would have been the football of civil and military despots. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance, that the church, at the time of her marriage with the state, had already grown so large and strong as to withstand all material alteration by imperial caprice, and all effort to degrade her into a tool. The Apostolic Constitutions place the bishops even above all kings and magistrates.240 Chrysostom says that the first ministers of the state enjoyed no such honor as the ministers of the church. And in general the ministers of the church deserved their honor. Though there were prelates enough who abused their power to sordid ends, still there were men like Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Leo, the purest and most venerable characters, which meet us in the fourth and fifth centuries, far surpassing the contemporary emperors. It was the universal opinion that the doctrines and institutions of the church, resting on divine revelation, are above all human power and will. The people looked, in blind faith and superstition, to the clergy as their guides in all matters of conscience, and even the emperors had to pay the bishops, as the fathers of the churches, the greatest reverence, kiss their hands, beg their blessing, and submit to their admonition and discipline. In most cases the emperors were mere tools of parties in the church. Arbitrary laws which were imposed upon the church from without rarely survived their makers, and were condemned by history. For there is a divine authority above all thrones, and kings, and bishops, and a power of truth above all the machinations of falsehood and intrigue. The Western church, as a whole, preserved her independence far more than the Eastern; partly through the great firmness of the Roman character, partly through the favor of political circumstances, and of remoteness from the influence and the intrigues of the Byzantine court. Here the hierarchical principle developed itself from the time of Leo the Great even to the absolute papacy, which, however, after it fulfilled its mission for the world among the barbarian nations of the middle ages, degenerated into an insufferable tyranny over conscience, and thus exposed itself to destruction. In the Catholic system the freedom and independence of the church involve the supremacy of an exclusive priesthood and papacy; in the Protestant, they can be realized only on the broader basis of the universal priesthood, in the self-government of the Christian people; though this is, as yet, in all Protestant established churches more or less restricted by the power of the state.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I’ll admit to penis envy, but only for a big one—if I had one of those, I’d fuck every pretty pussy I could find, nailing each to the cross of her servitude with my big cock. I’d consider it my job, my duty, my destiny. But in the end—in my end, anyway—it is not inches that matter. I have no sense of actual length in my ass, no ruler on my anal walls. I sense size by presence, by pressure, by depth. A-Man is a depth junkie. Of his emotional and spiritual depths I cannot speak with any authority, but I do know that he searches out the depths of my bowels like a demonic Victorian explorer, a gentleman possessed. Like Sir Richard Burton entering Mecca, he is the first Westerner to have infiltrated the tangled jungle of my bowels, my uncharted territory, the heart of my darkness. And he does so with a weapon of singular penetration. #156 He hangs a large gilt mirror in my bedroom and then I suck his cock in front of it, profile, testing the reflection—it proves worthy. He then sits on the bed and says, “Now just slide back up onto my cock . . .” We’re facing the same way. Obedient, I move too fast, too eager, and my ass is pierced with that anal virgin pain. “Okay, okay,” he soothes, “I’ll do everything . . .” He turns me over, places me on Pink Square, and rests his cock at the entrance to my ass. Not moving, he reaches around, finds my clit, and pulses her until my ass releases. He then pumps my ass to kingdom come. THE LESSON One day we had a conversation. Having discovered how to surrender, I was committed to continue doing so. This entailed remaining passive, ready to submit, willing to let him manhandle me, to let him enter my ass. On this particular afternoon, he said that he loved fucking me—and my ass—that everything was terrific, and if it stayed as it was, he would still love it. But, he continued, if I learned how to suck his cock really well, that would be a real bonus. After swallowing my pride, I said, “Okay, teach me.” And he did. So well. And then I started adding things of my own.

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

  The Epistle to Diognetus forms the transition from the purely practical literature of the Apostolic Fathers to the reflective theology of the Apologists. It still glows with the ardor of the first love. It is strongly Pauline.1317 It breathes the spirit of freedom and higher knowledge grounded in faith. The Old Testament is Ignored, but without any sign of Gnostic contempt. 5. Authorship and Time of composition. The author calls himself "a disciple of the Apostles,"1318 but this term occurs in the appendix, and may be taken in a wider sense. In the MS. the letter is ascribed to Justin Martyr, but its style is more elegant, vigorous and terse than that of Justin and the thoughts are more original and vigorous.1319 It belongs, however, in all probability, to the same age, that is, to the middle of the second century, rather earlier than later. Christianity appears in it as something still new and unknown to the aristocratic society, as a stranger in the world, everywhere exposed to calumny and persecution of Jews and Gentiles. All this suits the reign of Antoninus Pius and of Marcus Aurelius. If Diognetus was the teacher of the latter as already suggested, we would have an indication of Rome, as the probable place of composition. Some assign the Epistle to an earlier date under Trajan or Hadrian,1320 others to the reign of Marcus Aurelius,1321 others to the close of the second century or still later.1322 The speculations about the author begin with Apollos in the first, and end with Stephens in the sixteenth century. He will probably remain unknown.1323 § 171. Sixtus of Rome. Enchiridion SIXTI philosophi Pythagorici, first ed. by Symphor. Champerius, Lugd. 1507 (under the title: Sixtii Xysti Anulus); again at Wittenberg with the Carmina aurea of Pythagoras, 1514; by Beatus Rhenanus, Bas. 1516; in the "Maxima Bibliotheca Vet. Patrum." Lugd. 1677, Tom. III. 335–339 (under the title Xysti vel Sexti Pythagorici philosophi ethnici Sententicae, interprete Rufino Presbytero Aquilejensi); by U. G. Siber, Lips. 1725 (under the name of Sixtus II. instead of Sixtus I.); and by Gildemeister (Gr., Lat. and Syr.),Bonn 1873. A Syriac Version in P. Lagardii Analecta Syriaca, Lips. and Lond. 1858 (p. 1–31, only the Syriac text, derived from seven MSS. of the Brit. Museum, the oldest before A.D. 553, but mutilated). The book is discussed in the "Max. Bibl." l. c.; by Fontaninus: Historia liter. Aquilejensis (Rom. 1742); by Fabricius, in the Bibliotheca Graeca, Tom. I. 870 sqq. (ed. Harles, 1790); by Ewald: Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. VII. (Göttingen, 1859), p. 321–326; and by Tobler in Annulus Rufini, Sent. Sext. (Tübingen 1878).

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He recoils from nostalgia, detects sentimentality across a room, and the only hard evidence of our encounters is his relentlessly hard cock. Hardly something a girl can hang on to after the act. He keeps his private life private. I’ve not met his friends and do not know what he does during time not spent with me. He rejects gossip, refuses photographs, and eschews the love note. He is not a romantic, he is a practitioner of the here and now. He acts like a man unafraid of death—or else joyously defiant. I, however, am mortified by my mortality, and so I scribble on and on, searching for evidence, creating evidence, of our affair. He says he doesn’t need devotion. He says he doesn’t even really need to be listened to. If he isn’t heard the first time, he’ll say it again. What he does want, he says, is the adventure, the ride together, the opportunity to enter a time warp with someone. A-Man is a man with many tools. He can hang a mirror with toggle bolts, clean a skylight, grill a rack of lamb, pose naked in the garden like a Rodin sculpture, and fuck my ass. He’s a doer, not a thinker, and he openly admits that he wants a woman to be smarter than he is. I have never before met a guy brave enough to want that. It is the confidence of a man who owns his cock and knows exactly what to do with it and where to put it. Thinkers, in my experience, can’t fuck; they’re too busy with the meaning and the metaphors, too busy avoiding their tool, afraid of entering a hole without a clearly marked exit. He is an underthinker—and overfucker. A-Man leaves the meaning of the metaphors to me. He has given me almost no material gifts. Except one. A twelve-pack stack of yellow legal pads. I am writing on one now. Smart guy. Why him? Four things: 1) He loves me. 2) He knows how to fuck me. 3) He doesn’t take me seriously. 4) He is not afraid of me. one else had all four. Most only had the first, and even that was usually merely a sentiment, not a course of action. If you love me you shall fuck me without fear. I don’t want to be a whore to a man’s insecurities. I want to be a whore to my own. STATISTICS

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

  From this catechetical school proceeded a peculiar theology, the most learned and genial representatives of which were Clement and Origen. This theology is, on the one hand, a regenerated Christian form of the Alexandrian Jewish religious philosophy of Philo; on the other, a catholic counterpart, and a positive refutation of the heretical Gnosis, which reached its height also in Alexandria, but half a century earlier. The Alexandrian theology aims at a reconciliation of Christianity with philosophy, or, subjectively speaking, of pistis with gnosis; but it seeks this union upon the basis of the Bible, and the doctrine of the church. Its centre, therefore, is the Divine Logos, viewed as the sum of all reason and all truth, before and after the incarnation. Clement came from the Hellenic philosophy to the Christian faith; Origen, conversely, was led by faith to speculation. The former was an aphoristic thinker, the latter a systematic. The one borrowed ideas from various systems; the other followed more the track of Platonism. But both were Christian philosophers and churchly gnostics. As Philo, long before them, in the same city, had combined Judaism with Grecian culture, so now they carried the Grecian culture into Christianity. This, indeed, the apologists and controversialists of the second century had already done, as far back as Justin the "philosopher." But the Alexandrians were more learned, and made much freer use of the Greek philosophy. They saw in it not sheer error, but in one view a gift of God, and an intellectual schoolmaster for Christ, like the law in the moral and religious here. Clement compares it to a wild olive tree, which can be ennobled by faith; Origen (in the fragment of an epistle to Gregory Thaumaturgus), to the jewels, which the Israelites took with them out of Egypt, and turned into ornaments for their sanctuary, though they also wrought them into the golden calf. Philosophy is not necessarily an enemy to the truth, but may, and should be its handmaid, and neutralize the attacks against it. The elements of truth in the heathen philosophy they attributed partly to the secret operation of the Logos in the world of reason, partly to acquaintance with the writings of Moses and the prophets.

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

  "Einen zu bereichern unter allen, Musste diese Götterwelt vergehen." Notwithstanding this essential apostasy from truth and holiness, heathenism was religion, a groping after "the unknown God." By its superstition it betrayed the need of faith. Its polytheism rested on a dim monotheistic background; it subjected all the gods to Jupiter, and Jupiter himself to a mysterious fate. It had at bottom the feeling of dependence on higher powers and reverence for divine things. It preserved the memory of a golden age and of a fall. It had the voice of conscience, and a sense, obscure though it was, of guilt. It felt the need of reconciliation with deity, and sought that reconciliation by prayer, penance, and sacrifice. Many of its religious traditions and usages were faint echoes of the primal religion; and its mythological dreams of the mingling of the gods with men, of demigods, of Prometheus delivered by Hercules from his helpless sufferings, were unconscious prophecies and fleshly anticipations of Christian truths. This alone explains the great readiness with which heathens embraced the gospel, to the shame of the Jews.64 There was a spiritual Israel scattered throughout the heathen world, that never received the circumcision of the flesh, but the unseen circumcision of the heart by the hand of that Spirit which bloweth where it listeth, and is not bound to any human laws and to ordinary means. The Old Testament furnishes several examples of true piety outside of the visible communion with the Jewish church, in the persons of Melchisedec, the friend of Abraham, the royal priest, the type of Christ; Jethro, the priest of Midian; Rahab, the Canaanite woman and hostess of Joshua and Caleb; Ruth, the Moabitess and ancestress of our Saviour; King Hiram, the friend of David; the queen of Sheba, who came to admire the wisdom of Solomon; Naaman the Syrian; and especially Job, the sublime sufferer, who rejoiced in the hope of his Redeemer.65

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

  To Melito we owe the first Christian list of the Hebrew Scriptures. It agrees with the Jewish and the Protestant canon, and omits the Apocrypha. The books of Esther and Nehemiah are also omitted, but may be included in Esdras. The expressions "the Old Books," "the Books of the Old Covenant," imply that the church at that time had a canon of the New Covenant. Melito made a visit to Palestine to seek information on the Jewish canon. He wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse, and a "Key" ( ), probably to the Scriptures.1375 The loss of this and of his books "on the Church" and "on the Lord’s Day" are perhaps to be regretted most. Among the Syriac fragments of Melito published by Cureton is one from a work "On Faith," which contains a remarkable christological creed, an eloquent expansion of the Regula Fidei.1376 The Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledged as the perfect Reason, the Word of God; who was begotten before the light; who was Creator with the Father; who was the Fashioner of man; who was all things in all; Patriarch among the patriarchs, Law in the law, Chief Priest among the priests, King among the kings, Prophet among the prophets, Archangel among the angels; He piloted Noah, conducted Abraham, was bound with Isaac, exiled with Jacob, was Captain with Moses; He foretold his own sufferings in David and the prophets; He was incarnate in the Virgin; worshipped by the Magi; He healed the lame, gave sight to the blind, was rejected by the people, condemned by Pilate, hanged upon the tree, buried in the earth, rose from the dead and appeared to the apostles, ascended to heaven; He is the Rest of the departed, the Recoverer of the lost, the Light of the blind, the Refuge of the afflicted, the Bridegroom of the Church, the Charioteer of the cherubim, the Captain of angels; God who is of God, the Son of the Father, the King for ever and ever. § 178. Apolinarius of Hierapolis. Miltiades. Claudius Apolinarius,1377 bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, a successor of Papias, was a very active apologetic and polemic writer about A.D. 160–180. He took a leading part in the Montanist and Paschal controversies. Eusebius puts him with Melito of Sardis among the orthodox writers of the second century, and mentions four of his "many works" as known to him, but since lost, namely an "Apology" addressed to Marcus Aurelius (before 174). "Five books against the Greeks" "Two books on Truth." "Two books against the Jews." He also notices his later books "Against the heresy of the Phrygians" (the Montanists), about 172.1378 Apolinarius opposed the Quartodeciman observance of Easter, which Melito defended.1379 Jerome mentions his familiarity with heathen literature, but numbers him among the Chiliasts.1380 The latter is doubtful on account of his opposition to Montanism. Photius praises his style. He is enrolled among the saints.1381

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

  The question therefore lies between the shorter Greek copy and the Syriac version. The preponderance of testimony is for the former, in which the letters are no loose patch-work, but were produced each under its own impulse, were known to Eusebius (probably even to Polycarp),1234 and agree also with the Armenian version of the fifth century, as compared by Petermann. The three Syriac epistles, however, though they lack some of the strongest passages on episcopacy and on the divinity of Christ, contain the outlines of the same life-picture, and especially the same fervid enthusiasm for martyrdom, as the seven Greek epistles. III. His Character and Position in history. Ignatius stands out in history as the ideal of a catholic martyr, and as the earliest advocate of the hierarchical principle in both its good and its evil points. As a writer, he is remarkable for originality, freshness and force of ideas, and for terse, sparkling and sententious style; but in apostolic simplicity and soundness, he is inferior to Clement and Polycarp, and presents a stronger contrast to the epistles of the New Testament. Clement shows the calmness, dignity and governmental wisdom of the Roman character. Ignatius glows with the fire and impetuosity of the Greek and Syrian temper which carries him beyond the bounds of sobriety. He was a very uncommon man, and made a powerful impression upon his age. He is the incarnation, as it were, of the three closely connected ideas: the glory of martyrdom, the omnipotence of episcopacy, and the hatred of heresy and schism. Hierarchical pride and humility, Christian charity and churchly exclusiveness are typically represented in Ignatius.

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

  Origen’s greatest service was in exegesis. He is father of the critical investigation of Scripture, and his commentaries are still useful to scholars for their suggestiveness. Gregory Thaumaturgus says, he had "received from God the greatest gift, to be an interpreter of the word of God to men." For that age this judgment is perfectly just. Origen remained the exegetical oracle until Chrysostom far surpassed him, not indeed in originality and vigor of mind and extent of learning, but in sound, sober tact, in simple, natural analysis, and in practical application of the text. His great defect is the neglect of the grammatical and historical sense and his constant desire to find a hidden mystic meaning. He even goes further in this direction than the Gnostics, who everywhere saw transcendental, unfathomable mysteries. His hermeneutical principle assumes a threefold sense—somatic, psychic, and pneumatic; or literal, moral, and spiritual. His allegorical interpretation is ingenious, but often runs far away from the text and degenerates into the merest caprice; while at times it gives way to the opposite extreme of a carnal literalism, by which he justifies his ascetic extravagance.1469 Origen is one of the most important witnesses of the ante-Nicene text of the Greek Testament, which is older than the received text. He compared different MSS. and noted textual variations, but did not attempt a recension or lay down any principles of textual criticism. The value of his testimony is due to his rare opportunities and life-long study of the Bible before the time when the traditional Syrian and Byzantine text was formed. § 188. The Works of Origen. Origen was an uncommonly prolific author, but by no means an idle bookmaker. Jerome says, he wrote more than other men can read. Epiphanius, an opponent, states the number of his works as six thousand, which is perhaps not much beyond the mark, if we include all his short tracts, homilies, and letters, and count them as separate volumes. Many of them arose without his cooeperation, and sometimes against his will, from the writing down of his oral lectures by others. Of his books which remain, some have come down to us only in Latin translations, and with many alterations in favor of the later orthodoxy. They extend to all branches of the theology of that day. 1. His biblical works were the most numerous, and may be divided into critical, exegetical, and hortatory.

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

  II. Salomon Hess: Leben Bullinger’s. Zürich, 1828–’29, 2 vols. Not very accurate.—*Carl Pestalozzi: Heinrich Bullinger. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften. Nach handschriftlichen und gleichzeitigen Quellen. Elberfeld, 1858. Extracts from his writings, pp. 505–622. Pestalozzi has faithfully used the written and printed sources in the Stadtbibliothek and Archives of Zürich.—R. Christoffel: H. Bullinger und seine Gattin. 1875.—Justus Heer: Bullinger, in Herzog2, II. 779–794. A good summary. Older biographical sketches by Ludwig Lavater (1576), Josias Simler (1575), W. Stucki (1575), etc. Incidental information about Bullinger in Hagenbach and other works on the Swiss Reformation, and in Meyer’s Die Gemeinde von Locarno, 1836, especially I. 198–216. After the productive period of the Zwinglian Reformation, which embraced fifteen years, from 1516 to 1531, followed the period of preservation and consolidation under difficult circumstances. It required a man of firm faith, courage, moderation, patience, and endurance. Such a man was providentially equipped in the person of Heinrich Bullinger, the pupil, friend, and successor of Zwingli, and second Antistes of Zürich. He proved that the Reformation was a work of God, and, therefore, survived the apparent defeat at Cappel. He was born July 18, 1504, at Bremgarten in Aargau, the youngest of five sons of Dean Bullinger, who lived, like many priests of those days, in illegitimate, yet tolerated, wedlock.304 The father resisted the sale of indulgences by Samson in 1518, and confessed, in his advanced age, from the pulpit, the doctrines of the Reformation (1529). In consequence of this act he lost his place. Young Henry was educated in the school of the Brethren of the Common Life at Emmerich, and in the University of Cologne. He studied scholastic and patristic theology. Luther’s writings and Melanchthon’s Loci led him to the study of the Bible and prepared him for a change. He returned to Switzerland as Master of Arts, taught a school in the Cistercian Convent at Cappel from 1523 to 1529, and reformed the convent in agreement with the abbot, Wolfgang Joner. During that time he became acquainted with Zwingli, attended the Conference with the Anabaptists at Zürich, 1525, and the disputation at Bern, 1528. He married Anna Adlischweiler, a former nun, in 1529, who proved to be an excellent wife and helpmate. He accepted a call to Bremgarten as successor of his father. After the disaster at Cappel, he removed to Zürich, and was unanimously elected by the Council and the citizens preacher of the Great Minster, Dec. 9, 1531. It was rumored that Zwingli himself, in the presentiment of his death, had designated him as his successor. No better man could have been selected. It was of vital importance for the Swiss churches that the place of the Reformer should be filled by a man of the same spirit, but of greater moderation and self-restraint.305