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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  II. On the second head it is to be noted, that the Prophet treats of five things which relate to the dignity of Christ. (1) He commends Him from His fairness. (2) From the power of His strength. These two qualities are included in the name of David, which signifies that which is desirable to the sight, and which is strong of arm. Now, Christ was desirable to the sight, on account of His exceeding beauty: “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” Ps. 45:2. “Which things the angels desire to look into,” 1 Peter 1:12. Christ was also strong of arm, on account of His admirable fortitude. S. Augustine speaks of Him as being bound in hand, and fixed to the Cross, and yet having made war against the power of the air. “If I speak of strength, lo, He is strong,” Job. 9:19. (3) He commends Him on account of His innate holiness: “A righteous Branch,” i.e., in conception, because He is alone without sin. “Therefore, also, that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” S. Luke 1:35. (4) From His regal dignity: “A King shall reign.” “For He is Lord of Lords, and King of Kings,” Rev. 17:14. (5) From the brightness of His wisdom: “And shall be wise,” Vulg. “In Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” Colos. 2:3. III. On the third head it is to be noted, that Christ came into the world that He might judge and reward us, or, as it is here expressed, to “execute justice and judgment in the earth.” (1) Judgment in condemning the unbelieving: “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the Only Begotten Son of God,” S. John 3:18. (2) In justifying and loving those who believe: “God so loved the world, that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved,” S. John 3:16, 17. We ought to believe in Him by faith, which guides us, and operates in us for our salvation. We ought to fly from sin, lest we be condemned: “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” S. Mark 16:16. From which condemnation may He deliver us, &c. HOMILY L THE COMING ONE TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.—(FROM THE GOSPEL)“Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the world.”—S. John 6:14.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  THAT IT BELONGS TO GOD TO BE TO OTHER BEINGS THE PRINCIPLE OF EXISTENCEIN inferior agents it is a sign of attained perfection, when they can produce their own likeness. But God is sovereignly perfect (B.I. Chap.XXVIII). Therefore it belongs to Him to make some being like Himself in actual existence. 6. The more perfect any principle of activity is, the wider its sphere of action. But that pure actuality, which is God, is more perfect than actuality mingled with potentiality, such as is in us. Now actuality is the principle of action. Since then by the actuality which is in us, we are not only capable of immanent acts, such as understanding and willing, but also of acts tending to exterior things and productive of effects, much more can God, by virtue of His actuality, not only understand and will, but also produce an effect. Hence it is said: Who maketh great and wonderful and inscrutable works without number (Job v. 9). CHAPTER VII THAT THERE IS IN GOD ACTIVE POWERAS passive power, or passivity, follows upon being in potentiality, so active power follows upon being in actuality; for everything acts by being in actuality, and is acted upon by being in potentiality. But it belongs to God to be in actuality; and therefore there is suitably ascribed to Him active power, but not passive power. Hence it is said: Thou art powerful, O Lord (Ps. lxxxviii, 9); and Thy power and thy justice, O God, are even to the highest heaven, in the wonders that thou hast made (Ps. lxx, 18, 19). CHAPTER VIII THAT GOD’S POWER IS HIS SUBSTANCEACTIVE power belongs to the perfection of a thing. But every divine perfection is contained in God’s own being (B. I, Chap.XXVIII). God’s power therefore is not different from his being. But God is His own being (B. I, Chap.XXII); He is therefore His own power. 4. In things the powers of which are not their substance, the said powers are accidents. But there can be no accident in God (B. I, Chap.XXIII), who is therefore his own power. CHAPTER IX THAT GOD’S POWER IS HIS ACTIONGOD’S power is His substance, as has been shown in the previous chapter: also His action is His substance, as has been shown of His intellectual activity (B. I, Chap.XLV), and the same argument holds of His other activities. Therefore in God power and action are not two different things. 2. The action of any being is a complement of its power; for it stands to power as the second actuality to the first. But the divine power, being God’s very essence, has no other complement than itself. And therefore in God action and power are not distinct. 4. Any action that is not the agent’s very substance is in the agent as an accident in its subject. But in God there can be nothing accidental. Therefore in God His action is none other than His substance and His power. CHAPTER X

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  No nation on earth can prevent it, nor all the nations of the earth combined, . . . I defy the United States; I will obey God. JOHN TAYLOR (ON JANUARY 4, 1880), PRESIDENT, PROPHET, SEER, AND REVELATOR, CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS No Western nation is as religion-soaked as ours, where nine out of ten of us love God and are loved by him in return. That mutual passion centers our society and demands some understanding, if our doom-eager society is to be understood at all. HAROLD BLOOM, THE AMERICAN RELIGION Prologue Almost everyone in Utah County has heard of the Lafferty boys. That’s mostly a function of the lurid murders, of course, but the Lafferty surname had a certain prominence in the county even before Brenda and Erica Lafferty were killed. Watson Lafferty, the patriarch of the clan, was a chiropractor who ran a thriving practice out of his home in downtown Provo’s historic quarter. He and his wife, Claudine, had six boys and two girls, in whom they instilled an unusually strong work ethic and intense devotion to the Mormon Church. The entire family was admired for its industriousness and probity. Allen—the youngest of the Lafferty children, now in his mid-forties—works as a tile setter, a trade he has plied since he was a teenager. In the summer of 1984 he was living with his twenty-four-year-old wife and baby daughter in American Fork, a sleepy, white-bread suburb alongside the freeway that runs from Provo to Salt Lake City. Brenda, his spouse, was a onetime beauty queen recognized around town from her tenure as the anchor of a newsmagazine program on channel 11, the local PBS affiliate. Although she had abandoned her nascent broadcasting career to marry Allen and start a family, Brenda had lost none of the exuberance that had endeared her to television viewers. Warm and outgoing, she’d made a lasting impression. On the morning of July 24, 1984, Allen left their small duplex apartment before the sun was up and drove eighty miles up the interstate to work at a construction site east of Ogden. During his lunch break he phoned Brenda, who chatted with him for a minute before putting their fifteen-month-old daughter, Erica, on the line. Erica gurgled a few words of baby talk; then Brenda told her husband everything was fine and said good-bye. Allen arrived home around eight that evening, tired from the long workday. He walked up to the front door and was surprised to find it locked; they almost never locked their doors. He used his key to enter, and then was surprised again by the baseball game blaring from the television in the living room. Neither he nor Brenda liked baseball—they never watched it. After he’d turned off the TV, the apartment seemed preternaturally quiet to him, as though nobody was home. Allen figured Brenda had taken the baby and gone out.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  "Many stories, delightsome ladies, apt to give beginning to so glad a day as this will be, offer themselves unto me to be related; whereof one is the most pleasing to my mind, for that thereby, beside the happy issue which is to mark this day's discourses, you may understand how holy, how puissant and how full of all good is the power of Love, which many, unknowing what they say, condemn and vilify with great unright; and this, an I err not, must needs be exceeding pleasing to you, for that I believe you all to be in love. There was, then, in the island of Cyprus, (as we have read aforetime in the ancient histories of the Cypriots,) a very noble gentleman, by name Aristippus, who was rich beyond any other of the country in all temporal things and might have held himself the happiest man alive, had not fortune made him woeful in one only thing, to wit, that amongst his other children he had a son who overpassed all the other youths of his age in stature and goodliness of body, but was a hopeless dullard and well nigh an idiot. His true name was Galesus, but for that neither by toil of teacher nor blandishment nor beating of his father nor study nor endeavour of whatsoever other had it been found possible to put into his head any inkling of letters or good breeding and that he had a rough voice and an uncouth and manners more befitting a beast than a man, he was of well nigh all by way of mockery called Cimon, which in their tongue signified as much as brute beast in ours. His father brooked his wastrel life with the most grievous concern and having presently given over all hope of him, he bade him begone to his country house[263] and there abide with his husbandmen, so he might not still have before him the cause of his chagrin; the which was very agreeable to Cimon, for that the manners and usages of clowns and churls were much more to his liking than those of the townsfolk. [Footnote 263: Or farm (_villa_).]

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

  Grotius and other commentators1192 quote the famous letter of Pliny the Consul to his friend Sabinianus in behalf of a runaway slave. It is very creditable to Pliny, who was born in the year when Paul arrived as a prisoner in Rome, and shows that the natural feelings of kindness and generosity could not be extinguished even by that inhuman institution. Pliny was a Roman gentleman of high culture and noble instincts, although he ignorantly despised Christianity and persecuted its innocent professors while Proconsul in Asia. The letters present striking points of resemblance: in both, a fugitive slave, guilty, but reformed, and desirous to return to duty; in both, a polite, delicate, and earnest plea for pardon and restoration, dictated by sentiments of disinterested kindness. But they differ as Christian charity differs from natural philanthropy, as a Christian gentleman differs from a heathen gentleman. The one could appeal only to the amiable temper and pride of his friend, the other to the love of Christ and the sense of duty and gratitude; the one was concerned for the temporal comfort of his client, the other even more for his eternal welfare; the one could at best remand him to his former condition as a slave, the other raised him to the high dignity of a Christian brother, sitting with his master at the same communion table of a common Lord and Saviour. "For polished speech the Roman may bear the palm, but for nobleness of tone and warmth of heart he falls far short of the imprisoned apostle."

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The adventures of Rinaldo d'Asti were hearkened with admiration and his devoutness commended by the ladies, who returned thanks to God and St. Julian for that they had succoured him in his utmost need. Nor yet (though this was said half aside) was the lady reputed foolish, who had known how to take the good God had sent her in her own house. But, whilst they discoursed, laughing in their sleeves, of the pleasant night she had had, Pampinea, seeing herself beside Filostrato and deeming, as indeed it befell, that the next turn would rest with her, began to collect her thoughts and take counsel with herself what she should say; after which, having received the queen's commandment, she proceeded to speak thus, no less resolutely than blithely, "Noble ladies, the more it is discoursed of the doings of Fortune, the more, to whoso is fain to consider her dealings aright, remaineth to be said thereof; and at this none should marvel, an he consider advisedly that all the things, which we foolishly style ours, are in her hands and are consequently, according to her hidden ordinance, transmuted by her without cease from one to another and back again, without any method known unto us. Wherefore, albeit this truth is conclusively demonstrated in everything and all day long and hath already been shown forth in divers of the foregoing stories, nevertheless, since it is our queen's pleasure that we discourse upon this theme, I will, not belike without profit for the listeners, add to the stories aforesaid one of my own, which methinketh should please. There was once in our city a gentleman, by name Messer Tedaldo, who, as some will have it, was of the Lamberti family, albeit others avouch that he was of the Agolanti, arguing more, belike, from the craft after followed by his sons,[88] which was like unto that which the Agolanti have ever practised and yet practise, than from aught else. But, leaving be of which of these two houses he was, I say that he was, in his time, a very rich gentleman and had three sons, whereof the eldest was named Lamberto, the second Tedaldo and the third Agolante, all handsome and sprightly youths, the eldest of whom had not reached his eighteenth year when it befell that the aforesaid Messer Tedaldo died very rich and left all his possessions, both moveable and immoveable, to them, as his legitimate heirs. The young men, seeing themselves left very rich both in lands and monies, began to spend without check or reserve or other governance than that of their own pleasure, keeping a vast household and many and goodly horses and dogs and hawks, still holding open house and giving largesse and making tilts and tournaments and doing not only that which pertaineth unto men of condition, but all, to boot, that it occurred to their youthful appetite to will.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  years later, at the age of twelve, Cooke was married off to her stepfather, Warren “Elmer” Johnson, the brother of Prophet LeRoy Johnson. Cooke became one of seven women married to Elmer. In 1984, after Elmer Johnson had died and the husband who succeeded him had departed, Cooke and her two daughters were introduced to Green at a Sunday school meeting. “I paid particular attention to him,” Cooke told freelance journalist Carolyn Campbell, “because my friend said she had met Tom Green and he was the ugliest man she had ever met.” Cooke, who is four years older than Green, thought otherwise. She found him handsome, as well as highly intelligent. She was impressed with the way he took charge of the meeting. He asked her out on a date, during which he announced that he was going to marry her—a prophecy that was fulfilled in short order. The newlyweds honeymooned in Bountiful, Canada, a colony of UEP polygamists in southeastern British Columbia. By 1985 Cooke couldn’t help noticing that her thirteen-year-old daughter, Linda Kunz, was “showing feelings” toward Green. Linda liked to sit in her stepfather’s lap and would “hang on to him for the longest time.” She talked about him constantly, and eventually asked Cooke if she could marry Green. Cooke consented, and in January 1986, Linda married Tom Green in Los Molinos, Mexico, a polygamous outpost on the Baja Peninsula. “I was happy for my daughter because she was happy and it was what she wanted,” Cooke said afterward. “I was happy to share her with a man I loved very dearly and thought was a very special person.” Linda Kunz Green was pregnant with Green’s child before her fourteenth birthday. Even though Beth Cooke left Green, she defends her daughter’s marriage to him. “Fifteen years later,” she said in a 2001 interview with journalist Campbell, “I feel that time has proven it was a good decision. . . . They are prosecuting Tom based on nineteenth-century morals. Now, who cares who sleeps with who? They are all consenting adults. Right now, there are lesbians, homosexuals and single people living together all the time. There are married people living with others who they are not married to.” David Leavitt doesn’t consider Green’s plural marriages a matter of religious freedom or a harmless sexual relationship between consenting adults. Leavitt views Green as a pedophile, plain and simple. “He preyed on little girls who,

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

  The chief positive cause of the rapid spread and ultimate triumph of Christianity is to be found in its own absolute intrinsic worth, as the universal religion of salvation, and in the perfect teaching and example of its divine-human Founder, who proves himself to every believing heart a Saviour from sin and a giver of eternal life. Christianity is adapted to all classes, conditions, and relations among men, to all nationalities and races, to all grades of culture, to every soul that longs for redemption from sin, and for holiness of life. Its value could be seen in the truth and self-evidencing power of its doctrines; in the purity and sublimity of its precepts; in its regenerating and sanctifying effects on heart and life; in the elevation of woman and of home life over which she presides; in the amelioration of the condition of the poor and suffering; in the faith, the brotherly love, the beneficence, and the triumphant death of its confessors. To this internal moral and spiritual testimony were added the powerful outward proof of its divine origin in the prophecies and types of the Old Testament, so strikingly fulfilled in the New; and finally, the testimony of the miracles, which, according to the express statements of Quadratus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, and others, continued in this period to accompany the preaching of missionaries from time to time, for the conversion of the heathen. Particularly favorable outward circumstances were the extent, order, and unity of the Roman empire, and the prevalence of the Greek language and culture.

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

  "Let us not give him praise which he would not have accepted. God alone creates; a man is great only because God thinks fit to accomplish great things by his instrumentality. Never did any great man understand this better than Calvin. It cost him no effort to refer all the glory to God; nothing indicates that he was ever tempted to appropriate to himself the smallest portion of it. Luther, in many a passage, complacently dwells on the thought that a petty monk, as he says, has so well made the Pope to tremble, and so well stirred the whole world. Calvin will never say any such thing; he never even seems to say it, even in the deepest recesses of his heart; everywhere you perceive the man, who applies to all things—to the smallest as to the greatest—the idea that it is God who does all and is all. Read again, from this point of view, the very pages in which he appeared to you the haughtiest and most despotic, and see if, even there, he is anything other than the workman referring all, and in all sincerity, to his master.... But the man, in spite of all his faults, has not the less remained one of the fairest types of faith, of earnest piety, of devotedness, and of courage. Amid modern laxity, there is no character of whom the contemplation is more instructive; for there is no man of whom it has been said with greater justice, in the words of an apostle, ’he endured as seeing him who is invisible.’ " From Dutch Scholars. James Arminius (1560–1609). The founder of Arminianism. "Next to the study of the Scriptures which I earnestly inculcate, I exhort my pupils to peruse Calvin’s Commentaries, which I extol in loftier terms than Helmich himself (a Dutch divine, 1551–1608]; for I affirm that he excels beyond comparison (incomparabilem esse) in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the library of the fathers; so that I acknowledge him to have possessed above most others, or rather above all other men, what may be called an eminent spirit of prophecy (spiritum aliquem prophetiae eximium). His Institutes ought to be studied after the [Heidelberg] Catechism, as containing a fuller explanation, but with discrimination (cum delectu), like the writings of all men." Dan. Gerdes (1698–1767). Historia Evangelii Renovati, IV. 41 sq. (Groningae, 1752).

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

  It is befitting that with this last word against the Sacramentarians should coincide in time and spirit his last and most violent attack upon the divine gift of reason, which he had himself so often and so effectually used as his best weapon, next to the Word of God. On Jan. 17, 1546, he ascended the pulpit of Wittenberg for the last time, and denounced reason as the damned whore of the Devil." The fanatics and Sacramentarians boast of it when they ask: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Hear ye the Son of God who says: "This is my body," and crush the serpent beneath your feet.900 Six days later Luther left the city of his public labors for the city of his birth, and died in peace at Eisleben, Feb. 18. 1546, holding fast to his faith, and commending his soul to his God and Redeemer. In view of these last utterances we must, reluctantly, refuse credit to the story that Luther before his death remarked to Melanchthon: "Dear Philip, I confess that the matter of the Lord’s Supper has been overdone;"901 and that, on being asked to correct the evil, and to restore peace to the church, he replied: "I often thought of it; but then people might lose confidence in my whole doctrine. I leave the matter in the hands of the Lord. Do what you can after my death."902 But it is gratifying to know that Luther never said one unkind word of Calvin, who was twenty-five years younger. He never saw him, but read some of his books, and heard of him through Melanchthon. In a letter to Bucer, dated Oct. 14, 1539, he sent his respectful salutations to John Sturm and John Calvin, who lived at that time in Strassburg, and added that he had read their books with singular delight. This includes his masterly answer to the letter of Bishop Sadolet (1539).903 Melanchthon sent salutations from Luther and Bugenhagen to Calvin, and informed him that he was in high favor with Luther,"904 notwithstanding the difference of views on the real presence, and that Luther hoped for better opinions, but was willing to bear something from such a good man.905 Calvin had expressed his views on the Lord’s Supper in the first edition of his Institutes, which appeared in 1536,906 incidentally also in his answer to Sadolet, which Luther read "with delight,"907 and more fully in a special treatise, De Coena Domini, which was published in French at Strassburg, 1541, and then in Latin, 1545.908 Luther must have known these views. He is reported to have seen a copy of Calvin’s tract on the eucharist in a bookstore at Wittenberg, and, after reading it, made the remark: "The author is certainly a learned and pious man: if Zwingli and Oecolampadius had from the start declared themselves in this way, there would probably not have arisen such a controversy."909

• From Fragments (7)

  Babylonia and was honored with a prize of an ivory-hilted sword, which he had received for slay- ing a gigantic warrior (no. 39), while Alcaeus wan- 1 dered to various places including Egypt. Finally Pittacus allowed him to return to M3rtilene with the famous comment '' Forgiveness is better than vengeance/' and fragment no. 17 seems to be the words of an old man who feels that his struggles are over and that he may expect to die at home in peace. The poetry of Alcaeus, like Sappho's, distinctly; mirrors the circumstances under which he lived, as < well as his own character, and so we find great similarities as well as great differences between the two Lesbian poets. The subjective and passionate nature of their song, the use of their home Lesbian dialect, and many of their metrical forms were common to both; but their spheres of interest wer(j widely divergent. Sappho's whole life as well as her poetry centers around the passion of love; but Alcaeus, although he also wrote love songs (nos. 18-24), <Ioes not sparkle particularly here. Neither were his hymns to the gods (e. g. nos. 49~52) ever considered as part of his best or most interesting work. It was his warlike and politi- '. cal career and his reckless gaiety and love of drink- ' ing-bouts that inspired his most characteristic poe- 53 Lyric Songs of the Greeks try. The ancients thought most of his political songs, but probably rather because of their his- torical and personal interest than because of their literary merit. In this respect his drinking-songs A undoubtedly take first place. This theme he treats with so great a variety and such a picturesque background from nature as well as events in hu- man life as to arouse interest ever anew. The . many different motives for drink which appear in v his poems have often been commented upon: sum- 1 mer or winter or spring, daylight or night, joy or \ sadness, all were made an excuse for carousing. Wine is to drown one's cares and to help celebrate one's good fortune; it warms one's blood in winter and cools in summer. And yet Alcaeus was not a mere tippler; for he counsels moderation and warns against the effect of too much (nos. 14, 15). Just as Alcaeus was contrasted with Sappho in his subject matter, so in his style. Instead of Sap« pho's light and airy grace and glorious imagination, we find in him a heavy and sometimes ponderous stateliness and dignity and grandeur. An ancient writer also praised his figures of speech, but the extant remnants show such a sparing use of them, that we would not consider them in any way char- acteristic. Of Alcaeus also, as of Sappho, new fragments 54 Alcaeus are being found from time to time among the Egyp- tian papyri, those in a comparatively good state of preservation being translated below (nos. 6, 15, 31, 33,36-38,48,49, 69). 55

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

  E. Renan: Les évangiles et la seconde génération Chrétienne. Paris, 1877. Geo. P. Fisher (Professor in New Haven): The Beginnings of Christianity. New York, 1877. Chs. VIII.-XII. Also several articles on the Gospels in the "Princeton Review" for 1881. Wm. Thomson (Archbishop of York): The Gospels. General Introduction to Speaker’s "Com. on the New Test.," vol. I., pp. xiii.-lxxv. London and New York, 1878. Edwin A. Abbott (Head Master, City of London School): Gospels, in the ninth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannia," vol. X., pp. 789–843. Edinburgh and New York, 1879. Fred. Huidekoper (Unitar. Theol. Seminary, Meadville, Pa.): Indirect Testimony of History to the Genuineness of the Gospels. New York, 2d ed., 1879. John Kennedy (D. D.): The Four Gospels: their Age and Authorship. Traced from the Fourth Century into the First. London; Am. ed., with an introduction by Edwin W. Rice. Philadelphia, 1880 (Am. Sunday School Union). J. H. Scholten: Das Paulinische Evangelium. Transl. from the Dutch by E. B. Redepenning. Elberfeld, 1881. C. Holsten: Die drei ursprünglichen, noch ungeschriebenen Evangelien. Leipzig, 1883 (79 pages). A modification of Baur’s tendency-hypothesis. Holsten assumes three forms of the original oral Gospel—the Pauline, the Petrine, and the Judaistic. Norton, Tischendorf, Wieseler, Ebrard, Da Costa, Westcott, Lightfoot, Sanday, Kennedy, Thomson, Godet, Ezra Abbot, and Fisher are conservative and constructive, yet critical; Baur, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Keim, Renan, Scholten, Davidson, and the author of "Supernatural Religion" are radical but stimulating and negatively helpful especially Baur, Reim, and Renan. Bleek, Ewald, Reuss, Meyer, and Weiss occupy independent middle ground, but all defend the genuineness of John except Reuss, who hesitates. III. Commentaries. 1. Ancient Works: Origen (in Math., Luc., etc., fragmentary); Chrysostom (Hom. in Matth., ed. Fr. Field, 1839); Jerome (in Matth.; in Luc.); Augustine (Quaestionum Evangeliorum libri II.); Theophylact (Comment, in 4 Evang., Gr. et Lat.); Euthymius Zigabenus (Com. in 4 Evang., Gr. et Lat.); Thomas Aquinas (Catena aurea in Evan .; English edition by Pusey, Keble, and Newman. Oxford, 1841–45, 4 vols.). 2. Since the Reformation: Calvin (Harmonia, and Ev. Joa., 1553; Engl. ed., Edinb., 1846, 3 vols.); Maldonatus (R. Cath., Com. in quatuor Evang., 1615); Pasquier Quesnel (Jansenist; The Four Gospels, French and English, several editions); John Lightfoot (Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae in quatuor Evangelistas, and Harmonia quatuor Evangelistarum tum inter se, tum cum Veteri Testamento, in his Opera. London, 1684; also Leipz., 1675; Rotterdam, 1686; London, 1825); J. Macknight (Harm. of the Four Gospels, with Paraphrase and Notes. London, 1756; 5th ed., 1819, 2 vols.); George Campbell (d. 1796; The Four Gospels, with Dissertations and Notes. Aberdeen, 1814, 4 vols.; Andover, 1837, 2 vols.).

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Cimon, then, betaking himself to the country and there employing himself in the things that pertained thereto, it chanced one day, awhile after noon, as he passed from one farm to another, with his staff on his shoulder, that he entered a very fair coppice which was in those parts and which was then all in leaf, for that it was the month of May. Passing therethrough, he happened (even as his fortune guided him thither) upon a little mead compassed about with very high trees, in one corner whereof was a very clear and cool spring, beside which he saw a very fair damsel asleep upon the green grass, with so thin a garment upon her body that it hid well nigh nothing of her snowy flesh. She was covered only from the waist down with a very white and light coverlet; and at her feet slept on like wise two women and a man, her servants. When Cimon espied the young lady, he halted and leaning upon his staff, fell, without saying a word, to gazing most intently upon her with the utmost admiration, no otherwise than as he had never yet seen a woman's form, whilst in his rude breast, wherein for a thousand lessonings no least impression of civil pleasance had availed to penetrate, he felt a thought awaken which intimated to his gross and material spirit that this maiden was the fairest thing that had been ever seen of any living soul. Thence he proceeded to consider her various parts,--commending her hair, which he accounted of gold, her brow, her nose, her mouth, her throat and her arms, and above all her breast, as yet but little upraised,--and grown of a sudden from a churl a judge of beauty, he ardently desired in himself to see the eyes, which, weighed down with deep sleep, she kept closed. To this end, he had it several times in mind to awaken her; but, for that she seemed to him beyond measure fairer than the other women aforetime seen of him, he misdoubted him she must be some goddess. Now he had wit enough to account things divine worthy of more reverence than those mundane; wherefore he forbore, waiting for her to awake of herself; and albeit the delay seemed overlong to him, yet, taken as he was with an unwonted pleasure, he knew not how to tear himself away.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  This done, Saladin returned to Messer Torello and finding him altogether resolved to seek at any hazard to be in Pavia at the term appointed, if it were possible, and in default thereof, to die, bespoke him thus; 'Messer Torello, God knoweth that I neither will nor can anywise blame you if you tenderly love your lady and are fearful of her becoming another's, for that, of all the women I ever saw, she it is whose manners, whose fashions and whose demeanour, (leaving be her beauty, which is but a short-lived flower,) appear to me most worthy to be commended and held dear. It had been very grateful to me, since fortune hath sent you hither, that we should have passed together, as equal masters in the governance of this my realm, such time as you and I have to live, and if this was not to be vouchsafed me of God, it being fated that you should take it to heart to seek either to die or to find yourself in Pavia at the appointed term, I should above all have desired to know it in time, that I might have you transported to your house with such honour, such magnificence and in such company as your worth meriteth. However, since this hath not been vouchsafed and you desire to be presently there, I will e'en, as I may, despatch you thither after the fashion whereof I have bespoken you.' 'My lord,' replied Messer Torello, 'your acts, without your words, have given me sufficient proof of your favour, which I have never merited in such supreme degree, and of that which you say, though you had not said it, I shall live and die most assured; but, since I have taken this resolve, I pray you that that which you tell me you will do may be done speedily, for that to-morrow is the last day I am to be looked for.'

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  That the works of the six days according to the other saints were produced not simultaneously but by degrees, was not owing to lack of power in the Creator who could have produced all things at once, but was directed to the manifestation of God’s wisdom in the production of things, in that when he made things out of nothing he did not at once bring them from nothingness to their ultimate natural perfection, but conferred on them at first an imperfect being, and afterwards perfected them, so that the world was brought gradually from nothingness to its ultimate perfection. Thus different days corresponded to the various degrees of perfection, and it was shown that things derived their being from God, against those who contended that matter was uncreated, and that moreover he is the author of their perfection, against those who ascribed, the formation of the lower world to other causes. The first explanation of these things namely that held by Augustine is the more subtle, and is a better defence of Scripture against the ridicule of unbelievers: but the second which is maintained by the other saints is easier to grasp, and more in keeping with the surface meaning of the text. Seeing however that neither is in contradiction with the truth of faith, and that the context admits of either interpretation, in order that neither may be unduly favoured we now proceed to deal with the arguments on either side. Reply to the First Objection. In the divine works order of nature and origin and not of duration was observed. Formless spiritual and corporeal natures were formed first by priority of nature and origin. And though both natures were formed at the same time; inasmuch as the spiritual nature naturally transcends the corporeal, its formation preceded that of the corporeal nature in the order of nature. Again since an incorruptible corporeal nature transcends a corruptible nature, it behoved the former to be formed first in the order of nature. Wherefore on the first day the formation of the spiritual nature is signified by the creation of light, whereby the mind of the spiritual creature was illumined through its conversion to the Word. On the second day the formation of the corporeal nature heavenly and incorruptible, is signified by the creation of the firmament, which we understand to include the production of all the heavenly bodies and their distinction in respect of their various forms. —On the third day the formation of the corporeal nature of the four elements is signified by the gathering together of, the waters and the appearance of the dry land.—On the fourth day the adornment of the heaven is signified by the creation of the luminaries, and this in the order of nature should precede the adornment of the waters and the earth which took place on the following days. Thus God’s works were wrought in order indeed, not of duration but of nature.

• From Fragments (7)

  By far the greatest of the Greek monodic lyric poets, and, together with her contemporary Alcaeus, the earliest, was Sappho, who lived in Lesbos (Mity- lene or, according to others, Eresos) at the end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth century B. c. She was the daughter of Scamandronymus, and had a brother named Charaxus, of whom Herodotus tells us that he fell under the influence of the famous courtezan Rhodopis, whose real name was Doricha. He went to Naucratis in Egypt and ransomed her, and on his return was met by the barbed shafts of the poetry of his sister, who earlier had composed a prayer for his repentance and return (see no. 8 below), and on another occasion (no. 7) lamented that he fell into the clutches of the fair lady a second time after having once escaped. Other data as to Sappho's family are more or less uncertain. Her mother is said to have been named Cleis, and, to judge from fragment no. 9, she appears to have had a daughter of the same name. However, she may 13 Lyric Songs of the Greeks here not be speaking in her own person, and it is also possible that by " child " she did not mean a daughter, but a girl friend. That her husband, if she had one, was Cercylas from Andros, is most cer- tainly a fiction of the comedians. Of the events of her life we know nothing more except that she was exiled from Lesbos and wetit to Sicily about 596 b. c. Since she belonged to the old aristocratic families of Lesbos, the ascendancy of the tyrants, whom her party had fought so bitterly, re- sulted in banishment for her even though she evi- dently did not actively lend the service of her poetry to the side on which her sympathies lay. Later she was permitted to return, like Alcaeus, no doubt, through the generosity of the tyrant Pittacus. After her return all her poetic activity was con- nected with the " Home of the Muses," as she called her abode, in which she must have lived at the time of her death (cf. no. 68). Here she gathered around her a group of younger women whom she in- structed in the arts of poetry and song, and whose beauty and friendship inspired her Muse. Among the names of such companions which occur in her fragments, may be mentioned: Hero, Mnesidice, Anactoria, Gongyle, and above all, the lovely Atthis, whose desertion for her rival Andromeda caused her such sorrow (no. 16). Many of these 14 Sappho ^m I ^— ^M ■ I ■ ■ I I ■ 1 1 I I III I !■ girl friends stayed, it seems, till their marriage, and were then rewarded by a beautiful epithalamium or marriage hymn (nos. 26—39).

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  12. Quadratus, also, and Aristides, Hermias, and Athenagoras stood nobly forth in that time. Nor did Irenaeus, the invincible martyr and Bishop of Lyons, win less glory in the same cause when, forcibly refuting the perverse opinions of the Orientals, the work of the Gnostics, scattered broadcast over the territories of the Roman Empire, he explained (according to Jerome) the origin of each heresy and in what philosophic source it took its rise. But who knows not the disputations of Clement of Alexandria, which the same Jerome thus honorably commemorates: “What is there in them that is not learned, and what that is not of the very heart of philosophy?” He himself, indeed, with marvellous versatility treated of many things of the greatest utility for preparing a history of philosophy, for the exercise of the dialectic art, and for showing the agreement between reason and faith. After him came Origen, who graced the chair of the school of Alexandria, and was most learned in the teachings of the Greeks and Orientals. He published many volumes, involving great labor, which were wonderfully adapted to explain the divine writings and illustrate the sacred dogmas; which, though, as they now stand, not altogether free from error, contain nevertheless a wealth of knowledge tending to the growth and advance of natural truths. Tertullian opposes heretics with the authority of the sacred writings; with the philosophers he changes his fence and disputes philosophically; but so learnedly and accurately did he confute them that he made bold to say: “Neither in science nor in schooling are we equals, as you imagine.” Arnobius, also, in his works against the pagans, and Lactantius in the divine Institutions especially, with equal eloquence and strength strenuously strive to move men to accept the dogmas and precepts of Catholic wisdom, not by philosophic juggling, after the fashion of the Academicians, but vanquishing them partly by their own arms, and partly by arguments drawn from the mutual contentions of the philosophers. But the writings on the human soul, the divine attributes, and other questions of mighty moment which the great Athanasius and Chrysostom, the prince of orators, have left behind them are, by common consent, so supremely excellent that it seems scarcely anything could be added to their subtlety and fulness. And, not to cover too wide a range, we add to the number of the great men of whom mention has been made the names of Basil the Great and of the two Gregories, who, on going forth from Athens, that home of all learning, thoroughly equipped with all the harness of philosophy, turned the wealth of knowledge which each had gathered up in a course of zealous study to the work of refuting heretics and preparing Christians.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  17. Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who, as Cajetan observes, because “he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.” The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith. With his spirit at once humble and swift, his memory ready and tenacious, his life spotless throughout, a lover of truth for its own sake, richly endowed with human and divine science, like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching. Philosophy has no part which he did not touch finely at once and thoroughly; on the laws of reasoning, on God and incorporeal substances, on man and other sensible things, on human actions and their principles, he reasoned in such a manner that in him there is wanting neither a full array of questions, nor an apt disposal of the various parts, nor the best method of proceeding, nor soundness of principles or strength of argument, nor clearness and elegance of style, nor a facility for explaining what is abstruse. 18. Moreover, the Angelic Doctor pushed his philosophic inquiry into the reasons and principles of things, which because they are most comprehensive and contain in their bosom, so to say, the seeds of almost infinite truths, were to be unfolded in good time by later masters and with a goodly yield. And as he also used this philosophic method in the refutation of error, he won this title to distinction for himself: that, single-handed, he victoriously combated the errors of former times, and supplied invincible arms to put those to rout which might in after-times spring up. Again, clearly distinguishing, as is fitting, reason from faith, while happily associating the one with the other, he both preserved the rights and had regard for the dignity of each; so much so, indeed, that reason, borne on the wings of Thomas to its human height, can scarcely rise higher, while faith could scarcely expect more or stronger aids from reason than those which she has already obtained through Thomas.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Z 1. But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull In Ordine; Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull Pretiosus, and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows lustre from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull Mirabilis that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull Verbo Dei, affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: “It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same.” Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: “His teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.” 22. The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

• From Fragments (7)

  The Anacreontea are a collection of poems from the Roman and Byzantine periods which were at- tached to the Anthology of Constantinus Cephalas. They are imitations of the traditional Anacreon, Anacreon conceived as a light-hearted, jovial old man who had no other interests than love, wine, and song. The superscription in the manuscript claims Anacreon himself as author, and consequently they were accepted as genuine even as late as last century. In fact, the prevalent conception of that poet has come altogether from these imitations rather than the genuine fragments. As long as the Anacreontea were supposed to have come from Anacreon himself, they received the most extravagant admiration and were lauded to the skies. Just so soon, however, as it was known that they were spurious, many went to the opposite ex- treme and found them all an absolute abomination. In reality, as is to be expected of a collection from the hands of different authors of different periods, their merit varies widely. Some, e.g. nos. 31 and 32, are perfectly worthy of Anacreon. Others, e. g. no. 13, are worse than worthless, coming in the III Lyric Songs of the Greeks category cither of the grotesque or silly, or of medi- ocre insipidity. The reasons for rejecting the genuineness of the Anacreontea are various. In the first place, some are attributed also to other writers, e. g. no. 5 to Julian, and others show that the author himself had no desire of palming off his work as Anacreon's. In no. I Anacreon appears to the author in a dream, in no. 58 we find an exhortation to imitate Anac- reon, in no. 20 he is mentioned with Sappho and Pindar as one of three great lyric poets, apparently of the past, and in no. 14 there appear references to him which never could have been made by himself; for he appears surrounded by a sort of halo which shows that he had become a traditional figure. In the next place, there are references to conditions and circumstances which are much later than the time of Anacreon, e. g. Rhodian painters (no. 15), the Par- thians (no. 26b), the Stoic philosophy that the sun feeds itself from the sea (no. 21), and the use of doves as letter-carriers (no. 14). On the other hand, references to the peculiar circumstances and persons which surrounded the real Anacreon arc wanting. We see nothing of the court favorites like Smerdies or Cleobulus, only the shadowy name Bathyllus, with no reference to real personal traits or events. Furthermore, there arc almost no traces 112 Anacreontea