Admiration

Passages

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

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

  Almost all the catholic saints belong to the higher degrees of the clergy or to the monastic life. And the monks were the chief promoters of the worship of saints. At the head of the heavenly chorus stands Mary, crowned as queen by the side of her divine Son; then come the apostles and evangelists, who died a violent death, the protomartyr Stephen, and the martyrs of the first three centuries; the patriarchs and prophets also of the Old Covenant down to John the Baptist; and finally eminent hermits and monks, missionaries, theologians, and bishops, and those, in general, who distinguished themselves above their contemporaries in virtue or in public service. The measure of ascetic self-denial was the measure of Christian virtue. Though many of the greatest saints of the Bible, from the patriarch Abraham to Peter, the prince of the apostles, lived in marriage, the Romish ethics, from the time of Ambrose and Jerome, can allow no genuine holiness within the bonds of matrimony, and receives only virgines and some few vidui and viduae into its spiritual nobility.814 In this again the close connection of saint-worship with monasticism is apparent. To the saints, about the same period, were added angels as objects of worship. To angels there was ascribed in the church from the beginning a peculiar concern with the fortunes of the militant church, and a certain oversight of all lands and nations. But Ambrose is the first who expressly exhorts to the invocation of our patron angels, and represents it as a duty.815 In favor of the guardianship and interest of angels appeal was rightly made to several passages of the Old and New Testaments: Dan. x. 13, 20, 21; xii. 1; Matt. xviii. 10; Luke xv. 7; Heb. i. 14; Acts xii. 15. But in Col. ii. 18, and Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 8, 9, the worship of angels is distinctly rebuked. Out of the old Biblical notion of guardian angels arose also the idea of patron saints for particular countries, cities, churches, and classes, and against particular evils and dangers. Peter and Paul and Laurentius became the patrons of Rome; James, the patron of Spain; Andrew, of Greece; John, of theologians; Luke, of painters; subsequently Phocas, of seamen; Ivo, of jurists; Anthony, a protector against pestilence; Apollonia, against tooth-aches; &c. These different orders of saints and angels form a heavenly hierarchy, reflected in the ecclesiastical hierarchy on earth. Dionysius the Areopagite, a fantastical Christian Platonist of the fifth-century, exhibited the whole relation of man to God on the basis of the hierarchy; dividing the hierarchy into two branches, heavenly and earthly, and each of these again into several degrees, of which every higher one was the mediator of salvation to the one below it. These are the outlines of the saint-worship of our period. Now to the exposition and estimate of it, and then the proofs.

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

  T. (see Acts 15 Rom. 15 1 Cor. 92; it is otherwise in classical Greek and the Lxx) refers specifically to the office and work of an apostle of Christ; see on 11. The omission of the article gives the word qualitative force. The preposition cic expresses not mere reference but purpose or result, “for or unto the creation of,” t. e., “so as to make him an apostle.” Ths neprtoufs is here, as in v.’?, by metonymy for “the circumcised.” elg t& vn is manifestly a condensed expression equivalent to els &rootoAny tay efvey, or the like, used for brevity’s sake or through negligence. That &xoctoAny is omitted because of an unwillingness on Paul’s part to claim apostleship for himself is excluded alike by the whole thought of the sentence and by 11. 9. Kal yvovtes THY ydpw THY SoOeicdy por, ’IdxkwPos Kal Kyn¢as Kat “Iwdvns, of Soxodvtes attra eivar, SeEvas eSa@Kxav €uol cat BapvdBa Kowwvias, “and when, I say, they per- ceived the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were accounted to be pillars, gave to me and to Barnabas right hands of fellowship.” These I, 8-9 95 words resume the thought of v.’, virtually repeating ¢ddvTes 67 TerioTevpat, etc., and completing what was there begun. It is an overrefinement to attempt to discover a marked dif- ference between éOdvTes and yvevtes. The “grace that was given to me” is manifestly the grace of God or Christ (on the word yapus, see 13 and detached note p. 423), including espe- cially the entrusting to him of the gospel to the uncircumcised (v.7), but not necessarily excluding that manifested in the results which he had been able to accomplish. Cf. Rom. 15, &¢ ob [sc. "Inood Xprorot] éraPopev yapw Kal arocroAny els UraKony Tictews év Tacw Tos EOveowv, See also x Cor. 319 152° Eph. 3% 7 8 47, On the question how the other apostles came to recognise that God had given him this grace, cf. on v.7. The giving of right hands is in token of a mutual compact, while Kowwvias defines that compact as one of partnership, See more fully below in fine print. The placing of the name of James first is probably the reflection of a certain prominence of James in the action here spoken of and of his influence in the decision, even above that of Peter. Thus while Peter is mentioned in vv.” 8, as in some sense the apostle of the circumcision, tz. €., as the leader in missionary work among the Jews, James was apparently the man of greatest influence in the settlement of a ques- tion of policy, involving one of doctrine in the more practical sense. Cf. on vv. 8. The substitution of Téte0¢ for Knp&s, and the placing of it before *I&xwGog (DFG df g Vg. Syr. [psh. harcl.] Tert.

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

  4%. Even if vyev be taken as subjective genitive (Sief.), it would be neces- sary to understand it as referring to a gratulation of themselves, not of others, as is shown clearly by the following sentence introduced by Yap and referring to the enthusiasm of the Gala- tians in receiving Paul. On the use of the simple pronoun for the reflexive, see Rob. p. 681, and the examples in the imme- diately preceding and following sentences, Tetpagwov buoy and opParpwors tua. IIod is the reading of SABCFGP 33, 104, 424**, 442, 1912 f g Veg. Syr. (psh. harcl. mg.), Boh. Arm. Euthal. Dam. Hier. Pelag. Of these f Vg. Boh. (?) Arm. Hier. al. add éottv after ov. DKL al. pler. d Goth. Syr. (harcl. txt.) Thdr. Mop. Sever. Chr. Thdrt. Thphyl. Oec. Victorin. Aug. Ambrst. al. read cfg instead of xod. DFGK al. pler. de Goth. Chr. Thdrt. Aug. Ambrst. add fy after obv. The choice is between x00 ody and tic ody jy, the other readings being corruptions or con- flations of these. Internal evidence is indecisive. Mey. and, follow- ing him, Zahn prefer tfc ody qv. But the strong preponderance of external evidence requires the adoption of mod oty. The alternative reading is probably an unintentional clerical corruption, IO being converted into TIX, and Y omitted to make sense. papTupa yap buiy bri et duvatdv Tods ddbarpors tua éfo- puéavtes edwxaré wor. “For I bear you witness that ye would, if possible, have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.” A confirmation immediately of the assertion implied in 0 waKkapiopuos vue but indirectly of the affirmation of their 244 GALATIANS former favourable attitude, which began with odSév jduxjnoaré ue, v.38, That he dwells on this matter at such length and states it so strongly shows the apostle’s strong desire to rein- state himself in the affections of the Galatians. The language escapes hyperbole only by the expression ¢i dvvatov, The inference from the reference to the eyes that Paul’s weakness of the flesh was a disease of the eyes, though slightly favoured by «i dvvarey in preference, e. g., to € avayKatoy is very pre- carious. ‘Yuty is not an indirect object denoting the person who receives the testimony (cf. Acts 158), but dative of advantage, denoting the one to whose credit witness is borne (cf. Acts 225 Rom. 10? Col. 418). et Suvatdy ... éShxaté wor is evidently a hypothesis contrary to fact, &y being omitted. Cf. BMT 249 and Mt. 26% Jn. 9%* 15% 19% On the mention of the eyes as the most precious members of the body, ¢f. Deut. 321° Ps. 178 Zach. 28, and on é&0edcow of the plucking out of the eyes, see Hdt. 85%: é&bouEe adtHv 6 cathe tole dp)arkods Se& thy aitlny tabcyy (viz., for going to war against his command), and other exx. cited by Wetst., ad loc., also Lxx, Judg. 162 (A; B reads éxxéxtw); t Sam. 112.

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

  In August, 1542, he left Florence; Peter Martyr followed two days later. He was provided with a servant and a horse by Ascanio Colonna, a brother of Vittoria, his friend.935 At Ferrara, the Duchess Renata furnished him with clothing and other necessaries, and probably also with a letter to her friend Calvin. According to Boverius, the annalist of the Capuchins, who deplores his apostasy as a great calamity for the order, he was accompanied by three lay brethren from Florence. He proceeded through the Grisons to Zürich, and stopped there two days. He was kindly received by Bullinger, who speaks of him in a letter to Vadian (Dec. 19, 1542) as a venerable man, famous for sanctity of life and eloquence. He arrived at Geneva about September, 1542, and remained there three years. He preached to the small Italian congregation, but devoted himself chiefly to literary work by which he hoped to reach a larger public in his native land. He was deeply impressed with the moral and religious prosperity of Geneva, the like of which he had never seen before, and gave a favorable description of it in one of his Italian sermons.936 "In Geneva, where I am now residing," he wrote in October, 1542, "excellent Christians are daily preaching the pure word of God. The Holy Scriptures are constantly read and openly discussed, and every one is at liberty to propound what the Holy Spirit suggests to him, just as, according to the testimony of Paul, was the case in the primitive Church. Every day there is a public service of devotion. Every Sunday there is catechetical instruction of the young, the simple, and the ignorant. Cursing and swearing, unchastity, sacrilege, adultery, and impure living, such as prevail in many places where I have lived, are unknown here. There are no pimps and harlots. The people do not know what rouge is, and they are all clad in a seemly fashion. Games of chance are not customary. Benevolence is so great that the poor need not beg. The people admonish each other in brotherly fashion, as Christ prescribes. Lawsuits are banished from the city; nor is there any simony, murder, or party spirit, but only peace and charity. On the other hand, there are no organs here, no noise of bells, no showy songs, no burning candles and lamps, no relics, pictures, statues, canopies, or splendid robes, no farces, or cold ceremonies. The churches are quite free from all idolatry."937 Ochino wrote at Geneva a justification of his flight, in a letter to Girolamo Muzio (April 7, 1543). In a letter to the magistrates of Siena, he gave a full confession of his faith based chiefly on the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (Nov. 3, 1543). He published, in rapid succession, seven volumes of Italian sermons or theological essays.938

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Instead, I would stick to dancing and continue plunging my toes into the beautiful, tight, shiny sheaths called pointe shoes. And there was the miracle, made manifest daily on my very own feet. Despite blistered and bloody evidence to the contrary, my feet didn’t hurt at all while ensconced in the shoes, while dancing. They only hurt when the shoes came off, when my foot was released from its satin prison. This curious experience, the ironic marriage of physical discomfort and euphoria, taught me the power of transcendence. My pink pointe shoes became my fetishistic ally, my crown of thorns, my bed of nails. I adored my toe shoes. Alongside my saint obsession, I developed a passion for reading. This passion, I came to believe, detracted from my ultimate success as a dancer by luring me from the circumscribed, nonverbal world of movement to the limitless plains of thought. The Book Phase included: Simone Weil (beyond my scope to emulate); Nietzsche (Thus Spake he to me); Henry Miller (the romance of poverty in Paris!); D. H. Lawrence (John Thomas and Lady Jane); Anaïs Nin (sexual liberation between the sheets and on the page—in Paris); Freud (incest is best—or at least inevitable); Thomas Mann (the poetic profundity of X-rays); Henry James (I am Isabel Archer, living in the wrong era, in the wrong wardrobe); Virginia Woolf (diary after diary right into the river); Erich Fromm; Eric Hoffer; Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death, every page underlined in red); and Søren Kierkegaard (seven tomes in a row, with voluminous notes on either legal pads or index cards . . . I loved Kierkegaard). These books and their revelations constituted my secret life until I was nearly twenty. Then I lost my virginity. And although my deepest interests have perhaps never changed, they immediately became irrevocably diverted to deriving answers—dancing had presented all the questions—from experience, not only books. But while all this reading and searching for external connection went on in the early morning and late at night, my deepest allegiance and dependence belonged elsewhere during the day: on the walls of the dance studio, where I could not escape my savage self. MY MIRROR, MY MASTER Ballet dancing is learned in front of a mirror. Hours and hours and hours and hours in front of a mirror. As a little girl, as a serious student, and then as a professional adult in both classes and rehearsals, I learned that every arch of the foot, every glance of the eye, every angle of the arm, every turn of the leg, every smile, every grimace, every strain is simultaneously performed and witnessed by one’s self, that nebulous entity called consciousness.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  ―le digo cuando volvemos al primer piso―. Lugares donde las personas van a pasar sus vidas y ganar sus sustentos. ―En realidad nunca lo pensé así. ―Se detiene en la parte trasera del edificio, mirando los acres de espacio vacíos más allá―. También es mi sustento de vida, supongo. Miro hacia afuera y noto el espacio al aire libre conectado a la parte trasera del edificio. Es grande, y puedo ya ver una fuente de mármol colocada al azar para una configuración posterior. ―¿Esto será un jardín? ―pregunto, notando que no hay techo―. Es una buena idea. ¿Construirás esto, también? ―Oh, no ―responde―. Una compañía de paisajismo vendrá cuando el edificio esté casi completo y se ocupará de plantar el césped, árboles, e instalar la estética. Justo lo mío. Me encanta el antes y el después, ver la transformación de un espacio al aire libre. ―Te avisaré cuando comiencen ―dice como si leyera mi mente―. Puedes venir de vez en cuando para ver el proceso. Sonrío. ―Gracias. En realidad, me gustaría eso. Además de mis profesores, nadie más sabe que en verdad disfruto ese tipo de cosas. Nuestros ojos se encuentran, y me doy cuenta que hay algo que me estoy perdiendo. No tengo mucho en común con las otras personas en mi vida, ¿no es así? Nos encerramos el uno en el otro pero solo por un momento. Un trabajador pasa, cargando leña por encima de su hombro, y Pike de repente se endereza, rompiendo el contacto conmigo y saludándolo. ―Bueno, debería… ―Muevo mi pulgar detrás de mí―. Irme, supongo. ―Sí ―responde―. También yo. Retrocedo. ―Te veo en casa. Tendré la cena lista a las cinco. Solo asiente y regresa a su trabajo. Casa. ¿No la casa? No es mi hogar, después de todo. Camino de regreso al auto y subo, sintiéndome peor que cuando llegué. ¿La cena a las cinco? Cole no sale hasta las seis. ¿De repente solo olvidé que existía? Envuelvo una toalla alrededor de mi cuerpo y recojo mi ropa sucia, el baño todavía está lleno de vapor. Abriendo la puerta, me asomo al pasillo y me aseguro que está despejado, y corro hacia mi habitación, cerrando mi puerta tras de mí. Sigo olvidando llevar ropa limpia conmigo, así puedo vestirme justo después de ducharme. Aún estoy acostumbrada a tener mi propio lugar y no me preocupaba si cruzaba el pasillo en toalla. Al menos estoy recordando ponerme un short de pijama si bajo por agua a mitad de la noche. Dudo que no muriera de vergüenza si el papá de Cole me viera en ropa interior y camiseta. Tomando mi cepillo, peino mi cabello húmedo y escojo algo para dormir. Veo un resplandor desde afuera y me acerco a las persianas, mirando a través de una grieta. Está oscuro afuera —son más de las nueve—, pero Pike sigue allí, en la entrada, trabajando en mi VW.

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

  The writings of Farel are polemical and practical tracts for the times, mostly in French.352 § 63. Peter Viret and the Reformation in Lausanne. Biographies of Viret in Beza’s Icones, in Verheiden’s Imagines et Elogia (with a list of his works, pp. 88–90), by Chenevière (1835), Jaquemot (1856), C. Schmidt (1860). References to him in Ruchat, Le Chroniqueur, Gaberel, Merle D’Aubigné, etc. Farel was aided in his evangelistic efforts chiefly by Viret and Froment, who agreed with his views, but differed from his violent method. Peter Viret, the Reformer of Lausanne, was the only native Swiss among the pioneers of Protestantism in Western Switzerland; all others were fugitive Frenchmen. He was born, 1511, at Orbe, in the Pays de Vaud, and educated for the priesthood at Paris. He acquired a considerable amount of classical and theological learning, as is evident from his writings. He passed, like Luther and Farel, through a severe mental and moral struggle for truth and peace of conscience. He renounced Romanism before he was ordained, and returned to Switzerland. He was induced by Farel in 1531 to preach at Orbe. He met with considerable success, but also with great difficulty and opposition from priests and people. He converted his parents and about two hundred persons in Orbe, to whom he administered the holy communion in 1532. He shared the labors and trials of Farel and Froment in Geneva. An attempt was made to poison them; he alone ate of the poisoned dish, but recovered, yet with a permanent injury to his health. His chief work was done at Lausanne, where he labored as pastor, teacher, and author for twenty-two years. By order of the government of Bern a public disputation was held Oct. 1 to 10, 1536.353 Viret, Farel, Calvin, Fabri, Marcourt, and Caroli were called to defend the Reformed doctrines. Several priests and monks were present, as Drogy, Mimard, Michod, Loys, Berilly, and a French physician, Claude Blancherose. A deputy of Bern presided. The discussion was conducted in French. Farel prepared ten Theses in which he asserts the supremacy of the Bible, justification by faith alone, the high-priesthood and mediatorship of Christ, spiritual worship without ceremonies and images, the sacredness of marriage, Christian freedom in the observance or non-observance of things indifferent, such as fasts and feasts. Farel and Viret were the chief speakers. The result was the introduction of the Reformation, November 1 of the same year. Viret and Pierre Caroli were appointed preachers. Viret taught at the same time in the academy founded by Bern in 1540. Caroli stayed only a short time. He was a native of France and a doctor of the Sorbonne, who had become nominally a Protestant, but envied Viret for his popularity, took offence at his sermons, and wantonly charged him, Farel, and Calvin, with Arianism. He was deposed as a slanderer, and at length returned to the Roman Church.354

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

  Oswald Myconius (1488–1552),323 a native of Luzern, an intimate friend of Zwingli, and successor of Oecolampadius, was to the Church of Basel what Bullinger was to the Church of Zürich,—a faithful preserver of the Reformed religion, but in a less difficult position and more limited sphere of usefulness. He spent his earlier life as classical teacher in Basel, Zürich, Luzern, Einsiedeln, and again in Zürich. His pupil, Thomas Plater, speaks highly of his teaching ability and success. Erasmus honored him with his friendship before he fell out with the Reformation.324 After the death of Zwingli and Oecolampadius, he moved to Basel as pastor of St. Alban (Dec. 22, 1531), and was elected Antistes or chief pastor of the Church of that city, and professor of New Testament exegesis in the university (August, 1532). He was not ordained, and had no academic degree, and refused to take one because Christ had forbidden his disciples to be called Rabbi (Matt. 23:8).325 He carried out the views of Oecolampadius on discipline, and maintained the independence of the Church in its relation to the State and the university. He had to suffer much opposition from Carlstadt, who, by his recommendation, became professor of theology in Basel (1534), and ended there his restless life (1541). He took special interest in the higher and lower schools. He showed hospitality to the numerous Protestants from France who, like Farel and Calvin, sought a temporary refuge in Basel. The English martyrologist, John Foxe, fled from the Marian persecution to Basel, finished and published there the first edition of his Book of Martyrs (1554). On the doctrine of the Eucharist, Myconius, like Calvin after him, occupied a middle ground between Zwingli and Luther. He aided Bucer in his union movement which resulted in the adoption of the Wittenberg Concordia and a temporary conciliation of Luther with the Swiss (1536). He was suspected by the Zürichers of leaning too much to the Lutheran side, but he never admitted the corporal presence and oral manducation; he simply emphasized more than Zwingli the spiritual real presence and fruition of the body and blood of Christ. He thought that Luther and Zwingli had misunderstood each other.326

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

  1. Calvin was, first of all, a theologian. He easily takes the lead among the systematic expounders of the Reformed system of Christian doctrine. He is scarcely inferior to Augustin among the fathers, or Thomas Aquinas among the schoolmen, and more methodical and symmetrical than either. Melanchthon, himself the prince of Lutheran divines and "the Preceptor of Germany," called him emphatically "the Theologian."359 Calvin’s theology is based upon a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He was the ablest exegete among the Reformers, and his commentaries rank among the very best of ancient and modern times. His theology, therefore, is biblical rather than scholastic, and has all the freshness of enthusiastic devotion to the truths of God’s Word. At the same time he was a consummate logician and dialectician. He had a rare power of clear, strong, convincing statement. He built up a body of doctrines which is called after him, and which obtained symbolical authority through some of the leading Reformed Confessions of Faith. Calvinism is one of the great dogmatic systems of the Church. It is more logical than Lutheranism and Arminianism, and as logical as Romanism. And yet neither Calvinism nor Romanism is absolutely logical. Both are happily illogical or inconsistent, at least in one crucial point: the former by denying that God is the author of sin—which limits Divine sovereignty; the latter by conceding that baptismal (i.e. regenerating or saving) grace is found outside of the Roman Church—which breaks the claim of exclusiveness.360 The Calvinistic system is popularly (though not quite correctly) identified with the Augustinian system, and shares its merit as a profound exposition of the Pauline doctrines of sin and grace, but also its fundamental defect of confining the saving grace of God and the atoning work of Christ to a small circle of the elect, and ignoring the general love of God to all mankind (John 3:16). It is a theology of Divine sovereignty rather than of Divine love; and yet the love of God in Christ is the true key to his character and works, and offers the only satisfactory solution of the dark mystery of sin. Arminianism is a reaction against scholastic Calvinism, as Rationalism is a more radical reaction against scholastic Lutheranism.361 Calvin did not grow before the public, like Luther and Melanchthon, who passed through many doctrinal changes and contradictions. He adhered to the religious views of his youth unto the end of his life.362 His Institutes came like Minerva in full panoply out of the head of Jupiter. The book was greatly enlarged and improved in form, but remained the same in substance through the several editions (the last revision is that of 1559). It threw into the shade the earlier Protestant theologies,—as Melanchthon’s Loci, and Zwingli’s Commentary on the True and False Religion,—and it has hardly been surpassed since. As a classical production of theological genius it stands on a level with Origen’s De Principiis, Augustin’s De Civitate Dei, Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, and Schleiermacher’s Der Christliche Glaube.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  By the time they hit Menemsha it was after five. They figured they’d do sunset there, then head for home. But as soon as they stepped onto the beach they spotted Bru and Von tossing around a Fris-bee. Caitlin pushed her canvas tote at Vix, kicked off her Tevas, and flashed her a wicked smile as she raced down the beach, leaping into the air to snatch their Frisbee in mid-flight. Vix hung back, watching, as if she were in sixth grade again, studying Caitlin for the secret to success. Caitlin was dazzling at seventeen. Her hair cascaded down her back, her skin was moist and flawless, and the expression on her face dared anyone to mess with her. She’d reached her full height that year, leaving Vix three inches behind. She was all legs, like Barbie, but without the ridiculous chest. Caitlin saw this as a defect, some trick nature had played on her. The girls at school encouraged her to send a photo to Elle or Cosmo or even Seventeen . The boys drooled over her. Even the teachers found her irresistible, but irritating. She was so bright. Why didn’t she apply herself? She could be anything, do anything, with just a little effort. But half the time she didn’t turn her papers in when they were due, and she refused to study for tests. “School has nothing to do with life,” she’d say. She’d gone skiing with Phoebe over spring break, to the Italian Alps, and returned with big news for Vix. “Congratulations are in order,” she’d announced. “I’m no longer a virgin.” So, Caitlin had been first, just as she’d guaranteed. Well, Vix wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t even disappointed. “Who?” she asked. “Where?” “A ski instructor,” Caitlin said. “Italian. Very physical. You know the type.” Vix didn’t. “We met on the tram. He was all over me by the time we got to the top of the mountain. We could hardly ski down fast enough.” Vix felt her heart beating faster. “And?” she asked, not certain how much she wanted to know. “It just happened.” “It can’t just happen.” “Well, first we had to get out of our ski clothes if that’s what you mean.” That wasn’t what she meant. “Did it hurt? Did you feel the Power? Was it exciting?” Caitlin laughed. “Exciting? Yeah, I guess so … for about two minutes. That’s how long it took till he finished.” Vix laughed, too. “Did he use something?” she asked. “Of course. I’m not totally crazy!” “Do you love him?” “Love him? I hardly know him. I’ll probably never see him again. It was mostly … curiosity. But at least I got it out of the way.” Vix had no intention of doing it just to get it out of the way. Caitlin called her impossibly romantic, swearing that sex and love not only can be separated but should be. “What gets women into trouble is the way they confuse the two,” she said.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  He was back in town for a short stretch between jobs. He’d been a wonderful contributor in my class years back, so open and thoughtful, and I enjoy catching up with him when I can. It was during this sidewalk conversation, which stretched into what must have been half an hour, that Jeremy told me he had a letter to pass on to me from some of his own former students. Having heard just a little bit about those students, and his experiences as their teacher, I knew I needed to hear more. I asked if I might interview him for this book and he agreed. His and his students’ stories, as it happens, provide a clear and poignant illustration of why and how positivity resonance matters, and how you can tap into it, even in the most difficult of group circumstances. After graduation, Jeremy had taken a coveted position at Teach For America, the nonprofit modeled after the Peace Corps that enlists thousands of future leaders, just out of college, to bring low-income communities fresh teachers for two or more years. Jeremy had been drawn to Teach For America because he yearned to make real differences for social change. A few years earlier, as a volunteer classroom assistant in the struggling city schools in neighboring Durham county, he’d become keenly aware of the irony of sitting in “ivory tower” classrooms in his own elite university, discussing in abstract terms how, generation after generation, social inequalities get replicated through entrenched inequities in education and wealth, when just down the road sat a middle school student who struggled to read “Go dog go.” Getting to know one of these kids in particular, and noting the poignant gap between his aspirations (for example, “to design video games”) and his academic ability, Jeremy discovered up close and personal that “the problem had a face.” As he put it, “Someone somewhere did something to him that prevented him from learning or didn’t give him the opportunity and that’s a problem that no one should have to deal with.” Teach For America (TFA) offered Jeremy the chance to roll up his sleeves and help to close the achievement gap by working directly with struggling kids in low-income classrooms. After a few months in TFA’s teaching training, and a short stretch into his first placement in a poor rural county in North Carolina, his assistant principal took note of his extraordinary patience and high expectations for even the lowest-performing kids in the high school. She offered him his own math class. He’d take charge of about a dozen chronically failing “special ed” kids, some with IQs in the fifties or with behavioral problems so severe that if “you look [at them] the wrong way, you could have a desk flipped.” He was excited to take on this challenge.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  He called his company Global, because he was serving both London and Paris—another Ontario community fifty miles to the east. As Ted was getting his business started, the family lived in a small house in the predominantly white town. The Haggises were one of the few Catholic families in a Protestant neighborhood, which led to occasional confrontations, including a schoolyard fistfight that left Paul with a broken nose. Although he didn’t really think of himself as religious, he identified with being a minority; however, his mother, Mary, insisted on sending Paul and his two younger sisters, Kathy and Jo, to Mass every Sunday. One day, she spotted their priest driving an expensive car. “God wants me to have a Cadillac,” the priest explained. Mary responded, “Then God doesn’t want us in your church anymore.” Paul admired his mother’s stand; he knew how much her religion meant to her. After that, the family stopped going to Mass, but the children continued in Catholic schools. Ted’s construction business prospered to the point that he was able to buy a much larger house on eighteen acres of rolling land outside of town. There were a couple of horses in the stable, a Chrysler station wagon in the garage, and giant construction vehicles parked in the yard, like grazing dinosaurs. Paul spent a lot of time alone. He could walk the mile to catch the school bus and not see anyone along the way. His chores were to clean the horse stalls and the dog runs (Ted raised spaniels for field trials). At home, Paul made himself the center of attention—“the apple of his mother’s eye,” his father recalled—but he was mischievous and full of pranks. “He got the strap when he was five years old,” Ted said. When Paul was about thirteen, he was taken to say farewell to his grandfather on his deathbed. The old man had been a janitor in a bowling alley, having fled England because of some mysterious scandal. He seemed to recognize a similar dangerous quality in Paul. His parting words to him were, “I’ve wasted my life. Don’t waste yours.” In high school, Paul began steering toward trouble. His worried parents sent him to Ridley College, a boarding school in St. Catharines, Ontario, near Niagara Falls, where he was required to be a part of the cadet corps of the Royal Canadian Army. He despised marching or any regulated behavior, and soon began skipping the compulsory drills. He would sit in his room reading Ramparts , the radical magazine that chronicled the social revolutions then unfolding in America, where he longed to be. He was constantly getting punished for his infractions, until he taught himself to pick locks; then he could sneak into the prefect’s office and mark off his demerits. The experience sharpened an incipient talent for subversion.

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

  William Lindsay Alexander, D. D., F. R. S. E. (1808–1884). Professor of Theology and one of the Bible Revisers. Congregationalist. From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. vol. IV. (1878) p. 721. "Calvin was of middle stature; his complexion was somewhat pallid and dark; his eyes, to the latest clear and lustrous, bespoke the acumen of his genius. He was sparing in his food and simple in his dress; he took but little sleep, and was capable of extraordinary efforts of intellectual toil. His memory was prodigious, but he used it only as the servant of his higher faculties. As a reasoner he has seldom been equalled, and the soundness and penetration of his judgment were such as to give to his conclusions in practical questions almost the appearance of predictions, and inspire in all his friends the utmost confidence in the wisdom of his counsels. As a theologian he stands on an eminence which only Augustin has surpassed; whilst in his skill as an expounder of Scripture, and his terse and elegant style, he possessed advantages to which Augustin was a stranger. His private character was in harmony with his public reputation and position. If somewhat severe and irritable, he was at the same time scrupulously just, truthful, and steadfast; he never deserted a friend or took an unfair advantage of an antagonist; and on befitting occasions he could be cheerful and even facetious among his intimates." Testimonies of American Divines. Dr. Henry B. Smith (1815–1877). Professor of Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. Presbyterian. From his Address before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, 1855, delivered by request of the Presbyterian Historical Society. See Faith and Philosophy, pp. 98 and 99. "Though the Reformation, under God, began with Luther in the power of faith, it was carried on by Calvin with greater energy, and with a more constructive genius, both in theology and in church polity, as he also had a more open field. The Lutheran movement affected chiefly the centre and the north of Europe; the Reformed Churches were planted in the west of Europe, all around the ocean, in the British Isles, and by their very geographical site were prepared to act the most efficient part, and to leap the walls of the old world, and colonize our shores. "Nothing is more striking in a general view of the history of the Reformed Churches than the variety of countries into which we find their characteristic spirit, both in doctrine and polity, penetrating. Throughout Switzerland it was a grand popular movement. There is first of all, Zwingli, the hero of Zurich, already in 1516 preaching against the idolatrous veneration of Mary, a man of generous culture and intrepid spirit, who at last laid down his life upon the field of battle. In Basle we find Oecolampadius, and also Bullinger [in Zurich], the chronicler of the Swiss reform. Farel aroused Geneva to iconoclasm by his inspiring eloquence.

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

  "His last days were of a piece with his life. His whole course has been compared by Vinet to the growth of one rind of a tree from another, or to a chain of logical sequences. He was endued with a marvellous power of understanding, although the imagination and sentiments were less roundly developed. His systematic spirit fitted him to be the founder of an enduring school of thought. In this characteristic he may be compared with Aquinas. He has been appropriately styled the Aristotle of the Reformation. He was a perfectly honest man. He subjected his will to the eternal rule of right, as far as he could discover it. His motives were pure. He felt that God was near him, and sacrificed everything to obey the direction of Providence. The fear of God ruled in his soul; not a slavish fear, but a principle such as animated the prophets of the Old Covenant. The combination of his qualities was such that he could not fail to attract profound admiration and reverence from one class of minds, and excite intense antipathy in another. There is no one of the Reformers who is spoken of, at this late day, with so much personal feeling, either of regard or aversion. But whoever studies his life and writings, especially the few passages in which he lets us into his confidence and appears to invite our sympathy, will acquire a growing sense of his intellectual and moral greatness, and a tender consideration for his errors.’ G. G. Herrick, D. D. Congregational Minister of Mount Vernon Church, Boston. From Some Heretics of Yesterday. Boston, 1890, pp. 210 sqq. "Calvin gathered up the spiritual and intellectual forces that had been started by the Reformation movement, and marshalled and systematized them, and bound them into unity by the mastery of his logical thought, as the river gathers cloud and rill, and snow-drift and dew-fall, and constrains them through its own channel into the unity and directness of a powerful current. The action of Luther was impulsive, magnetic, popular, appealing to sentiment and feeling, that of Calvin was logical and constructive, appealing to understanding and reason. He was the systematizer of the Reformation....

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Then she said, in a puzzled sort of way: ‘And you’re staying with Florrie and Ralph, are you?’ ‘They let me sleep last night in the parlour, as a favour; but today I have to move on. In fact - what time have you?’ She showed me her watch: a quarter to five, and much later than I had expected. ‘I really must go very soon.’ I took the pan off the stove - the onions had burned a little browner than I wanted - and began to look about me for a bowl. ‘Oh,’ she said, waving her hand at my haste, ‘have a cup of tea with me, at least.’ She put some water on to boil, and I began jabbing at the potatoes with a fork. The dish, as I assembled it, did not look quite like the meal that Mrs Milne had used to make; and when I tasted it, it was not so savoury. I set it on the side, and frowned at it. The girl handed me a cup. Then she leaned against a cupboard, quite at her ease, and sipped at her own tea, and then yawned. ‘What a day I have had!’ she said. ‘Do I stink like a rat? I’ve been all afternoon down a drain-pipe.’ ‘Down a drain-pipe?’ ‘Down a drain-pipe. I’m an assistant at a sanitary inspector’s. You may not pull such a face; it was quite a triumph, I tell you, my getting the position at all. They think women too delicate for that sort of work.’ ‘I think I would rather be delicate,’ I said, ‘than do it.’ ‘Oh, but it’s marvellous work! It’s only now and then I have to peer into sewers, as I did today. Mostly I measure, and talk to workers, and see if they are too hot or too cold, have enough air to breathe, enough lavatories. I have a government order, and do you know what that means? It means I can demand to see an office or a workshop, and if it’s not right, I can demand that it be put right. I can have buildings closed, buildings improved ...’ She waved her hands. ‘Foremen hate me. Greedy masters from Bow to Richmond absolutely loathe the sight of me. I wouldn’t swap my work for anything!’ I smiled at the enthusiasm in her voice; she might be a sanitary inspector, but she was also, I could tell, something of an actress. Now she took another mouthful of tea. ‘So,’ she said, when she had swallowed it, ‘how long have you been a friend of Florrie’s?’ ‘Well, friend isn’t quite the word for it, really...’ ‘You don’t know her terribly well?’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘That’s a shame,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘She’s not been herself, these past few months. Not been herself at all...’

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

  The Platonic philosophy offered many points of resemblance to Christianity. It is spiritual and idealistic, maintaining the supremacy of the spirit over matter, of eternal ideas over all temporary phenomena, and the pre-existence and immortality of the soul; it is theistic, making the supreme God above all the secondary deities, the beginning, middle, and end of all things; it is ethical, looking towards present and future rewards and punishments; it is religious, basing ethics, politics, and physics upon the authority of the Lawgiver and Ruler of the universe; it leads thus to the very threshold of the revelation of God in Christ, though it knows not this blessed name nor his saying grace, and obscures its glimpses of truth by serious errors. Upon the whole the influence of Platonism, especially as represented in the moral essays of Plutarch, has been and is to this day elevating, stimulating, and healthy, calling the mind away from the vanities of earth to the contemplation of eternal truth, beauty, and goodness. To not a few of the noblest teachers of the church, from Justin the philosopher to Neander the historian, Plato has been a schoolmaster who led them to Christ. Notes. The theology and philosophy of Justin are learnedly discussed by Maran, and recently by Möhler and Freppel in the Roman Catholic interest, and in favor of his full orthodoxy. Among Protestants his orthodoxy was first doubted by the authors of the "Magdeburg Centuries," who judged him from the Lutheran standpoint. Modern Protestant historians viewed him chiefly with reference to the conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. Credner first endeavored to prove, by an exhaustive investigation (1832), that Justin was a Jewish Christian of the Ebionitic type, with the Platonic Logos-doctrine attached to his low creed as an appendix. He was followed by the Tübingen critics, Schwegler (1846), Zeller, Hilgenfeld, and Baur himself (1853). Baur, however, moderated Credner’s view, and put, Justin rather between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, calling him a Pauline in fact, but not in name ("er ist der Sache nach Pauliner, aber dem Namen nach will er es nicht sein"). This shaky judgment shows the unsatisfactory character of the Tübingen construction of Catholic Christianity as the result of a conflux and compromise between Ebionism and Paulinism.

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

  Beza, his daily companion, thus describes "the ordinary labors" of Calvin, as he calls them: "During the week he preached every alternate, and lectured every third day; on Thursday he presided in the meetings of Presbytery (Consistory); and on Friday he expounded the Scripture in the assembly which we call ’the Congregation.’ He illustrated several sacred books with most learned commentaries, besides answering the enemies of religion, and maintaining an extensive correspondence on matters of great importance. Any one who reads these attentively, will be astonished how one little man (unicus homunculus) could be fit for labors so numerous and great. He availed himself much of the aid of Farel and Viret,646 while, at the same time, he conferred greater benefits on them. Their friendship and intimacy was not less hateful to the wicked than delightful to all the pious; and, in truth, it was a most pleasing spectacle to see and hear those three distinguished men carrying on the work of God in the Church so harmoniously, with such a variety of gifts. Farel excelled in a certain sublimity of mind, so that nobody could either hear his thunders without trembling, or listen to his most fervent prayers without being almost carried up to heaven. Viret possessed such suavity of eloquence, that his hearers were compelled to hang upon his lips. Calvin filled the mind of the hearers with as many weighty sentiments as he uttered words. I have often thought that a preacher compounded of the three would be absolutely perfect. In addition to these employments, Calvin had many others, arising out of circumstances domestic and foreign. The Lord so blessed his ministry that persons flocked to him from all parts of the Christian world; some to take his advice in matters of religion, and others to hear, him. Hence, we have seen an Italian, an English, and, finally, a Spanish Church at Geneva, one city seeming scarcely sufficient to entertain so many nests. But though at home he was courted by the good and feared by the bad, and matters had been admirably arranged, yet there were not wanting individuals who gave him great annoyance. We will unfold these contests separately, that posterity may be presented with a singular example of fortitude, which each may imitate according to his ability."647 We shall now consider this astounding activity of the Reformer in detail: his Church polity, his theological system, his controversies, and his relation to, and influence on, foreign churches. CHAPTER XIII.CONSTITUTION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH OF GENEVA.§ 98. Literature.

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

  4. Several of the most learned and able fathers of the fourth century received their general scientific education in heathen schools, under the setting sun of the classic culture, and then studied theology either in ascetic retirement or under some distinguished church teacher, or by the private reading of the Scriptures and the earlier church literature. Thus Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen were in the high school of Athens at the same time with the prince Julian the Apostate; Chrysostom attended the lectures of the celebrated rhetorician Libanius in Antioch; Augustine studied at Carthage, Rome, and Milan; and Jerome was introduced to the study of the classics by the grammarian Donatus of Rome. The great and invaluable service of these fathers in the development and defence of the church doctrine, in pulpit eloquence, and especially in the translation and exposition of the Holy Scriptures, is the best evidence of the high value of a classical education. And the church has always, with good reason, acknowledged it. § 49. Clergy and Laity. Elections. The clergy, according to the precedent of the Old Testament, came to be more and more rigidly distinguished, as a peculiar order, from the body of the laity. The ordination, which was solemnized by the laying on of hands and prayer, with the addition at a later period of an anointing with oil and balsam, marked the formal entrance into the special priesthood, as baptism initiated into the universal priesthood; and, like baptism, it bore an indefeasible character (character indelebilis). By degrees the priestly office assumed the additional distinction of celibacy and of external marks, such as tonsure, and sacerdotal vestments worn at first only during official service, then in every-day life. The idea of the universal priesthood of believers retreated in proportion, though it never passed entirely out of sight, but was from time to time asserted even in this age. Augustine, for example, says, that as all are called Christians on account of their baptism, so all believers are priests, because they are members of the one High Priest.412

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

  The pioneer of Protestantism in Western Switzerland is William Farel. He was a travelling evangelist, always in motion, incessant in labors, a man full of faith and fire, as bold and fearless as Luther and far more radical, but without his genius. He is called the Elijah of the French Reformation, and "the scourge of the priests." Once an ardent papist, he became as ardent a Protestant, and looked hereafter only at the dark side, the prevailing corruptions and abuses of Romanism. He hated the pope as the veritable Antichrist, the mass as idolatry, pictures and relics as heathen idols which must be destroyed like the idols of the Canaanites. Without a regular ordination, he felt himself divinely called, like a prophet of old, to break down idolatry and to clear the way for the spiritual worship of God according to his own revealed word. He was a born fighter; he came, not to bring peace, but the sword. He had to deal with priests who carried firearms and clubs under their frocks, and he fought them with the sword of the word and the spirit. Once he was fired at, but the gun burst, and, turning round, he said, "I am not afraid of your shots." He never used violence himself, except in language. He had an indomitable will and power of endurance. Persecution and violence only stimulated him to greater exertions. His outward appearance was not prepossessing: he was small and feeble, with a pale but sunburnt face, narrow forehead, red and ill-combed beard, fiery eyes, and an expressive mouth. Farel had some of the best qualities of an orator: a sonorous and stentorian voice, appropriate gesture, fluency of speech, and intense earnestness, which always commands attention and often produces conviction. His contemporaries speak of the thunders of his eloquence and of his transporting prayers. "Tua illa fulgura," writes Calvin. "Nemo tonuit fortius," says Beza. His sermons were extemporized, and have not come down to us. Their power lay in the oral delivery. We may compare him to Whitefield, who was likewise a travelling evangelist, endowed with the magnetism of living oratory. In Beza’s opinion, Calvin was the most learned, Farel the most forcible, Viret the most gentle preacher of that age.339 The chief defect of Farel was his want of moderation and discretion. He was an iconoclast. His violence provoked unnecessary opposition, and often did more harm than good. Oecolampadius praised his zeal, but besought him to be also moderate and gentle. "Your mission," he wrote to him, "is to evangelize, not to curse. Prove yourself to be an evangelist, not a tyrannical legislator. Men want to be led, not driven." Zwingli, shortly before his death, exhorted him not to expose himself rashly, but to reserve himself for the further service of the Lord.

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

  He spent a few months in Ferrara at the brilliant court of the Duchess Renée or Renata (1511–1575), the second daughter of Louis XII., of France, and made a deep and permanent impression on her. She had probably heard of him through Queen Marguerite and invited him to a visit. She was a small and deformed, but noble, pious, and highly accomplished lady, like her friends, Queen Marguerite and Vittoria Colonna. She gathered around her the brightest wits of the Renaissance, from Italy and France, but she sympathized still more with the spirit of the Reformation, and was fairly captivated by Calvin. She chose him as the guide of her conscience, and consulted him hereafter as a spiritual father as long as he lived.462 He discharged this duty with the frankness and fidelity of a Christian pastor. Nothing can be more manly and honorable than his letters to her. Guizot affirms, from competent knowledge, that "the great Catholic bishops, who in the seventeenth century directed the consciences of the mightiest men in France, did not fulfil the difficult task with more Christian firmness, intelligent justice and knowledge of the world than Calvin displayed in his intercourse with the Duchess of Ferrara."463 Renan wonders that such a stern moralist should have exercised a lasting influence over such a lady, and attributes it to the force of conviction. But the bond of union was deeper. She recognized in Calvin the man who could satisfy her spiritual nature and give her strength and comfort to fight the battle of life, to face the danger of the Inquisition, to suffer imprisonment, and after the death of her husband and her return to France (1559) openly to confess and to maintain the evangelical faith under most trying circumstances when her own son-in-law, the Duke of Guise, carried on a war of extermination against the Reformation. She continued to correspond with Calvin very freely, and his last letter in French, twenty-three days before his death, was directed to her. She was in Paris during the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew, and succeeded in saving the lives of some prominent Huguenots.464 Threatened by the Inquisition which then began its work of crushing out both the Renaissance and the Reformation, as two kindred serpents, Calvin bent his way, probably through Aosta (the birthplace of Anselm of Canterbury) and over the Great St. Bernard, to Switzerland. An uncertain tradition connects with this journey a persecution and flight of Calvin in the valley of Aosta, which was commemorated five years later (1541) by a memorial cross with the inscription "Calvini Fuga."465 At Basel he parted from Du Tillet and paid a last visit to his native town to make a final settlement of family affairs.466