Admiration

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  From early childhood, therefore, he was ideally placed to acquire the rudiments of that veneration of Dante which is evident in the whole of his work from his earliest compositions to the lengthy but unfinished commentaries on Dante’s poem that constitute his last major literary labour. One of the companions of his childhood and adolescence was Zanobi da Strada, who like Boccaccio was destined to become a poet and to establish himself in Neapolitan society. And it was Zanobi’s father, Giovanni Mazzuoli, acting as tutor to both, who encouraged his pupils to study and admire the work of the poet of the Commedia. Boccaccio’s reverence for Dante was similar in its intensity to that of Dante himself for Virgil. Just as Dante’s poetry is interspersed with echoes and reminiscences of the Aeneid, so Boccaccio’s work is consistently studded with fragments from the medieval epic of his Florentine predecessor. Boccaccio’s description of Dante, in a letter to Petrarch of 1359, as the first guide of his studies (primus studiorum dux) recalls the terminology used by Dante in the Commedia to describe the great Latin poet. At the age of thirteen, or thereabouts, Boccaccio moved from Florence to Naples, where his father had been appointed to a high-ranking position in the Neapolitan branch of the Bardi bank, which, like the other leading Florentine banking houses, the Peruzzi and the Acciaiuoli, had for many years been the financial mainstay of the kingdom’s Angevin rulers. Even before reaching adolescence, the young Boccaccio had himself been apprenticed by his father to a career in banking, for which he had no natural inclination whatsoever. After what he later described as ‘six wasted years’, he persuaded his father to allow him to take up the study of canon law at the Neapolitan Studium, a Dominican institution established in 1269, which had close links with the university, founded in 1224 by Emperor Frederick II. Although his formal course of studies there was little more congenial to him than the career he had abandoned, it enabled him not only to begin assembling the vast store of erudition that underpins all of his literary work, but also to establish influential contacts in the fields of scholarship and culture in general. Naples was at that time a flourishing intellectual centre, attracting poets, philosophers, artists and men of letters from all over Europe, especially from France and northern Italy. King Robert the Wise, who occupied the throne from 1309 to 1343, was the most powerful ruler in the Italy of his day, and an enlightened patron and practitioner of the arts. Dante had expressed a poor opinion of the Angevin monarch in the early years of his reign, dubbing him the king who was fit only for writing sermons. But Boccaccio was later to describe him as a second Solomon, and one of the leading Florentine chroniclers of the period, Giovanni Villani, wrote that he was ‘the wisest of the Christians of the last five hundred years’.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Then do as I suggest,’ said Nathan. ‘You remain here in my house, young as you are, and assume the name of Nathan, whilst I go to live in yours, and henceforth call myself Mithridanes.’ To which Mithridanes replied: ‘If I were able to comport myself so impeccably as you do now, and as you have always done in the past, I should accept your offer without a second thought; but because I feel quite certain that my deeds would only diminish the fame of Nathan, and because I have no intention of impairing another’s name for that to which I cannot myself aspire, I am obliged to refuse it.’ After conversing agreeably together on these and many other matters, they returned as Nathan wished to the palace, where for several days on end he entertained Mithridanes in sumptuous style, giving him every encouragement to persevere in his great and noble resolve. And when Mithridanes wanted to return home with his companions, Nathan let him go, having made it abundantly clear that his liberality could never be surpassed. FOURTH STORYMesser Gentile de’ Carisendi comes from Modena and takes from the tomb the lady he loves, who has been buried for dead. She revives and gives birth to a male child, and later Messer Gentile restores her and the child to Niccoluccio Caccianimico, the lady’s husband. Miraculous indeed did it seem to all those present that anyone should be liberal with his own blood; and everyone agreed that Nathan’s generosity had certainly exceeded that of the King of Spain or the Abbot of Cluny. But after they had debated the matter at some length, the king fixed his gaze on Lauretta, thus showing that he wanted her to tell the next story; and Lauretta began forthwith, as follows: Fair young ladies, so goodly and magnificent are the things we have been told, so fully has the ground already been covered, that those of us who have not yet told our tales would surely be left with no area to explore, unless of course we turn to the deeds of lovers, wherein a most copious supply of tales on any topic is always to be found. For this reason, and also because matters of this sort are especially fascinating for people of our age, I should like to tell you of a generous deed performed by one who was in love. And if it is true that in order to possess the object of their love men will give away whole fortunes, set aside their enmities, and place their lives, their honour, and (what is more important) their reputation in serious jeopardy, then possibly you will conclude, all things considered, that his action was no less striking than some of the ones already described.

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

  The new path which Erasmus struck out in his edition of the New Testament was looked upon in some quarters as a dangerous path. Dorpius, one of the Louvain professors, in 1515, anticipated the appearance of the book by remonstrating with Erasmus for his bold project and pronounced the received Vulgate text free "from all mixture of falsehood and mistake." This, he alleged, was evident from its acceptance by the Church in all ages and the use the Fathers had made of it. Another member of the Louvain faculty, Latromus, employed his learning in a pamphlet which maintained that a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was not necessary for the scholarly study of the Scriptures. In England, Erasmus’ New Testament was attacked on a number of grounds by Lee, archbishop of York; and Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, preached a furious sermon in St. Paul’s churchyard on Erasmus’ temerity in undertaking the issue of such a work. The University of Cologne was especially outraged by Erasmus’ attempt and Conrad of Hersbach wrote:1233 — They have found a language called Greek, at which we must be careful to be on our guard. It is the mother of all heresies. In the hands of many persons I see a book, which they call the New Testament. It is a book full of thorns and poison. As for Hebrew my brethren, it is certain that those who learn it will sooner or later turn Jews. But among the men who read Erasmus’ text was Martin Luther, and he was studying it to settle questions which started in his soul. About one of these he asked his friend Spalatin to consult Erasmus, namely the final meaning of the righteousness of the law, which he felt the great scholar had misinterpreted in his annotations on the Romans in the Novum instrumentum. He believed, if Erasmus would read Augustine’s works, he would change his mind. Luther preferred Augustine, as he said, with the knowledge of one tongue to Jerome with his knowledge of five.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Hence I consider it far preferable to give it away now, just as I have always given away and spent my treasures, than to cling to it until such time as Nature deprives me of it against my will. ‘Even if one were to give away a hundred years, it would not amount to much of a gift; and surely it is a much more trivial matter to give away the six or eight years of my life that still remain to me. Take it then, if you want it, I do implore you; for during all the years I have lived here, I have never yet found anyone who wanted it, and if you do not take it, now that you have asked for it, I doubt whether I shall ever find anyone else. But even if I should happen to do so, I realize that the longer I keep it, the less valuable it becomes. Take it therefore, I beg you, before it loses its worth entirely.’ ‘God forbid,’ said Mithridanes, feeling deeply ashamed, ‘that I should even contemplate taking so precious a thing as your life, as until just now I was thinking of doing, let alone that I should actually deprive you of it. Far from wanting to shorten its years, I would gladly augment them with some of my own, if such a thing were possible.’ ‘Supposing it were,’ Nathan promptly replied, ‘would you really oblige me to accept them, and thus serve you as I have never served another living soul, by taking something of yours, when I have never before taken anything from anyone?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mithridanes, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Then do as I suggest,’ said Nathan. ‘You remain here in my house, young as you are, and assume the name of Nathan, whilst I go to live in yours, and henceforth call myself Mithridanes.’ To which Mithridanes replied: ‘If I were able to comport myself so impeccably as you do now, and as you have always done in the past, I should accept your offer without a second thought; but because I feel quite certain that my deeds would only diminish the fame of Nathan, and because I have no intention of impairing another’s name for that to which I cannot myself aspire, I am obliged to refuse it.’ After conversing agreeably together on these and many other matters, they returned as Nathan wished to the palace, where for several days on end he entertained Mithridanes in sumptuous style, giving him every encouragement to persevere in his great and noble resolve. And when Mithridanes wanted to return home with his companions, Nathan let him go, having made it abundantly clear that his liberality could never be surpassed.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Then she ardently addressed the entire audience, making each person there feel as if she or he had the most intimate connection with her of all. She presented the persona they had come to see: the sensual, independent, liberated woman she’d invented in editing her Diary. She embodied the myth that her readers had embraced as a goddess of love, intimacy, kindness, generosity, romantic idealism, surrealist imagination, and sexual abandon. I saw her that night in all her glory as the consummate woman artist: a practitioner of performance art before it had a name, a visionary of life itself as imaginative theater. I had seen packed auditoriums in a frenzy of adoration, and with this smaller group she likewise played her artist/goddess role to the hilt, quoting herself in her French lullaby rhythm, dropping the names of political friends such as Eugene McCarthy and literary associates such as Rebecca West and Lawrence Durrell, encouraging the women before her to value their individuality, throw off their inheritance of guilt, and live their dreams as she had! My students eagerly asked questions about her diary writing, which she answered with practiced phrases: “I write to taste life twice,” and “It is a thousand years of womanhood I am recording, a thousand women.” Some of the young women from my class made passionate personal testimonials to the liberating impact of having read her Diary. One twenty-year-old proclaimed, “You are the mother of us all!” Everyone present looked dazzled, as if they had been touched in a tent revival and received a genuine miracle. Everyone except Clara, that is. She’d been leaning against the wall distancing herself from my students. Now Clara came forward, flipping a hand upward for Anaïs to spot her. Seeing how beautiful Clara was with her corona of fiery curls, Anaïs offered her most appreciative smile, but Clara did not return it. She said, “At the end of the second volume of your Diary, you tell us you left Paris because your husband was recalled to the US. But until then there was no mention of you having had a husband. Why is that?” “My publisher—” Anaïs began, but Clara interrupted her. “Nowhere do you tell us how you got money for your free life. Yet economic self-sufficiency is the first requirement for woman’s freedom, wouldn’t you agree?” Anaïs straightened to her full 5’5” height. Her singsong French accent became more pronounced when she answered, “Economic self-sufficiency is essential for woman, but it is not the only ingredient necessary for her freedom. Americans, in particular, are oppressed by the punishing assumptions of Puritanism.” She looked into receptive faces as she spoke, settling on Don’s. “America’s sexual Puritanism must also be examined and dispensed with.” There was a murmur of assent in the room.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There are doubtless those who will say that it was a trifling matter for a king to bestow two girls in marriage, and I will agree with them. But I say it was no trifle, but a prodigy, if we consider that this action was performed by a king in love, who married off the girls he loved without having taken or gathered a single leaf, flower or fruit from his love. Thus then did this magnificent king comport himself, richly rewarding the noble knight, commendably honouring the girls he loved, and firmly subduing his own instinctive feelings. SEVENTH STORYOn hearing that a young woman called Lisa has fallen ill on account of her fervent love for him, King Peter goes to comfort her, and later on he marries her to a young nobleman; and having kissed her on the brow, he thenceforth always styles himself her knight. When Fiammetta had reached the end of her tale, and fulsome praise had been accorded to the heroic munificence of King Charles (albeit one of the ladies present, being a Ghibelline, refused to extol him), Pampinea at the king’s behest began as follows: Winsome ladies, no sensible person would disagree with what you have said about good King Charles, unless she had other reasons for disliking him; but since his deed has now reminded me of another, perhaps equally commendable, that was performed by an adversary of his for the sake of yet another young country-woman of ours, I should like to tell you about it. At the time when the French were driven from Sicily,1 there was living in Palermo a very rich Florentine apothecary called Bernardo Puccini, whose wife had borne him one child only, an exquisitely beautiful daughter who was now of marriageable age. King Peter of Aragon,2 having made himself master of the island, was staging a magnificent tournament in Palermo with all his lords, and whilst he was jousting in the Catalan style,3 it happened that Bernardo’s daughter, whose name was Lisa, was viewing the proceedings from a window along with some other ladies. When she saw the King riding in the joust, she was filled with so much admiration that after watching him perform in one or two further contests she fell passionately in love with him. The festivities came to an end, and Lisa went about her father’s house, unable to think of anything else but the lofty and splendid love to which she aspired. But that which grieved her most was the knowledge of her lowly condition, which left her with scarcely any hope that her love could be brought to a happy conclusion. Nevertheless she would not be deterred from loving the King, though for fear of making things worse for herself, she dared not reveal her love to a single living soul.

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

  After the death of Oecolampadius, he returned to Basel, 1535, broken down with the stone and catarrh. The last work on which he was engaged was an edition of Origen. He died calling out, "Oh, Jesus Christ, thou Son of God, have mercy on me," but without priest or extreme unction,—sine lux, sine crux, sine Deus, as the Dominicans of Cologne in their joy and bad Latin expressed it. He was buried in the Protestant cathedral of Basel, carried to the grave, as his friend and admirer, Beatus Rhenanus, informs us, on the shoulders of students. The chief magistrate of the city and all the professors and students were present at the burial. Erasmus was the prince of Humanists and the most influential and useful scholar of his age. He ruled with undisputed sway as monarch in the realm of letters. He combined brilliant genius with classical and biblical learning, keen wit and elegant taste. He rarely wrote a dull line. His extensive travels made him a man of the world, a genuine cosmopolitan, and he stood in correspondence with scholars of all countries who consulted him as an oracle. His books had the popularity and circulation of modern novels. When the rumor went abroad that his Colloquies were to be condemned by the Sorbonne, a Paris publisher hurried through the press an edition of 24,000 copies. To the income from his writings and an annuity of 400 gulden which he received as counsellor of Charles V.—a title given him in 1516—were added the constant gifts from patrons and admirers.1084 Had Erasmus confined himself to scholarly labors, though he secured eminence as the first classicist of his age, his influence might have been restricted to his time and his name to a place with the names of Politian of Italy and Budaeus of France, whose works are no longer read. But it was otherwise. His labors had a far-reaching bearing on the future. He was a leading factor in the emancipation of the mind of Europe from the bondage of ignorance and superstition, and he uncovered a lifeless formalism in religion. He unthawed the frost-bitten intellectual soil of Germany. The spirit of historical criticism which Laurentius Valla had shown in the South, he represented north of the Alps, and of Valla he spoke as "unrivalled both in the sharpness of his intelligence and the tenacity of his memory."1085 But the sweep of his influence is due to the mediation of his pupils and admirers, Zwingli, Oecolampadius and Luther. Erasmus’ break with the old mediaeval ecclesiasticism was shown in a fourfold way. He scourged the monks for their ignorance, pride and unchastity, and condemned that ceremonialism in religion which is without heart; he practised the critical method in the treatment of Scripture; he issued the first Greek New Testament; be advocated the translation of the Bible into the languages spoken in his day.

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

  The Luther-celebration gave rise not only to innumerable Protestant glorifications, but also to many Roman Catholic defamations of Luther and the Reformation. The ablest works of this kind are by Janssen (tracts in defence of his famous History of Germany, noticed in § 15), G. G. Evers, formerly a Lutheran pastor (Katholisch oder protestantisch? Hildesheim, 4th ed., 1883; Martin Luther’s Anfänge, Osnabrück, 3d ed., 1884; Martin Luther, Mainz, 1883 sqq., in several vols.), Westermayer. (Luther’s Werk im Jahr 1883), Germanus, Herrmann, Roettscher, Dasbach, Roem, Leogast, etc. See the "Historisch-politische Blätter" of Munich, and the "Germania" of Berlin, for 1883 and 1884 (the chief organs of Romanism in Germany), and the Protestant review of these writings by Wilh. Walther: Luther in neusten römischen Gericht. Halle, 1884 (166 pages). § 18. Luther’s Youth and Training. In order to understand the genius and history of the German Reformation we must trace its origin in the personal experience of the monk who shook the world from his lonely study in Wittenberg, and made pope and emperor tremble at the power of his word. All the Reformers, like the Apostles and Evangelists, were men of humble origin, and gave proof that God’s Spirit working through his chosen instruments is mightier than armies and navies. But they were endowed with extraordinary talents and energy, and providentially prepared for their work. They were also aided by a combination of favorable circumstances without which they could not have accomplished their work. They made the Reformation, and the Reformation made them. Of all the Reformers Luther is the first. He is so closely identified with the German Reformation that the one would have no meaning without the other. His own history is the formative history of the church which is justly called by his name, and which is the incarnation and perpetuation of his genius. No other Reformer has given his name to the church he reformed, and exercised the same controlling influence over its history. We need not discuss here the advantages and disadvantages of this characteristic difference; we are only concerned with the fact. Martin Luther was born Nov. 10, 1483, an hour before midnight, at Eisleben in Prussian Saxony, where he died, Feb. 18, 1546.111 On the day following he was baptized and received the name of the saint of the day. His parents had recently removed to that town112 from their original home at Mahra near Eisenach in Thuringia, where Boniface had first preached the gospel to the Germans. Six months after Luther’s birth they settled at Mansfeld, the capital of a rich mining district in the Harz mountains, which thus shares with the Thuringian forest the honor of being the home of the Luther family. They were very poor, but honest, industrious and pious people from the lower and uncultivated ranks.

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

  From the Psalms he proceeded to the Epistles of Paul. Here be had an opportunity to expound his ideas of sin and grace, the difference between the letter and the spirit, between the law and the gospel, and to answer the great practical question, how a sinner may be justified before a holy God and obtain pardon and peace. He first lectured on Romans and explained the difference between the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of works. He never published a work on Romans except a preface which contains a masterly description of faith. His lectures on Galatians he began October 27th, 1516, and resumed them repeatedly. They appeared first in Latin, September, 1519, and in a revised edition, 1523, with a preface of Melanchthon.166 They are the most popular and effective of his commentaries, and were often published in different languages. John Bunyan was greatly benefited by them. Their chief value is that they bring us into living contact with the central idea of the epistle, namely, evangelical freedom in Christ, which he reproduced and adapted in the very spirit of Paul. Luther always had a special preference for this anti-Judaic Epistle and called it his sweetheart or his wife.167 These exegetical lectures made a deep impression. They were thoroughly evangelical, without being anti-catholic. They reached the heart and conscience as well as the head. They substituted a living theology clothed with flesh and blood for the skeleton theology of scholasticism. They were delivered with the energy of intense conviction and the freshness of personal experience. The genius of the lecturer flashed from his deep dark eyes which seem to have struck every observer. "This monk," said Dr. Pollich, "will revolutionize the whole scholastic teaching." Christopher Scheurl commended Luther to the friendship of Dr. Eck (his later opponent) in January, 1517, as "a divine who explained the epistles of the man of Tarsus with wonderful genius." Melanchthon afterward expressed a general judgment when he said that Christ and the Apostles were brought out again as from the darkness and filth of prison. § 28. Luther and Mysticism. The Theologia Germanica. In 1516 Luther read the sermons of Tauler, the mystic revival preacher of Strassburg (who died in 1361), and discovered the remarkable book called "German Theology," which he ascribed to Tauler, but which is of a little later date from a priest and custos of the Deutsch-Herrn Haus of Frankfort, and a member of the association called "Friends of God." It resembles the famous work of Thomas a Kempis in exhibiting Christian piety as an humble imitation of the life of Christ on earth, but goes beyond it, almost to the very verge of pantheism, by teaching in the strongest terms the annihilation of self-will and the absorption of the soul in God. Without being polemical, it represents by its intense inwardness a striking contrast to the then prevailing practice of religion as a mechanical and monotonous round of outward acts and observances.

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

  One man with the truth on his side is stronger than a majority in error, and will conquer in the end. Christ was right against the whole Jewish hierarchy, against Herod and Pilate, who conspired in condemning him to the cross. St. Paul was right against Judaism and heathenism combined, "unus versus mundum;" St. Athanasius, "the father of orthodoxy," was right against dominant Arianism; Galileo Galilei was right against the Inquisition and the common opinion of his age on the motion of the earth; Döllinger was right against the Vatican Council when, "as a Christian, as a theologian, as an historian, and as a citizen," he protested against the new dogma of the infallibility of the Pope.385 That Luther was right in refusing to recant, and that he uttered the will of Providence in hearing testimony to the supremacy of the word of God and the freedom of conscience, has been made manifest by the verdict of history. § 57. Private Conferences with Luther. The Emperors Conduct. On the morning after Luther’s testimony, the Emperor sent a message—a sort of personal confession of faith—written by his own hand in French, to the Estates, informing them, that in consistency with his duty as the successor of the most Christian emperors of Germany and the Catholic kings of Spain, who had always been true to the Roman Church, he would now treat Luther, after sending him home with his safe-conduct, as an obstinate and convicted heretic, and defend with all his might the faith of his forefathers and of the Councils, especially that of Constance.386 Some of the deputies grew pale at this decision; the Romanists rejoiced. But in view of the state of public sentiment the Diet deemed it expedient to attempt private negotiations for a peaceful settlement, in the hope that Luther might be induced to withdraw or at least to moderate his dissent from the general Councils. The Emperor yielded in spite of Aleander’s protest. The negotiations were conducted chiefly by Richard von Greiffenklau, Elector and Archbishop of Treves, and at his residence. He was a benevolent and moderate churchman, to whom the Elector Frederick and Baron Miltitz had once desired to submit the controversy. The Elector of Brandenburg, Duke George of Saxony, Dr. Vehus (chancellor of the Margrave of Baden), Dr. Eck of Treves, Dean Cochlaeus of Frankfort,387 and the deputies of Strasburg and Augsburg, likewise took part in the conferences.

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

  German translation and critical notes, 2d ed. Erlangen 1881. Halm has compared the only MS. of this book, ormerly in the Vatican library now in Paris, very carefully ("tanta diligentia ut de nullo jam loco dubitari possit quid in codice uno scriptum inveniatur "). Ed. princeps by Faustus Sabaeus (Rom. 1543, as the eighth book of Arnobius Adv. Gent); then by Francis Balduin (Heidelb. 1560, as an independent work). Many edd. since, by Ursinus (1583), Meursius (1598), Wowerus (1603), Rigaltius (1643), Gronovius (1709, 1743), Davis (1712), Lindner (1760, 1773), Russwurm (1824), Lübkert (1836), Muralt (1836), Migne (1844, in "Patrol." III. Col. 193 sqq.), Fr Oehler (1847, in Gersdorf’s "Biblioth. Patr. ecelesiast. selecta," vol. XIII). Kayser (1863), Cornelissen (Lugd. Bat. 1882), etc. English translations by H. A. Holden (Cambridge 1853), and R. E. Wallis in Clark’s "Ante-Nic. Libr." vol. XIII. p. 451–517. (II.) Jerome: De Vir. ill. c. 58, and Ep. 48 ad Pammach., and Ep. 70 ad Magn. Lactant.: Inst. Div. V. 1, 22. (III.) Monographs, dissertations and prolegomena to the different editions of M. Fel., by van Hoven (1766, also in Lindner’s ed. II. 1773); Meier (Turin, 1824,) Nic. Le Nourry, and Lumper (in Migne, "Patr. Lat." III. 194–231; 371–652); Rören (Minuciania,) Bedburg, 1859); Behr (on the relation of M. F. to Cicero, Gera 1870); Rönsch (in Das N. T Tertull.’s, 1871, P. 25 sqq.); Paul P. de Felice (Études sur l’Octavius, Blois, 1880); Keim (in his Celsus, 1873, 151–168, and in Rom. und das Christenthum, 1881, 383 sq., and 468–486); Ad. Ebert (1874, in Gesch. der christlich-latein. Lit. I. 24–31); G. Loesche (On the relation of M. F. to Athanagoras, in the "Jahr b. für Prot. Theol." 1882, p. l68–178); RENAN (Marc-Auréle, 1882, p. 389–404); Richard Kuhn: Der Octavius des Minucius Felix. Eine heidnisch philosophische Auffassung vom Christenthum. Leipz. 1882 (71 pages). See also the art. of Mangold in Herzog2 X. 12–17 (abridged in Schaff-Herzog); G. Salmon in Smith and Wace III. 920–924. (IV.) On the relation of Minuc. Fel. to Tertullian: Ad. Ebert: Tertullian’s Verhältniss zu Minucius Felix, nebst einem Anhang über Commodian’s Carmen apoloqeticum (1868, in the 5th vol. of the "Abhandlungen der philol. histor. Classe der K. sächs. Ges. der Wissenschaften"); W. Hartel (in Zeitschrift für d. öester. Gymnas. 1869, p. 348–368, against Ebert); E. Klusmann ("Jenaer Lit. Zeitg," 1878) Bonwetsch (in Die Schriften Tert., 1878, p. 21;) V. Schultze (in "Jahr b. für Prot. Theol." 1881, p. 485–506; P. Schwenke (Uber die Zeit des Min. Fel. in "Jahr b. für Prot. Theol.’ " 1883, p. 263–294). In close connection with Tertullian, either shortly before, or shortly after him, stands the Latin Apologist Minucius Felix.1533 Converts are always the most zealous, and often the most effective promoters of the system or sect which they have deliberately chosen from honest and earnest conviction.

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

  339–357), Neander, Baur, and Dorner (especially on Origen’s doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation); and on his Philosophy, Ritter, Huber, Ueberweg. I. Life And Character. Origenes,1461 surnamed "Adamantius" on account of his industry and purity of character1462 is one of the most remarkable men in history for genius and learning, for the influence he exerted on his age, and for the controversies and discussions to which his opinions gave rise. He was born of Christian parents at Alexandria, in the year 185, and probably baptized in childhood, according to Egyptian custom which be traced to apostolic origin.1463 Under the direction of his father, Leonides,1464 who was probably a rhetorician, and of the celebrated Clement at the catechetical school, he received a pious and learned education. While yet a boy, be knew whole sections of the Bible by memory, and not rarely perplexed his father with questions on the deeper sense of Scripture. The father reproved his curiosity, but thanked God for such a son, and often, as he slept, reverentially kissed his breast as a temple of the Holy Spirit. Under the persecution of Septimius Severus in 202, he wrote to his father in prison, beseeching him not to deny Christ for the sake of his family, and strongly desired to give himself up to the heathen authorities, but was prevented by his mother, who hid his clothes. Leonides died a martyr, and, as his property was confiscated, he left a helpless widow with seven children. Origen was for a time assisted by a wealthy matron, and then supported himself by giving instruction in the Greek language and literature, and by copying manuscripts. In the year 203, though then only eighteen years of age, he was nominated by the bishop Demetrius, afterwards his opponent, president of the catechetical school of Alexandria, left vacant by the flight of Clement. To fill this important office, he made himself acquainted with the various heresies, especially the Gnostic, and with the Grecian philosophy; he was not even ashamed to study under the heathen Ammonius Saccas, the celebrated founder of Neo- Platonism. He learned also the Hebrew language, and made journeys to Rome (211), Arabia, Palestine (215), and Greece. In Rome he became slightly acquainted with Hippolytus, the author of the Philosophumena, who was next to himself the most learned man of his age. Döllinger thinks it all but certain that he sided with Hippolytus in his controversy with Zephyrinus and Callistus, for he shared (at least in his earlier period) his rigoristic principles of discipline, had a dislike for the proud and overbearing bishops in large cities, and held a subordinatian view of the Trinity, but he was far superior to his older contemporary in genius, depth, and penetrating insight.1465 When his labors and the number of his pupils increased he gave the lower classes of the catechetical school into the charge of his pupil Heraclas, and devoted himself wholly to the more advanced students.

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

  Vita rythmica (pp. 135–220), written by a Werden monk about 1140. Biographies of Liudger have been recently written in German by Luise von Bornstedt (Münster, 1842); P. W. Behrends (Neuhaldensleben u. Gardelegen, 1843); A. Istvann (Coesfeld, 1860); A. Hüsing (Münster, 1878); L. Th. W. Pingsmann (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1879). Cf. Diekamp’s full bibliography, pp. CXVIII.-CXMI. For literary criticism see Ceillier, XII. 218. Hist. Lit. de la France, V. 57–59. Ebert, II. 107, 338, 339. Liudger, or Ludger, first bishop of Münster, was born about 744 at Suecsnon (now Zuilen) on the Vecht, in Frisia. His parents, Thiadgrim and Liafburg, were earnest Christians. His paternal grandfather, Wursing, had been one of Willibrord’s most zealous supporters (c. 5).1141 He early showed a pious and studious disposition (c. 7). He entered the cloister school of Utrecht, taught by the abbot Gregory, whose biographer he became, laid aside his secular habit and devoted himself to the cause of religion. His proficiency in study was such that Gregory made him a teacher (c. 8). During the year 767 he received further instruction from Alcuin at York, and was ordained a deacon (c. 9). In 768 he was in Utrecht; but for the next three years and a half with Alcuin, although Gregory had been very loath to allow him to go the second time. He would have staid longer if a Frisian trader had not murdered in a quarrel a son of a count of York. The ill feeling which this event caused, made it unsafe for any Frisian to remain in York, and so taking with him "many books" (copiam librorum), he returned to Utrecht (c. 10). Gregory had died during his absence (probably in 771), and his successor was his nephew, Albric, a man of zeal and piety. Liudger was immediately on his return to York pressed into active service. He was sent to Deventer on the Yssel in Holland, where the, saintly English missionary Liafwin had just died. A horde of pagan Saxons had devastated the place, burnt the church and apparently undone Liafwin’s work (c. 13). Liudger was commissioned to rebuild the church and to bury the body of Liafwin, which was lost. Arrived at the spot he was at first unsuccessful in finding the body, and was about to rebuild the church without further search when Liafwin appeared to him in a vision and told him that his body was in the south wall of the church, and there it was found (c. 14). Albric next sent him to Frisia to destroy the idols and temples there. Of the enormous treasure taken from the temples Charlemagne gave one-third to Albric. In 777 Albric was consecrated bishop at Cologne, and Liudger at the same time ordained a presbyter. For the next seven years Liudger was priest at Doccum in the Ostergau, where Boniface had died, but during the three autumn months of each year he taught in the cloister school at Utrecht (c. 15).

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

  and Gregory VII., he was one of the most important figures of the Middle Ages, a man of earnest, sterling, austere intellect, a consummate ruler, a statesman of penetrating judgment, a high-minded priest filled with religious fervor, and at the same time with an unbounded ambition and appalling force of will, a true idealist on the papal throne, yet an entirely practical monarch and a cool-headed lawyer .... No pope has ever had so lofty and yet so real consciousness of his power as Innocent III., the creator and destroyer of emperors and kings." Ranke says:229 — "A superstitious reverence such as Friedrich Hurter renders to him in his remarkable book I am not at all able to accord. Thus much, however, is certain. He stands in the foremost rank of popes, having world-wide significance. The task which he placed before himself he was thoroughly equal to. Leaving out a few dialectic subtleties, one will not find in him anything that is really small. In him was fulfilled the transition of the times." Baur gives this opinion:230 — "With Innocent III. the papacy reached its height and in no other period of its long history did it enjoy such an undisturbed peace and such a glorious development of its power and splendor. He was distinguished as no other in this high place not only by all the qualities of the ruler but by personal virtues, by high birth and also by mind, culture, and learning."231 Hagenbach:232 — "Measured by the standard of the papacy, Innocent is beyond controversy the greatest of all the popes. Measured by the eternal law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that which here seems great and mighty in the eyes of the world, seems little in the kingdom of heaven, and amongst those things which call forth wonder and admiration, only that will stand which the Spirit of God, who never wholly withdraws from the Church, wrought in his soul. How far such operation went on, and with what result, who but God can know? He alone is judge." CHAPTER VI.

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

  Then, by way of example, he cites the first twelve bishops of the Roman church from Linus to Eleutherus, as witnesses of the pure apostolic doctrine. He might conceive of a Christianity without scripture, but he could not imagine a Christianity without living tradition; and for this opinion he refers to barbarian tribes, who have the gospel, "sine charta et atramento," written in their hearts. Tertullian finds a universal antidote for all heresy in his celebrated prescription argument, which cuts off heretics, at the outset, from every right of appeal to the holy scriptures, on the ground, that the holy scriptures arose in the church of Christ, were given to her, and only in her and by her can be rightly understood. He calls attention also here to the tangible succession, which distinguishes the catholic church from the arbitrary and ever-changing sects of heretics, and which in all the principal congregations, especially in the original sects of the apostles, reaches back without a break from bishop to bishop, to the apostles themselves, from the apostles to Christ, and from Christ to God. "Come, now," says he, in his tract on Prescription, "if you would practise inquiry to more advantage in the matter of your salvation, go through the apostolic churches, in which the very chairs of the apostles still preside, in which their own authentic letters are publicly read, uttering the voice and representing the face of every one. If Achaia is nearest, you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus. But if you live near Italy, you have Rome, whence also we [of the African church] derive our origin. How happy is the church, to which the apostles poured out their whole doctrine with their blood," etc. To estimate the weight of this argument, we must remember that these fathers still stood comparatively very near the apostolic age, and that the succession of bishops in the oldest churches could be demonstrated by the living memory of two or three generations. Irenaeus in fact, had been acquainted in his youth with Polycarp, a disciple of St. John. But for this very reason we must guard against overrating this testimony, and employing it in behalf of traditions of later origin, not grounded in the scriptures. Nor can we suppose that those fathers ever thought of a blind and slavish subjection of private judgment to ecclesiastical authority, and to the decision of the bishops of the apostolic mother churches. The same Irenaeus frankly opposed the Roman bishop Victor.

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

  He often cleaned his servant’s shoes, and once cut his only cloak in two with his sword, to clothe a naked beggar with half; and the next night he saw Christ in a dream with the half cloak, and plainly heard him say to the angels: "Behold, Martin, who is yet only a catechumen, hath clothed me."346 He was baptized in his eighteenth year; converted his mother; lived as a hermit in Italy; afterward built a monastery in the vicinity of Poictiers (the first in France); destroyed many idol temples, and won great renown as a saint and a worker of miracles. About the year 370 he was unanimously elected by the people, against his wish, bishop of Tours on the Loire, but in his episcopal office maintained his strict monastic mode of life, and established a monastery beyond the Loire, where he was soon surrounded with eighty monks. He had little education, but a natural eloquence, much spiritual experience, and unwearied zeal. Sulpitius Severus places him above all the Eastern monks of whom he knew, and declares his merit to be beyond all expression. "Not an hour passed," says he,347 "in which Martin did not pray .... No one ever saw him angry, or gloomy, or merry. Ever the same, with a countenance full of heavenly serenity, he seemed to be raised above the infirmities of man. There was nothing in his mouth but Christ; nothing in his heart but piety, peace, and sympathy. He used to weep for the sins of his enemies, who reviled him with poisoned tongues when he was absent and did them no harm .... Yet he had very few persecutors, except among the bishops." The biographer ascribes to him wondrous conflicts with the devil, whom he imagined he saw bodily and tangibly present in all possible shapes. He tells also of visions, miraculous cures, and even, what no oriental anchoret could boast, three instances of restoration of the dead to life, two before and one after his accession to the bishopric;348 and he assures us that he has omitted the greater part of the miracles which had come to his ears, lest he should weary the reader; but he several times intimates that these were by no means universally credited, even by monks of the same cloister. His piety was characterized by a union of monastic humility with clerical arrogance. At a supper at the court of the tyrannical emperor Maximus in Trier, he handed the goblet of wine, after he himself had drunk of it, first to his presbyter, thus giving him precedence of the emperor.349 The empress on this occasion showed him an idolatrous veneration, even preparing the meal, laying the cloth, and standing as a servant before him, like Martha before the Lord.350 More to the bishop’s honor was his protest against the execution of the Priscillianists in Treves.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Trying to put her at ease, I commented on a collection of masks I hadn’t noticed before on one of her walls. They all looked homemade: a red devil’s mask, a white ruffled lady’s mask, a long-nosed Venetian mask, several grotesque animal masks, and the scariest—a featureless bone-white mask. Renate explained that she’d made the masks out of papier-mâché as decorations for a party she’d thrown at her house where all the guests wore costumes to portray their own madness. She’d hung the masks from sumac branches, and in the flickering candlelight, the swinging masks danced amongst the masks of meandering guests. “I wish I could have been there. What was your costume for the party?” I asked her. “I held death masks on sticks in two hands. When I removed one, there would be another mask of death behind it.” I loved that—it was deep like existentialism but, as I was learning about surrealism, much more fun. I was attracted to Renate and Anaïs’s playfulness and creativity, yet my recent scare had shown me that they could be dangerous to my future. Renate went on to tell me that a friend of hers, Kenneth Anger, had directed an experimental film called Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome that recreated her party. In it, she, her son Peter, Anaïs, and Rupert had enacted a pagan ritual. She recommended I catch the film when it screened at college campuses on Halloween, rekindling my suspicion that Renate was a witch. Despite her warning on the phone that my questions were rude, I decided I couldn’t wait. “You said something could be done for me at my uptight university. Do you know what turned Dr. Inch around?” To my surprise, she smiled. “Do you remember meeting Chris at Holiday House?” I assumed she was referring to Christopher Isherwood, but I didn’t get any more information because we were interrupted by Anaïs’s arrival. Renate quickly departed to display some of her canvases at an outdoor art show, and Anaïs settled on her floor-pillow pedestal asking how I was. “I’m okay.” Actually my blood was racing. I felt like demanding, I’m owed some answers! But Anaïs’s warmth was shining on me. I recognized how beloved I felt in her presence, and my anger melted away as she introduced the subject so I didn’t have to. “Renate has kept me up to date on the drama that has gone on in your life since Hugo phoned your Dr. Inch. I am so sorry, Tchrristine. We never intended for it to harm you.” “Did you or Renate fix it somehow with Inch?” She smiled as Renate had, a sign I took as permission to ask my questions. “Why did Hugo phone Inch in the first place? How did he know about the letter I wrote for you?” “Hugo and I are still the best of friends.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  When Anaïs was most honest with herself, she recognized there were advantages to her trapeze. For one thing, her cyclical appearances and disappearances kept her marriages fresh. Her husbands never tired of her because, unlike the usual wife, she could not be taken for granted. When she was gone, each man longed for her as for an absent mistress. For another thing, her double life tempered her restlessness. After her affair in Paris with Henry Miller, she had been infected with Henry’s lust and taste for variety, a greater threat to her marriage to Hugo than this predictable pendulum. Now she no longer picked up men at parties, no longer engaged in affairs. Her need for adventure, her appetite for wildness, was satisfied. Sometimes she could even see humor in her high-wire act, and sometimes it gave her an almost insane high. On the ground, she felt acutely and sorrowfully the shortness of life, measured by clocks and charts and heartbeats; but flying, she transcended the limits of time. Thirty thousand feet in the air on a Constellation jet, suspended between her men and safe from their demands, she was released from gravity. Aloft, she was Sabina—who defied life’s cruel restrictions of one love, one spouse, one life, one self. When the moon was a sliver, she eyed it from her window seat and imagined herself as Hecate, the moon’s dark face, flying invisibly and freely in the night sky. When the moon was round and bright, she thought of herself as Artemis, the huntress, the goddess owned by no man. And when the planet Venus greeted her at dusk or dawn, she knew herself as Aphrodite, faithful only to the essence of love. CHAPTER 17 Los Angeles, California, 1964 TRISTINE A DRY CRACK OF LAUGHTER came from the back of Anaïs’s throat. “I believed my absurd double marriage could not last a year, and it has lasted a decade.” I quickly calculated: when I’d met Anaïs in 1962, she’d already been a bigamist for seven years! I was excited by her daring. She was an outlaw like the bad boys I’d always been keen on, dangerous and sexy because they took risks and defied convention. I loved her terrible secret; she’d beaten the system of marriage that kept women down, and now that I knew it, she would have to keep me close. Her penciled eyebrows pinched irregularly and her eyes sought mine. “Now I’m dangling from the trrapeze by a thread and I need your help!” “I’ll help you,” I responded. “I think it’s great that you’re a bigamist!” “Please don’t use that word.” “Why not? I think it’s fantastic!” “It’s an ugly word. And besides it’s illegal.” “Well, smoking pot is illegal, but I know a lot of people who are doing it. So is refusing military service, but it shouldn’t be.” “So you don’t think I’m terrible now that you know?”

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

  Luther published a part of this book from an imperfect manuscript, December, 1516, and from a complete copy, in 1518, with a brief preface of his own.168 He praises it as rich and overprecious in divine wisdom, though poor and unadorned in words and human wisdom. He places it next to the Bible and St. Augustin in its teaching about God, Christ, man, and all things, and says in conclusion that "the German divines are doubtless the best divines." There are various types of mysticism, orthodox and heretical, speculative and practical.169 Luther came in contact with the practical and catholic type through Staupitz and the writings of St. Augustin, St. Bernard, and Tauler. It deepened and spiritualized his piety and left permanent traces on his theology. The Lutheran church, like the Catholic, always had room for mystic tendencies. But mysticism alone could not satisfy him, especially after the Reformation began in earnest. It was too passive and sentimental and shrunk from conflict. It was a theology of feeling rather than of action. Luther was a born fighter, and waxed stronger and stronger in battle. His theology is biblical, with such mystic elements as the Bible itself contains.170 § 29. The Penitential Psalms. The Eve of the Reformation. The first original work which Luther published was a German exposition of the seven Penitential Psalms, 1517.171 It was a fit introduction to the reformatory Theses which enjoin the true evangelical repentance. In this exposition he sets forth the doctrines of sin and grace and the comfort of the gospel for the understanding of the common people. It shows him first in the light of a popular author, and had a wide circulation. Luther was now approaching the prime of manhood. He was the shining light of the young university, and his fame began to spread through Germany. But he stood not alone. He had valuable friends and co-workers such as Dr. Wenzeslaus Link, the prior of the convent, and John Lange, who had a rare knowledge of Greek. Carlstadt also, his senior colleague, was at that time in full sympathy with him. Nicolaus von Amsdorf, of the same age with Luther, was one of his most faithful adherents, but more influential in the pulpit than in the chair. Christoph Scheurl, Professor of jurisprudence, was likewise intimate with Luther. Nor must we forget Georg Spalatin, who did not belong to the university, but had great influence upon it as chaplain and secretary of the Elector Frederick, and acted as friendly mediator between him and Luther. The most effective aid the Reformer received, in 1518, in the person of Melanchthon.172 The working forces of the Reformation were thus fully prepared and ready for action. The scholastic philosophy and theology were undermined, and a biblical, evangelical theology ruled in Wittenberg. It was a significant coincidence, that the first edition of the Greek Testament was published by Erasmus in 1516, just a year before the Reformation.173

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

  Erasmus was, like most of the German and English humanists, a sincere and enlightened believer in Christianity, and differed in this respect from the frivolous and infidel humanists of France and Italy. When charged by Prince Albertus Pius of Carpi, who was in high favor at the papal court, with turning sacred things into ridicule, he answered, "You will much more readily find scoffers at sacred things in Italy among men of your own rank, ay, and in your much-lauded Rome, than with us. I could not endure to sit down at table with such men." He devoted his brilliant genius and classical lore to the service of religion. He revered the Bible as a divine revelation, and zealously promoted its study. He anticipated Luther in the supreme estimate of the word of God as the true source of theology and piety. Oecolampadius confessed that he learned from Erasmus "nihil in sacris scripturis praeter Christum quaerendum." He had a sharp eye to the abuses of the Church, and endeavored to reform them in a peaceful way. He wished to lead theology back from the unfruitful speculations and frivolous subtleties of scholasticism to Scriptural simplicity, and to promote an inward, spiritual piety. He keenly ridiculed the foolish and frivolous discussions of the schoolmen about formalities and quiddities, and such questions as whether God could have assumed the form of a woman, or an ass, or a cucumber, or a flint-stone; whether the Virgin Mary was learned in the languages; and whether we would eat and drink after the resurrection. He exposed the vices and follies, the ignorance and superstition, of the monks and clergy. He did not spare even the papacy. "I have no desire," he wrote in 1523, that the primacy of the Roman See should be abolished, but I could wish that its discipline were such as to favor every effort to promote the religion of the gospel; for several ages past it has by its example openly taught things that are plainly averse to the doctrines of Christ." At the same time he lacked a deeper insight into the doctrines of sin and grace, and failed to find a positive remedy for the evils he complained of. In using the dangerous power of ridicule and satire which he shared with Lucian, he sometimes came near the line of profanity. Moreover, he had a decidedly skeptical vein, and in the present century he would probably be a moderate Rationalist.