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 Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “Oh, Lord.” She arched her back and then sank down in a squat on the bank, her black serge skirt bunching up under her. “I am so tired of people whining about what might happen to them, never taking no chances or doing anything new. I’m glad you an’t gonna be like that, Bone. I’m counting on you to get out there and do things, girl. Make people nervous and make your old aunt glad.” She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked off down the river. I saw her do that a lot, sit out there and stare into the distance. She always seemed completely comfortable with herself, elbows locked around her knees and one hand drawn up to smoke. Sometimes she’d hum softly, no music I’d ever heard. Aunt Raylene hated most everything that played on the radio, saved her greatest contempt for the kind of country ballads that bemoaned the faithless lover and always included a little spoken part during the chorus. “Terrible maudlin shit,” she’d declare. “You don’t like that, do you, Bone?” I’d promised her that no, I didn’t, ‘course I didn’t, not mentioning that I had liked it before. I would have hated for her to think I didn’t have good sense. For my own protection, I never talked to her about gospel music. I couldn’t bear it if Raylene laughed at the music I dreamed of singing. [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] Aunt Alma’s girl Patsy Ruth came out to Aunt Raylene’s to get out of caring for Tadpole. The baby had finally been diagnosed with a heart condition, though she didn’t look sick, just very small and slightly blue. At four she still fit in Alma’s laundry basket and had to be watched all the time. “Tadpole falls asleep and it looks like she an’t breathing. Mama gets all crazy, thinks she’s died or something, and goes shaking her till she cries. Gets on my nerves,” Patsy Ruth complained. “I’d rather pull weeds for Aunt Raylene any day.” Patsy Ruth wanted to help me pull stuff out of the river but hated getting mud on herself. She stayed up on the exposed roots of the trees and rarely retrieved anything worth the trouble. Still, she was the one who saw the hooks—two of them, linked together with a rusted chain, big four-pronged things still dragging little shreds of rope. “Lookit the shine!” she yelled, almost sliding down in the mud. “Lookit there. It’s something, I bet you. Something.” I climbed out on one of the roots until I could reach down to the curved metal edge that was showing through the brown water. It was hard to untangle the hooks from the muddy trash. By the time I worked them free, I’d slid down and had one leg thigh-deep in the mud. “You get your ass down here and help me,” I yelled at Patsy Ruth, but she had no intention of risking the river. Instead she ran back to find Grey and Garvey.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Earle Boatwright was everything Glen had ever wanted to be—specially since his older brothers laughed at him for his hot temper, bad memory, and general uselessness. Moreover, Earle had a gift for charming people—men or women—and he had charmed the black sheep of the Waddell family right out of his terror of the other men on the crew, charmed him as well out of his fear of his family’s disapproval. When Earle turned that grin on him, Glen found himself grinning back, enjoying the notion of angering his daddy and outraging his brothers. It was something to work for, that relaxed and disarming grin of Earle’s. It made a person want to see it again, to feel Earle’s handclasp along with it and know a piece of Earle’s admiration. More than anything in the world, Glen Waddell wanted Earle Boatwright to like him. Never mind that pretty little girl, he told himself, and put his manners on hard until Earle settled back down. Glen yes-ma’amed all the waitresses and grabbed Earle’s check right out of Anney’s hand, though it would take him down to quarters and cigarettes after he paid it. But when Earle went off to the bathroom, Glen let himself watch her again, that bow on her ass and the way her lips kept pulling back off her teeth when she smiled. Anney looked him once full in the face, and he saw right through her. She had grinned at her brother with an open face and bright sparkling eyes, an easy smile and a soft mouth, a face without fear or guile. The smile she gave Glen and everyone else at the counter was just as easy but not so open. Between her eyes was a fine line that deepened when her smile tightened. A shadow darkened her clear pupils in the moment before her glance moved away. It made her no less pretty but added an aura of sadness. “You coming over tonight, Earle?” she asked when he came back, in a voice as buttery and sweet as the biscuits. “The girls miss you ‘bout as much as I do.” “Might be over,” Earle drawled, “if this kid here does his job right and we get through before dark this time.” He slapped Glen’s shoulder lightly and winked at Anney. “Maybe I’ll even bring him with me.” Yes, Glen thought, oh yes, but he kept quiet and took another drink of tea. The gravy in his stomach steadied him, but it was Anney’s smile that cooled him down. He felt so strong he wanted to spit. He would have her, he told himself. He would marry Black Earle’s baby sister, marry the whole Boatwright legend, shame his daddy and shock his brothers. He would carry a knife in his pocket and kill any man who dared to touch her. Yes, he thought to himself, oh yes. Mama looked over at the boy standing by the cash register, with his dark blue eyes and bushy brown hair.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  She talked as if nothing had happened, and in fact most of it was about me, about how slow I answered, how daydreamy I was, how much I looked like my great-aunt Malvena. I’d been surprised to hear all that, more surprised when she said I would stay here with Alma, give her a hand now that spring was warming up. “You need some help around this place, Alma,” Mama told her. “You’ll like having Bone around. Maybe you can even get her to sing for you now and then.” My mouth had fallen open, and I’d stood transfixed, as close to the bed as I dared. Did she mean that? Did Mama think I was reliable? Did I look like my great-aunt Malvena? Did she really think I could sing? Aunt Alma barely acknowledged what Mama said, just went on with her complaints about Uncle Wade. “I said, ‘Give me a baby, Wade. Just give me a baby.’” She tried to sit up, and Mama leaned over to soothe her, climbing in bed with her. “You know what he said to me? You know what he said to me?” Alma asked, hanging on to Mama with one desperate hand. She didn’t wait for an answer. She took hold of the blanket in her fist, shook it and hissed the answer between her teeth. “Said, ‘What you want an’t what I want.’ He said, ‘You old and ugly and fat as a cow, crazy as a cow eaten too much weed, and you smell like a cow been lying in spoiled milk.’ Said, ‘I wouldn’t touch you even if you took a bath in whiskey tonic and put a bag over your head.’ He laughed at me. Then he walked right out of here.” She lay back limply. There were tears on her face, and her lips had flattened back against her teeth. She shook her head slowly back and forth. “All this time, taking care of him, loving him, giving him children and meals and clean clothes and loving him. Loving him, and him to talk to me that way.” She cried deep, broken sobs. “And Annie!” she wailed. Mama gathered Aunt Alma up like a little girl, rocked her back and forth while she cried. It didn’t last long. In the silence that followed, the two of them murmured a little, something I couldn’t hear clearly. It sounded like Mama said something about Uncle Wade being a loving man, that Aunt Alma loved him. Then Aunt Alma’s voice came out loud and strong again. “Oh, but that’s why I got to cut his throat,” she said plainly. “If I didn’t love the son of a bitch, I’d let him live forever.” “Woman takes it in her head to go crazy, you just might as well stand back.”

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

  Erasmus shines in the front rank of the humanists and forerunners of the Reformation, on the dividing line between the middle ages and modern times. His great mission was to revive the spirit of classical and Christian antiquity, and to make it a reforming power within the church. He cleared the way for a work of construction which required stronger hands than his. He had no creative and no organizing power. The first period of his life till 1524 was progressive and reformatory; the second, till his death, 1536, was conservative and reactionary. He did more than any of his contemporaries to prepare the church for the Reformation by the impulse he gave to classical, biblical, and patristic studies, and by his satirical exposures of ecclesiastical abuses and monastic ignorance and bigotry. But he stopped half way, and after a period of, hesitation he openly declared war against Luther, thereby injuring both his own reputation and the progress of the movement among scholars. He was a reformer against reform, and in league with Rome. Thus he lost the respect and confidence of both parties. It would have been better for his fame if he had died in 1516, just after issuing the Greek Testament, a year before the Reformation. To do justice to him, we must look backward. Men of transition, like Staupitz, Reuchlin, and Erasmus, are no less necessary than bold leaders of a new departure. They belong to the class of which John the Baptist is the highest type. Protestants should never forget the immense debt of gratitude which they owe to the first editor of the Greek Testament who enabled Luther and Tyndale to make their translations of the word of life from the original, and to lead men to the very fountain of all that is most valuable and permanent in the Reformation. His edition was hastily prepared, before the art of textual criticism was born; but it anticipated the publication of the ponderous Complutensian Polyglot, and became the basis of the popularly received text. His exegetical opinions still receive and deserve the attention of commentators. To him we owe also the first scholarly editions of the Fathers, especially of Jerome, with whom he was most in sympathy. From these editions the Reformers drew their weapons of patristic controversy with the Romanists, who always appealed to the fathers of the Nicene age rather than to the grandfathers of the apostolic age. Erasmus was allied to Reuchlin and Ulrich von Hutten, but greater and far more influential than both. All hated monasticism and obscurantism. Reuchlin revived Hebrew, Erasmus Greek learning, so necessary for the cultivation of biblical studies. Reuchlin gave his nephew Melanchthon to Wittenberg, but died a good Catholic. Hutten became a radical ultra-reformer, fell out with Erasmus, who disowned him when he was most in need of a friend, and perished in disgrace. Erasmus survived both, to protest against Protestantism.

• From Little Women (1868)

  She was living in bad society, and imaginary though it was, its influence affected her, for she was feeding heart and fancy on dangerous and unsubstantial food, and was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her nature by a premature acquaintance with the darker side of life, which comes soon enough to all of us. She was beginning to feel rather than see this, for much describing of other people's passions and feelings set her to studying and speculating about her own, a morbid amusement in which healthy young minds do not voluntarily indulge. Wrongdoing always brings its own punishment, and when Jo most needed hers, she got it. I don't know whether the study of Shakespeare helped her to read character, or the natural instinct of a woman for what was honest, brave, and strong, but while endowing her imaginary heroes with every perfection under the sun, Jo was discovering a live hero, who interested her in spite of many human imperfections. Mr. Bhaer, in one of their conversations, had advised her to study simple, true, and lovely characters, wherever she found them, as good training for a writer. Jo took him at his word, for she coolly turned round and studied him—a proceeding which would have much surprised him, had he known it, for the worthy Professor was very humble in his own conceit. Why everybody liked him was what puzzled Jo, at first. He was neither rich nor great, young nor handsome, in no respect what is called fascinating, imposing, or brilliant, and yet he was as attractive as a genial fire, and people seemed to gather about him as naturally as about a warm hearth. He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many, and his oddities were freely forgiven for his sake. Jo often watched him, trying to discover the charm, and at last decided that it was benevolence which worked the miracle. If he had any sorrow, 'it sat with its head under its wing', and he turned only his sunny side to the world. There were lines upon his forehead, but Time seemed to have touched him gently, remembering how kind he was to others. The pleasant curves about his mouth were the memorials of many friendly words and cheery laughs, his eyes were never cold or hard, and his big hand had a warm, strong grasp that was more expressive than words. His very clothes seemed to partake of the hospitable nature of the wearer. They looked as if they were at ease, and liked to make him comfortable. His capacious waistcoat was suggestive of a large heart underneath. His rusty coat had a social air, and the baggy pockets plainly proved that little hands often went in empty and came out full.

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  C. The same mix of elements is evident in the four saints considered in this lecture: They share the Persian language and a location in Persia and India but otherwise are remarkably diverse. II. Two teachers of enduring significance illustrate the intellectual and stylistic range to be found among Sufis writing in Persian. A. Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006–1089) was conservative in both his style of life and his intellectual commitments. 1. He lived his whole life with great simplicity in the same place (Herat) in a region straddling present-day Iran and Afghanistan. 2. He was a member of the 9th-century conservative legal school known as the Hanbali, which recognized only the Qur’an and Hadith as sources for establishing the Sunna of the Prophet. 3. He wrote polemically against theological reasoning and was himself imprisoned for a time because of his insistence on retaining anthropomorphisms concerning Allah. 4. His Intimate Conversations (Manajat) are directed to God and express a deep and nonspeculative piety. B. Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi (1213–1289), in contrast, draws from the daring traditions of Ibn al-‘Arabi and Rumi. 1. A child prodigy (he memorized the Qur’an at age five), ‘Iraqi abandoned his studies and, like al-‘Arabi, traveled widely. He spent 25 years in India and, in Konya, met both Rumi and Sadruddin Qunawi (d. 1274). 2. Intellectually, he had the same interest in esoteric gnosis—the perfect man—as al-‘Arabi; Qunawi declared that his writings were “the pith of [‘Arabi’s] Fusus,” The Bezels of Wisdom. 3. He also had the ecstatic fervor and poetic intensity of Rumi, composing verse in states of ecstasy. 4. His Divine Flashes (28 chapters in imitation of al-‘Arabi) combines esoteric knowledge and gorgeous poetry. III. The pedagogical practices of Sufi schools are shown in distinct literary expressions by two important masters living in India. A. Nizam ad-Din Awliya (1242–1325) grew up in intense poverty and taught students as a shaykh of the Chisti order for 50 years in the city of Delhi. ©2008 The Teaching Company. 135

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  The story of Bathsheba, from the Book of Samuel in the Old Testament, recounts how King David spied on Bathsheba as she bathed, had an affair with her and then had her husband killed. The Hours of Louis XII illustrates this tale with a level of sensuality and graphic detail that would never have been acceptable in a mass-produced book (at least not until the twentieth century). Thanks to customers like King Louis, erotica prolonged the demand for manuscripts and demonstrated how niche markets can be highly profitable, if you have the right product. [image file=image_rsrc1FT.jpg] FOUR [image file=image_rsrc1FU.jpg] Fleshing the pressIn the 1400s, people began to associate sexual material more closely with riff-raff and the lower classes than with dukes and kings. The growth of mass-produced erotica meant that salacious products became more broadly affordable. Pornography, and literature in general, was becoming more democratized. But as more people gained access to erotica, it began to garner negative stigma. The same types of images that had long been the acceptable purview of elite connoisseurs became socially objectionable when placed in the hands of hoi polloi. New kinds of outrage were increasing the divide between the prim mainstream and the low folk so enamoured with tawdry matters: modern-day divisions had begun to take shape. And the technology at the heart of this incipient conflict was the moveable-type printing press. Very little is known about the man behind this most influential of inventions. Johannes Gutenberg was a fifteenth-century German entrepreneur who combined and refined existing technologies of metalsmithing, etching and wine pressing, who experimented with inks, alloys and machinery, and who ultimately developed a system of moveable-type printing that was faster, cheaper and more flexible than anything Europe had ever seen before. The new press made it possible to produce hundreds of copies of the same book in the time it would take a manuscript maker to produce a single edition. It changed everything about who could afford books, and therefore who would learn to read. Though this massive change is often referred to as “the Gutenberg Revolution,” the little that is known of the man himself suggests he was more interested in growing wealthy than he was in enfranchising and enriching the masses via the printed word. In 1440, the quickest and safest way to make money with a printing press was not pornography. The first major profit-making book to roll off the Gutenberg press has become indelibly associated with the inventor’s name: the Gutenberg Bible. Gutenberg’s version contained no salacious marginalia or images of bathing beauties. It was a masterpiece of artistry and technological know-how, but with nothing that might offend the pope.

• From Wild (2012)

  On Halloween night we moved into the house we’d built out of trees and scrap wood. It didn’t have electricity or running water or a phone or an indoor toilet or even a single room with a door. All through my teen years, Eddie and my mom kept building it, adding on, making it better. My mother planted a garden and canned and pickled and froze vegetables in the fall. She tapped the trees and made maple syrup, baked bread and carded wool, and made her own fabric dyes out of dandelions and broccoli leaves. I grew up and left home for college in the Twin Cities at a school called St. Thomas, but not without my mom. My acceptance letter mentioned that parents of students could take classes at St. Thomas for free. Much as she liked her life as a modern pioneer, my mother had always wanted to get her degree. We laughed about it together, then pondered it in private. She was forty, too old for college now, my mother said when we discussed it, and I couldn’t disagree. Plus, St. Thomas was a three-hour drive away. We kept talking and talking until at last we had a deal: she would go to St. Thomas but we would have separate lives, dictated by me. I would live in the dorm and she would drive back and forth. If our paths crossed on campus she would not acknowledge me unless I acknowledged her first. “All this is probably for nothing,” she said once we’d hatched the plan. “Most likely I’ll flunk out anyway.” To prepare, she shadowed me during the last months of my senior year of high school, doing all the homework that I was assigned, honing her skills. She replicated my worksheets, wrote the same papers I had to write, read every one of the books. I graded her work, using my teacher’s marks as a guide. I judged her a shaky student at best. She went to college and earned straight As. Sometimes I hugged her exuberantly when I saw her on campus; other times I sailed on by, as if she were no one to me at all. We were both seniors in college when we learned she had cancer. By then we weren’t at St. Thomas anymore. We’d both transferred to the University of Minnesota after that first year—she to the Duluth campus, I to the one in Minneapolis—and, much to our amusement, we shared a major. She was double majoring in women’s studies and history, I in women’s studies and English. At night, we’d talk for an hour on the phone. I was married by then, to a good man named Paul. I’d married him in the woods on our land, wearing a white satin and lace dress my mother had sewn.

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

  But in spite of these extraordinary difficulties Christianity made a progress which furnished striking evidence of its divine origin and adaptation to the deeper wants of man, and was employed as such by Irenaeus, Justin, Tertullian, and other fathers of that day. Nay, the very hindrances became, in the hands of Providence, means of promotion. Persecution led to martyrdom, and martyrdom had not terrors alone, but also attractions, and stimulated the noblest and most unselfish form of ambition. Every genuine martyr was a living proof of the truth and holiness of the Christian religion. Tertullian could exclaim to the heathen: "All your ingenious cruelties can accomplish nothing; they are only a lure to this sect. Our number increases the more you destroy us. The blood of the Christians is their seed." The moral earnestness of the Christians contrasted powerfully with the prevailing corruption of the age, and while it repelled the frivolous and voluptuous, it could not fail to impress most strongly the deepest and noblest minds. The predilection of the poor and oppressed for the gospel attested its comforting and redeeming power. But others also, though not many, from the higher and educated classes, were from the first attracted to the new religion; such men as Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, the apostle Paul, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, Dionysius of Athens, Erastus of Corinth, and some members of the imperial household. Among the sufferers in Domitian’s persecution were his own near kinswoman Flavia Domitilla and her husband Flavius Clemens. In the oldest part of the Catacomb of Callistus, which is named after St. Lucina, members of the illustrious gens Pomponia, and perhaps also of the Flavian house, are interred. The senatorial and equestrian orders furnished several converts open or concealed. Pliny laments, that in Asia Minor men of every rank (omnis ordinis) go over to the Christians. Tertullian asserts that the tenth part of Carthage, and among them senators and ladies of the noblest descent and the nearest relatives of the proconsul of Africa professed Christianity. The numerous church fathers from the middle of the second century, a Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, excelled, or at least equalled in talent and culture, their most eminent heathen contemporaries. Nor was this progress confined to any particular localities. It extended alike over all parts of the empire. "We are a people of yesterday," says Tertullian in his Apology, "and yet we have filled every place belonging to you—cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum! We leave you your temples only. We can count your armies; our numbers in a single province will be greater." All these facts expose the injustice of the odious charge of Celsus, repeated by a modern sceptic, that the new sect was almost entirely composed of the dregs of the populace—of peasants and mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves. § 5. Causes of the Success of Christianity.

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

  He declared the Arian denial of the divinity of Christ worse than the venom of the serpent, and no better than heathenism which worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. He would have nothing to do with heretics, and warned his disciples against intercourse with them. Athanasius attended him to the gate of the city, where he cast out an evil spirit from a girl. An invitation to stay longer in Alexandria he declined, saying: "As a fish out of water, so a monk out of his solitude dies." Imitating his example, the monks afterward forsook the wilderness in swarms whenever orthodoxy was in danger, and went in long processions with wax tapers and responsive singing through the streets, or appeared at the councils, to contend for the orthodox faith with all the energy of fanaticism, often even with physical force. Though Anthony shunned the society of men, yet he was frequently visited in his solitude and resorted to for consolation and aid by Christians and heathens, by ascetics, sick, and needy, as a heaven-descended physician of Egypt for body and soul. He enjoined prayer, labor, and care of the poor, exhorted those at strife to the love of God, and healed the sick and demoniac with his prayer. Athanasius relates several miracles performed by him, the truth of which we leave undecided though they are far less incredible and absurd than many other monkish stories of that age. Anthony, his biographer assures us, never boasted when his prayer was heard, nor murmured when it was not, but in either case thanked God. He cautioned monks against overrating the gift of miracles, since it is not our work, but the grace of the Lord; and he reminds them of the word: "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." To Martianus, an officer, who urgently besought him to heal his possessed daughter, he said: "Man, why dost thou call on me? I am a man, as thou art. If thou believest, pray to God, and he will hear thee." Martianus prayed, and on his return found his daughter whole. Anthony distinguished himself above most of his countless disciples and successors, by his fresh originality of mind. Though uneducated and limited, he had sound sense and ready mother wit. Many of his striking answers and felicitous sentences have come down to us. When some heathen philosophers once visited him, he asked them: "Why do you give yourselves so much trouble to see a fool?" They explained, perhaps ironically, that they took him rather for a wise man. He replied: "If you take me for a fool, your labor is lost; but if I am a wise man, you should imitate me, and be Christians, as I am." At another time, when taunted with his ignorance, he asked: "Which is older and better, mind or learning?" The mind, was the answer.

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

  He asks the objector to this mode of life to consider that God often uses very striking means to arouse the negligent, as the history of the prophets shows;331 and concludes his narrative with the remark: "Should the saint live longer, he may do yet greater wonders, for he is a universal ornament and honor of religion." He died in 459, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, of a long-concealed and loathsome ulcer on his leg; and his body was brought in solemn procession to the metropolitan church Of Antioch. Even before his death, Symeon enjoyed the unbounded admiration of Christians and heathens, of the common people, of the kings of Persia, and of the emperors Theodosius II., Leo, and Marcian, who begged his blessing and his counsel. No wonder, that, with all his renowned humility, he had to struggle with the temptations of spiritual pride. Once an angel appeared to him in a vision, with a chariot of fire, to convey him, like Elijah, to heaven, because the blessed spirits longed for him. He was already stepping into the chariot with his right foot, which on this occasion he sprained (as Jacob his thigh), when the phantom of Satan was chased away by the sign of the cross. Perhaps this incident, which the Acta Sanctorum gives, was afterward invented, to account for his sore, and to illustrate the danger of self-conceit. Hence also the pious monk Nilus, with good reason, reminded the ostentatious pillar saints of the proverb: "He that exalteth himself shall be abased."332 Of the later stylites the most distinguished were Daniel († 490), in the vicinity of Constantinople, and Symeon the younger († 592), in Syria. The latter is said to have spent sixty-eight years on a pillar. In the East this form of sanctity perpetuated itself, though only in exceptional cases, down to the twelfth century. The West, so far as we know, affords but one example of a stylite, who, according to Gregory of Tours, lived a long time on a pillar near Treves,

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  II. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 550) wrote a simple Rule for Monks that provided a sane framework for human life and a context for contemplative prayer. A. Benedict owed much to the desert fathers and to John Cassian but focused on providing a stable structure for the “common life” (Cenobitism) as a “school for the Lord’s service.” 1. The Rule strikes a balance between “work and prayer” (ora et labora), regarding both as sacred. 2. Benedict avoided harsh asceticism; his view was that life in common is itself the greatest form of asceticism. 3. Prayer is centered in the public “work of God” (opus dei), the daily round of Psalms and prayers recited in common. 4. Contemplation is not made a value in itself but emerges from the ruminative reading of Scripture. B. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604; Pope Gregory I, 590–604) played an important role in shaping the monastic piety of the West. 1. Although a dynamic and powerful leader, he was also committed to the monastic life, calling himself a “servant of the servants of God.” 2. He wrote an admiring life of Benedict (in his second Dialogue) and supported the foundation of Benedictine houses. 3. His Moralia on Job in 35 books became standard monastic reading and popularized the reading of Scripture at three levels: literal, allegorical, and moral. III. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was a Cistercian abbot whose public activities were wide-ranging and whose mystical teaching was influential. A. Bernard’s career serves to rebut the idea that mystics cannot be effective participants in public life. 1. He was a key figure in the spread of the Cistercian reform and governed as abbot of Clairvaux. 2. He was an active sponsor of the Second Crusade (1147–1149) against the “infidel” Muslims and helped found the Order of Knights Templar (1129). 3. He viciously opposed Peter Abelard (1079–1142) and the development of Scholastic theology in the universities. 4. He intervened in a disputed papal contest that created a schism in the church (1130–1138). ©2008 The Teaching Company. 75

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

  After his conversion Justin sought the society of Christians, and received from them instruction in the history and doctrine of the gospel. He now devoted himself wholly to the spread and vindication of the Christian religion. He was an itinerant evangelist or teaching missionary, with no fixed abode and no regular office in the church.1337 There is no trace of his ordination; he was as far as we know a lay-preacher, with a commission from the Holy Spirit; yet be accomplished far more for the good of the church than any known bishop or presbyter of his day. "Every one," says he, "who can preach the truth and does not preach it, incurs the judgment of God." Like Paul, he felt himself a debtor to all men, Jew and Gentile, that he might show them the way of salvation. And, like Aristides, Athenagoras, Tertullian, Heraclas, Gregory Thaumaturgus, he retained his philosopher’s cloak,1338 that he might the more readily discourse on the highest themes of thought; and when he appeared in early morning (as he himself tells us), upon a public walk, many came to him with a "Welcome, philosopher!"1339 He spent some time in Rome where he met and combated Marcion. In Ephesus he made an effort to gain the Jew Trypho and his friends to the Christian faith. He labored last, for the second time, in Rome. Here, at the instigation of a Cynic philosopher, Crescens, whom he had convicted of ignorance about Christianity, Justin, with six other Christians, about the year 166, was scourged and beheaded. Fearlessly and joyfully, as in life, so also in the face of death, he bore witness to the truth before the tribunal of Rusticus, the prefect of the city, refused to sacrifice, and proved by his own example the steadfastness of which he had so often boasted as a characteristic trait of his believing brethren. When asked to explain the mystery of Christ, he replied: "I am too little to say something great of him." His last words were: "We desire nothing more than to suffer for our Lord Jesus Christ; for this gives us salvation and joyfulness before his dreadful judgment seat, at which all the world must appear."

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  More than anything else, it was this phrase that made me want to pursue his ideas beyond what appeared in his published work. Though he is supposedly retired, he had just returned to Alaska after visiting several archaeological digs in North Africa when I contacted him. He is still deeply committed to pushing his interpretations of cave drawings. While some scholars engaged in the debate, many of Guthrie’s colleagues have greeted his thesis with silence. I asked him why so many scholars tend toward the spiritual aspects of these images and resist acknowledging the bawdy. He said it has more to do with discomfort than disagreement. “We have a lot of very odd aspects to our morality,” he said. “Those that revolve around sex are especially potent. It’s just a delicate subject.” A delicate subject that seems to wield as great a clout in the ancient world of artistic expression as it does in the modern media business. There are other scholars who are willing to discuss the universality of sexual depiction. Many tie the phenomenon back to the basics of survival. Sex, along with breathing, eating and drinking, are the fundamental actions necessary to ensure the continued existence of both individual human beings and humanity as a whole. Classic arguments from evolutionary biology explain why activities vital to survival are so pleasurable—organisms that did not enjoy food or sex would not live long enough to reproduce, and therefore would be filtered out of the gene pool in short order. There are also sound, simple reasons why watching other people eat or looking at food can foster hunger, or why viewing depictions of sex and sexuality can spark erotic desire. Human beings, though, have a tendency to take the basics and complicate them. “I really equate sex and food,” erotologist C. J. Scheiner told me over lunch near his home in Manhattan. (An erotologist is an expert in the depictions of sex and lovemaking, as opposed to a sexologist, who studies sex itself.) “You need food to stay alive, but you need the barest plainest food to stay alive. Yet what we have in front of us here”—we were at a Szechuan restaurant—”is nicely prepared, it looks pleasant and it tastes good. It’s way more than we need to just give us the calories to keep us going to tomorrow. And if you go to a five-star restaurant, it is just way beyond anything that you need for pure survival.” His point was that humans experiment and test, try out new recipes and techniques, seek out exotic alternatives, acquire new tools and equipment, and generally push the limits of tastes and appetites.

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

  The earlier form as found in old manuscripts, 955is much shorter and may possibly go back to the third or even the second century. It was probably imported from the East, or grew in Rome, and is substantially identical with the Greek creed of Marcellus of Ancyra (about 340), inserted in his letter to Pope Julius I. to prove his orthodoxy, 956and with that contained in the Psalter of King Aethelstan..957 Greek was the ruling language of the Roman Church and literature down to the third century..958 The longer form of the Roman symbol, or the present received text, does not appear before the sixth or seventh century. It has several important clauses which were wanting in the former, as "he descended into hades,"959 the predicate "catholic" after ecclesiam,960 "the communion of saints,"961 and "the life everlasting."962 These additions were gathered from the provincial versions (Gallican and North African) and incorporated into the older form. The Apostles’ Creed then, in its present shape, is post-apostolic; but, in its contents and spirit, truly apostolic. It embodies the faith of the ante-Nicene church, and is the product of a secondary inspiration, like the Gloria in Excelsis and the Te deum, which embody the devotions of the same age, and which likewise cannot be traced to an individual author or authors. It follows the historical order of revelation of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, beginning with the creation and ending with the resurrection and life eternal. It clusters around Christ as the central article of our faith. It sets forth living facts, not abstract dogmas and speaks in the language of the people, not of the theological school. It confines itself to the fundamental truths, is simple, brief, and yet comprehensive, and admirably adapted for catechetical and liturgical use. It still forms a living bond of union between the different ages and branches of orthodox Christendom, however widely they differ from each other, and can never be superseded by longer and fuller creeds, however necessary these are in their place. It has the authority of antiquity and the dew of perennial youth, beyond any other document of post-apostolic times. It is the only strictly œcumenical Creed of the West, as the Nicene Creed is the only œcumenical Creed of the East.963 It is the Creed of creeds, as the Lord’s Prayer is the Prayer of prayers. Note. The legendary formulas of the Apostles’ Creed which appear after the sixth century, distribute the articles to the several apostles arbitrarily and with some variations. The following is from one of the pseudo-Augustinian sermons (see Hahn, p. 47 sq.): "Decimo die post ascensionem discipulis prae timore Judaeorum congregatis Dominus promissum Paracletum misit: quo veniente ut candens ferrum inflammati omniumque linguarum peritia repleti Symbolum composuerunt. Petrus dixit: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem—creatorem coeli et terrae. Andreas dixit: Et in Jesum Christum, Filium ejus—unicum Dominum nostrum. Jacobus dixit: Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto—natus ex Maria Virgine.

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

  (La vie de St. Jerôme, Par. 1706); Joh. Stilting (in the Acta Sanctorum, Sept. tom. viii. p. 418–688, Antw. 1762); Butler (sub Sept. 30); Vallarsi (in Op. Hieron., tom. xi. p. 1–240); Schröckh (viii. 359 sqq., and especially xi. 3–254); Engelstoft (Hieron. Stridonensis, interpres, criticus, exegeta, apologeta, historicus, doctor, monachus, Havn. 1798); D. v. Cölln (in Ersch and Gruber’s Encycl. sect. ii. vol. 8); Collombet (Histoire de S. Jérôme, Lyons, 1844); and O. Zöckler (Hieronymus, sein Leben und Wirken. Gotha, 1865). The most zealous promoter of the monastic life among the church fathers was Jerome, the connecting link between Eastern and Western learning and religion. His life belongs almost with equal right to the history of theology and the history of monasticism. Hence the church art generally represents him as a penitent in a reading or writing posture, with a lion and a skull, to denote the union of the literary and anchoretic modes of life. He was the first learned divine who not only recommended but actually embraced the monastic mode of life, and his example exerted a great influence in making monasticism available for the promotion of learning. To rare talents and attainments,351 indefatigable activity of mind, ardent faith, immortal merit in the translation and interpretation of the Bible, and earnest zeal for ascetic piety, he united so great vanity and ambition, such irritability and bitterness of temper, such vehemence of uncontrolled passion, such an intolerant and persecuting spirit, and such inconstancy of conduct, that we find ourselves alternately attracted and repelled by his character, and now filled with admiration for his greatness, now with contempt or pity for his weakness. Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus was born at Stridon,352 on the borders of Dalmatia, not far from Aquileia, between the years 331 and 342.353 He was the son of wealthy Christian parents, and was educated in Rome under the direction of the celebrated heathen grammarian Donatus, and the rhetorician Victorinus. He read with great diligence and profit the classic poets, orators, and philosophers, and collected a considerable library. On Sundays he visited, with Bonosus and other young friends, the subterranean graves of the martyrs, which made an indelible impression upon him. Yet he was not exempt from the temptations of a great and corrupt city, and he lost his chastity, as he himself afterward repeatedly acknowledged with pain. About the year 370, whether before or after his literary tour to Treves and Aquileia is uncertain, but at all events in his later youth, he received baptism at Rome and resolved thenceforth to devote himself wholly, in rigid abstinence, to the service of the Lord. In the first zeal of his conversion he renounced his love for the classics, and applied himself to the study of the hitherto distasteful Bible.

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

  "In intellect, as in personal features, the one was grand, massive, and powerful, through depth and comprehension of feeling, a profound but exaggerated insight, and a soaring eloquence; the other was no less grand and powerful, through clearness and correctness of judgment, vigor and consistency of reasoning, and weightiness of expression. Both are alike memorable in the service which they rendered to their native tongue—in the increased compass, flexibility, and felicitous mastery which they imparted to it. The Latin works of Calvin are greatly superior in elegance of style, symmetry of method, and proportionate vigor of argument. He maintains an academic elevation of tone, even when keenly agitated in temper; while Luther, as Mr. Hallam has it, sometimes descends to mere ’bellowing in bad Latin.’ Yet there is a coldness in the elevation of Calvin, and in his correct and well-balanced sentences, for which we should like ill to exchange the kindling though rugged paradoxes of Luther. The German had the more rich and teeming—the Genevan the harder, more serviceable, and enduring mind. When interrupted in dictating for several hours, Beza tells us that he could return and commence where he had left off; and that amidst all the multiplicity of his engagements, he never forgot what he required to know for the performance of any duty. "As preachers, Calvin seems to have commanded a scarcely less powerful success than Luther, although of a different character—the one stimulating and rousing, ’boiling over in every direction’—the other instructive, argumentative, and calm in the midst of his vehemence (Beza: Vita Calv.). Luther flashed forth his feelings at the moment, never being able to compose what might be called a regular sermon, but seizing the principal subject, and turning all his attention to that alone. Calvin was elaborate and careful in his sermons as in everything else. The one thundered and lightened, filling the souls of his hearers now with shadowy awe, and now with an intense glow of spiritual excitement; the other, like the broad daylight, filled them with a more diffusive though less exhilarating clearness.... "An impression of majesty and yet of sadness must ever linger around the name of Calvin. He was great and we admire him. The world needed him and we honor him; but we cannot love him. He repels our affections while he extorts our admiration; and while we recognize the worth, and the divine necessity, of his life and work, we are thankful to survey them at a distance, and to believe that there are also other modes of divinely governing the world, and advancing the kingdom of righteousness and truth. "Limited, as compared with Luther, in his personal influence, apparently less the man of the hour in a great crisis of human progress, Calvin towers far above Luther in the general influence over the world of thought and the course of history, which a mighty intellect, inflexible in its convictions and constructive in its genius, never fails to exercise."

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

  3. Calvin’s influence is not confined to the religious and moral sphere; it extends to the intellectual and literary development of France. He occupies a prominent position in the history of the French language, as Luther, to a still higher degree, figures in the history of the German language. Luther gave to the Germans, in their own vernacular, a version of the Bible, a catechism, and a hymn-book. Calvin did not translate the Scriptures (although from his commentaries a tolerably complete version might be constructed), and his catechism and a few versified psalms never became popular; but he wrote classical French as well as classical Latin, and excelled his contemporaries in both. He was schooled in the Renaissance, but, instead of running into the pedantic Ciceronianism of Bembo, he made the old Roman tongue subservient to Christian thought, and raised the French language to the dignity of one of the chief organs of modern civilization, distinguished for directness, clearness, precision, vivacity, and elegance. The modern French language and literature date from Calvin and his contemporary, François Rabelais (1483–1553). These two men, so totally different, reflect the opposite extremes of French character. Calvin was the most religious, Rabelais the most witty man, of his generation; the one the greatest divine, the other the greatest humorist, of France; the one a Christian stoic, the other a heathen Epicurean; the one represented discipline bordering on tyranny, the other liberty running into license. Calvin created the theological and polemical French style,—a style which suits serious discussion, and aims at instruction and conviction. Rabelais created the secular style, which aims to entertain and to please.368 Calvin sharpened the weapons with which Bossuet and the great Roman Catholic divines of the seventeenth century attacked Protestantism, with which Rousseau and the philosophers of the eighteenth century attacked Christianity, and with which Adolf Monod and Eugène Bersier of the nineteenth century preached the simple gospel of the New Testament.369 § 67. Calvin’s Literary Labors. The best edition of Calvin’s Opera by the Strassburg professors, Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss (now all dead), embraces so far 48 quarto vols. (1863–1892); the remaining volumes were prepared for publication by Dr. Reuss before his death (1891). He wrote to me from Neuhof, near Strassburg, July 11, 1887: "Alles ist zum Druck vorbereitet und ganz fertig mit Prolegomenis, etc. Es bleibt nichts mehr zu thun übrig als die Correctur und die Fortsetzung des immer à jour gehaltenen Index rerum et nominum, et locorum S. S., was ein anderer nach meinem Tode besorgen kann. Denn ich werde die Vollendung nicht erleben. Für den Schluss habe ich sogar noch ein Supplement ausgearbeitet, nämlich eine französische Bibel, extrahirt aus den französischen Commentaren und Predigten, nebst allen Varianten der zu Calvin’s Zeiten in Genf gedruckten Bibeln." Vol. 45 sqq. are edited by Erichson.

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  3. Everything that is—above all, the mysteries of the church— point beyond themselves to God. III. Two monks of the 7 th century were of great importance for shaping the mystical tradition that endured through the history of Orthodox Christianity. A. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662) combined profound mystical insight with a steady commitment to correct doctrine concerning Christ. 1. He was a prominent figure in Constantinople who left the city to become a monk; in the monothelite controversy, he was arrested, tried, exiled, and maimed for maintaining the full humanity of Jesus, that is, that Christ had a human will. 2. His spiritual writings, the Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Commentary on the Our Father, and Two Hundred Chapters on Knowledge, combine theological rigor and deep piety. B. John Climacus (c. 579–c. 649) was abbot of the great monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. His name derives from the title of his writing The Ladder of Divine Ascent (klimakos means “ascent”), arguably the most read composition among Orthodox monks. 1. Discipleship is imaged as a process of ascent of 30 steps taken by humans; the first 26 steps are standard desert asceticism: discipline of the body and control of the emotions and the passions. 2. The final 4 steps introduce the characteristic stillness or quiet (hesychia) that gives the tradition its name; the highest form of prayer is stillness. IV. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) provides the most extensive argument for Hesychasm in his defense of monastic spirituality, in his Triads. A. He argues against the philosopher Barlaam the Calabrian that mystical knowledge should be the basis of theology. 1. It is not rational argument that leads to truth but the direct experience of God. 2. Such experience is possible because of the incarnation, which has made theosis possible. B. Gregory elaborates more fully what is involved in Hesychastic prayer, particularly the role played by the body and the control of breathing. ©2008 The Teaching Company. 72 V. Hesychastic prayer continues to flourish within the Orthodox tradition as the main form of mysticism. A. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (1749–1809) published the five volumes of the Philokalia, a compendium of ascetical and mystical teaching from the fathers of the Greek tradition, and in his Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, shows the vibrancy of the practice. B. The “Jesus Prayer” became widely known through a disarmingly simple Russian composition from the 19 th century called The Pilgrim’s Tale. 1. Over the course of time, a monk learns to align the “Jesus Prayer” with his very breathing, so that the prayer becomes automatic. 2. The effect of this discipline of Hesychasm is to make it possible to always have the name of Jesus on one’s lips and to fulfill the instruction of the apostle: “Pray without ceasing.” Recommended Reading: Pentovsky, A. ed. The Pilgrim’s Tale.

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

  Bullinger now assumed the task of saving, purifying, and consolidating the life-work of Zwingli; and faithfully and successfully did he carry out this task. When he ascended the pulpit of the Great Minster in Dec. 23, 1531, many hearers thought that Zwingli had risen from the grave.306 He took a firm stand for the Reformation, which was in danger of being abandoned by timid men in the Council. He kept free from interference with politics, which had proved ruinous to Zwingli. He established a more independent, though friendly relation between Church and State. He confined himself to his proper vocation as preacher and teacher. In the first years he preached six or seven times a week; after 1542 only twice, on Sundays and Fridays. He followed the plan of Zwingli in explaining whole books of the Scriptures from the pulpit. His sermons were simple, clear, and practical, and served as models for young preachers. He was a most devoted pastor, dispensing counsel and comfort in every direction, and exposing even his life during the pestilence which several times visited Zürich. His house was open from morning till night to all who desired his help. He freely dispensed food, clothing, and money from his scanty income and contributions of friends, to widows and orphans, to strangers and exiles, not excluding persons of other creeds. He secured a decent pension for the widow of Zwingli, and educated two of his children with his own. He entertained persecuted brethren for weeks and months in his own house, or procured them places and means of travel.307 He paid great attention to education, as superintendent of the schools in Zürich. He filled the professorships in the Carolinum with able theologians, as Pellican, Bibliander, Peter Martyr. He secured a well-educated ministry. He prepared, in connection with Leo Judae, a book of church order, which was adopted by the Synod, Oct. 22, 1532, issued by authority of the burgomaster, the Small and the Great Council, and continued in force for nearly three hundred years. It provides the necessary rules for the examination, election, and duties of ministers (Predicanten) and deans (Decani), for semi-annual meetings of synods with clerical and lay representatives, and the power of discipline. The charges were divided into eight districts or chapters.308