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 In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  ANTIOCH ON THE SYRIAN ORONTES. Antioch on the Orontes River, third-largest city in the empire, was the capital of Syria, a strategic province directly under Augustus’s control. Today it is Antakya-Hatay, but after a 1939 plebiscite it is in mid-southern Turkey rather than northwestern Syria. Antioch was already large in Hellenistic times and connected to important Eastern caravan routes with a port on the Orontes at coastal Seleucia. Coins give it the name “metropolis,” often bear the image of Apollo, and frequently date to Octavian’s accession. He visited the city twice, once right after the battle of Actium and again in 20 B.C.E. It is likely that, for that second visit, an official adventus or parousia (recall that term from Chapter 3), Herod the Great paved and colonnaded the main street, whose outlines are still visible in the modern city and whose remnants could still be seen until quite recently. This was one of the very first colonnaded streets in the empire; large-scale columns had previously been used only for temples and sanctuaries. Herod’s construction lent the city and Augustus’s visit there a civic-religious tone that was accentuated even more a few years later when the city council put up in the main intersection a statue of Tiberius in gratitude for his benefaction. A citizen of Antioch named John Malalas, or John the Orator, focused on bathhouses in his sixth-century account of the city’s expanded construction under the Julio-Claudians. He relates how Julius Caesar constructed an aqueduct for the purpose of supplying a new bathhouse on the upper slope of the city, how Augustus’s then probable heir Agrippa built two bathhouses, naming one after himself, and how Tiberius put up another at the spring where Alexander the Great had once created a fountain. That excessive luxuriousness and licentiousness in bathing was the exactly what Juvenal in his Satires criticized at the start of the second century C.E., when he lamented how the moral sewage “of the Syrian Orontes has long since poured into the Tiber” (3.63–65). It is ironic, though, that Rome first promoted bathing and the cult of luxury to consolidate cities like Antioch into its urban monoculture, only later to condemn aspects of them as Eastern decadence.

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

  PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. By Zarah is denoted the people of the Jews, which first appeared in the light of faith, coming out of the dark womb of the world, and was therefore marked with the scarlet thread of the circumciser, for all supposed that they were to be God’s people; but the Law was set before their face as it had been a wall or hedge. Thus the Jews were hindered by the Law, but in the times of Christ’s coming the hedge of the Law was broken down that was between Jews and Gentiles, as the Apostle speaks, Breaking down the middle wall of partition; (Eph. 2:14.) and thus it fell out that the Gentiles, who were signified by Phares, as soon as the Law was broken through by Christ’s commandments, first entered into the faith, and after followed the Jews. GLOSS. Judah begat Phares and Zarah before he went into Egypt, whither they both accompanied their father. In Egypt, Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; Aram begat Aminadab; Aminadab begat Naasson; and then Moses led them out of Egypt. Naasson was head of the tribe of Judah under Moses in the desert, where he begat Salmon; and this Salmon it was who, as prince of the tribe of Judah, entered the land of promise with Joshua. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. But as we believe that the names of these Fathers were given for some special reason under the providence of God, it follows, but Naasson begat Salmon. This Salmon after his father’s death entered the promised land with Joshua as prince of the tribe of Judah. He took a wife of the name of Rahab. This Rahab is said to have been that Rahab the harlot of Jericho who entertained the spies of the children of Israel, and hid them safely. For Salmon being noble among the children of Israel, inasmuch as he was of the tribe of Judah, and son of the prince thereof, beheld Rahab so ennobled through her great faith, that she was worthy whom he should take to wife. Salmon is interpreted ‘receive a vesselk,’ perhaps as if invited in God’s providence by his very name to receive Rahab a vessel of election. GLOSS. This Salmon in the promised land begat Booz of this Rahab. Booz begat Obeth of Ruth. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. How Booz took to wife a Moabitess whose name was Ruth, I thought it needless to tell, seeing the Scripture concerning them is open to all. We need but say thus much, that Ruth married Booz for the reward of her faith, for that she had cast off the gods of her forefathers, and had chosen the living God. And Booz received her to wife for reward of his faith, that from such sanctified wedlock might be descended a kingly race.

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

  AMBROSE. (ubi sup.) But how did Ruth who was an alien marry a man that was a Jew? and wherefore in Christ’s genealogy did His Evangelist so much as mention a union, which in the eye of the law was bastard? Thus the Saviour’s birth of a parentage not admitted by the law appears to us monstrous, until we attend to that declaration of the Apostle, The Law was not given for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. (1 Tim. 1:9.) For this woman who was an alien, a Moabitess, a nation with whom the Mosaic Law forbad all intermarriage, and shut them totally out of the Church, how did she enter into the Church, unless that she were holy and unstained in her life above the Law? Therefore she was exempt from this restriction of the Law, and deserved to be numbered in the Lord’s lineage, chosen from the kindred of her mind, not of her body. To us she is a great example, for that in her was prefigured the entrance into the Lord’s Church of all of us who are gathered out of the Gentiles. JEROME. Ruth the Moabitess fulfils the prophecy of Isaiah, Send forth, O Lord, the Lamb that shall rule over the earth, out of the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion. (Is. 16:1.) GLOSS. Jesse, the father of David, has two names, being more frequently called Isai. But the Prophet says, There shall come a rod from the stem of Jesse; (Is. 11:1.) therefore to shew that this prophecy was fulfilled in Mary and Christ, the Evangelist puts Jesse. REMIGIUS. It is asked, why this epithet King is thus given by the holy Evangelist to David alone? Because he was the first king in the tribe of Judah. Christ Himself is Phares ‘the divider,’ as it is written, Thou shalt divide the sheep from the goats; (Mat. 25:33.) He is Zaraml, ‘the east,’ Lo the man, the east is His name; (Zech. 6:12.) He is Esromm, ‘an arrow,’ He hath set me as a polished shaft. (Is. 49:2.) RABANUS. Or following another interpretation, according to the abundance of grace, and the width of love. He isn Aram the chosen, according to that, Behold my Servant whom I have chosen. (Is. 42:1.) He is Aminadab, that is ‘willingo,’ in that He says, I will freely sacrifice to Thee. (Is. 54:6.) Also He is Naassonp, i. e. ‘augury,’ as He knows the past, the present, and the future; or, ‘like a serpent,’ according to that, Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. (John 3:14.) He isq Salmon, i. e. ‘that feeleth,’as He said, I feel that power is gone forth out of me. (Luke 8:46.)

• From Open (2009)

  I grab my tennis bag and sprint through the parking lot. Gil tells me later that when I entered the arena, he heard the applause. The windows of the Corvette were rolled up, but he still heard the crowd. In that moment he had a sense of what I’d been trying to tell him. After the command performance for the Old West judge, after hearing the stadium greet my arrival with a frenzied roar, he understood. He confesses that until this trip, he didn’t realize the life was so—insane. He really didn’t know what he was signing on for. I tell him that makes two of us. WE HAVE A WONDERFUL TIME in Scottsdale. We learn about each other, fast, the way you learn about people on the road. During one midday match I halt play and wait for a tournament official to hurry an umbrella over to where Gil is sitting. He’s in direct sunlight, perspiring fiercely. When the official hands Gil the umbrella, Gil looks confused. Then he looks down, sees me waving, understands. He flashes a fifty-six-inch smile, and we both laugh. We go to dinner one night at the Village Inn. It’s late, we’re eating a combo platter of dinner and breakfast. Four guys burst into the restaurant and sit one booth away. They talk and laugh about my hair, my clothes. Probably gay, one says. Definitely homo, says his buddy. Gil clears his throat, wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, tells me to enjoy the rest of my meal. He’s done. Aren’t you going to eat, Gilly? No, man. Last thing I want during a fight is a full stomach. When I’m finished, Gil says he has some business to take care of at the next table. If anything happens, he says, I shouldn’t worry—he knows the way home. He stands very slowly. He sidles over to the four guys. He leans on their table. The table groans. He fans his chest in their faces and says, You enjoy ruining people’s meals? That’s how you like to spend your time, huh? Gee, I’m going to have to try that myself. What are you having there? Hamburger? He picks up the man’s burger and eats half in one bite. Needs ketchup, Gil says, his mouth full. You know what? Now I’m thirsty. I think I’ll take a sip of your soda. Yeah. And then I think I’ll spill it all over the table as I set it down. I want—I want—one of you to try to stop me. Gil takes a long sip, then slowly, almost as slowly as he drives, pours the rest of the soda over the table. Not one of the four guys moves. Gil sets down the empty glass and looks at me. Andre, are you ready to go?

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  "Please thank Rob for me." His use of the chef's first name implied familiarity, though he had never once eaten Rob Holland's food or even met the man, to be honest. "Tell him I'd be very pleased to eat whatever he'd care to send us." Back in the kitchen, Rob had been, of course, immediately apprised of the situation. "C'mon, chef," said Paul, grinning horribly, with a death's-head who-gives-a-fuck smile you generally saw in war movies just before the last suicide charge up a machine-gun-infested hill. "This could be the last damn meal we ever cook in this dump. Let's make it a keeper." "Show me some fucking moves, chef," said Michelle snapping Rob's ass with a side towel. "Victory or death!" There was a lot of unused food in the Saint Germain stores. Most of it would probably never be eaten. Rob pillaged his refrigerators and shelves for the best of everything. Working quickly, he whipped up a batter for cornmeal blinis, browned them in a nonstick pan, teased them with a few shavings of homemade gravlax, carefully applied dollops of creme fraiche, and heaped them with beluga caviar until they threatened to topple over. He applied near microscopic dots of bright green chive oil—in gradually descending size around wide white plates, and sprinkled a tiny, tiny brunoise of hard-cooked egg yolk over and around. His hands flew. They did not shake. There was a torchon of foie gras, which Rob sliced and cut and stacked into artful submission between paper-thin slices of toasted brioche and quince chutney, a thin drizzle of balsamic reduction issuing from his spoon with a precision Paul and Michelle had thought long gone. He worked silently, saying absolutely nothing, other than when he issued faint commands to his left and to his right. He didn't just work the saute station, he worked every station, moving from saute to grill to garde-manger like he'd lived there every waking hour, the other cooks serving as commis. Michelle even found herself wiping his brow at one point when a drop of sweat threatened to fall onto a plate of "mosaic of copperhead salmon and fluke carpaccio with citrus jus," surprisingly, not minding at all. Those cooks not helping—Billy, Jimbo, Leon, and the rest—simply stood by and watched as Rob moved efficiently, as if to some internal rhythm, back and forth from station to station, from one plate to anther, course after incredible course. They were silent, as if by speaking, they might break the spell. There was a total hush in the kitchen. The back waiters and busboys tiptoed in to do their work and then tiptoed out. It was as if Rob were a pitcher working on a no-hitter, and a dropped fork, a plate set down too loudly, might destroy what might well turn out to be a perfect game.

• From The Varieties of Religious Experience

  How is success to be absolutely measured when there are so many environments and so many ways of looking at the adaptation? It cannot be measured absolutely; the verdict will vary according to the point of view adopted. From the biological point of view Saint Paul was a failure, because he was beheaded. Yet he was magnificently adapted to the larger environment of history; and so far as any saint’s example is a leaven of righteousness in the world, and draws it in the direction of more prevalent habits of saintliness, he is a success, no matter what his immediate bad fortune may be. The greatest saints, the spiritual heroes whom every one acknowledges, the Francises, Bernards, Luthers, Loyolas, Wesleys, Channings, Moodys, Gratrys, the Phillips Brookses, the Agnes Joneses, Margaret Hallahans, and Dora Pattisons, are successes from the outset. They show themselves, and there is no question; every one perceives their strength and stature. Their sense of mystery in things, their passion, their goodness, irradiate about them and enlarge their outlines while they soften them. They are like pictures with an atmosphere and background; and, placed alongside of them, the strong men of this world and no other seem as dry as sticks, as hard and crude as blocks of stone or brickbats. In a general way, then, and “on the whole,”(222) our abandonment of theological criteria, and our testing of religion by practical common sense and the empirical method, leave it in possession of its towering place in history. Economically, the saintly group of qualities is indispensable to the world’s welfare. The great saints are immediate successes; the smaller ones are at least heralds and harbingers, and they may be leavens also, of a better mundane order. Let us be saints, then, if we can, whether or not we succeed visibly and temporally. But in our Father’s house are many mansions, and each of us must discover for himself the kind of religion and the amount of saintship which best comports with what he believes to be his powers and feels to be his truest mission and vocation. There are no successes to be guaranteed and no set orders to be given to individuals, so long as we follow the methods of empirical philosophy. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  When before now, in Germany or anywhere, had there been a champion of the people, someone who seemed to speak for them against the mighty, resplendent, fearsome, and oppressive powers arrayed against them? Martin Luther was, to this extent, very much a new phenomenon in history. Because of Cranach’s by now widely distributed woodcut portraits of him, Luther’s countenance was known everywhere his publications were sold, and where were they not sold? Except for royalty—for emperors and caesars and kings—whose face in history had ever been mass-produced so that it was recognized far and wide? The hero of the people had been born, and so, in their way, had the people themselves. They now strode onto the world’s stage for the first time, led by the monk from Wittenberg, and they would never again go into the wings. In this way too the future was now being born. So for these people waiting to see him come through their town in his wagon, this was all something out of a fairy tale, and here was their hero, the man who stood for them and for the truth, riding where they could actually see him. Many were sure he was going to his death, and told him so. When the wagon passed through Naumburg, a well-meaning cleric gave Luther a painting of Savonarola, who was burned at the stake in 1498 for doing much of what Luther was now doing. What Luther made of this well-meant but strange and macabre token is not recorded. That Luther was in some ways the first celebrity of modern culture had everything to do with the extraordinary reach of his publications, as well as with the Cranach portraits. A month earlier in a letter to Spalatin, Luther had enclosed a handful of copies, which Cranach had suggested he autograph.1 The technology to print a near infinity of his many writings and to add to them the fanciful woodcut illustrations by Cranach made something possible that had never been possible before, to blast a persona—an image and a lively voice that knew how to communicate to the common man—into the wide world, where it would touch the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, none of whom spoke Latin or had previously ever been invited into these important discussions about the world in which they lived, about the institutions that affected them and shaped their lives. How it must have flattered them that this genius of great influence was speaking to them and representing their concerns before pope and emperor. It was simply unprecedented.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  All these personal and civic advantages of the landowner’s life center on what is given to be the principal merit of the “economic” art: it teaches the practice of commanding and is indissociable from the latter. To manage the oikos is to command, and being in charge of the household is not different from the power that is to be exercised in the city. Socrates says to Nicomachides in the Memorabilia: “Don’t look down on businessmen. For the management of private concerns differs only in point of number from that of public affairs. In other respects they are much alike … those who take charge of public affairs employ just the same men when they attend to their own; and those who understand how to employ them are successful directors of public and private concerns.”4 The dialogue on “economics” is structured as a grand analysis of the art of commanding. The beginning of the text evokes Cyrus the Younger, who personally supervised the cultivation of his land, worked in his garden as a daily practice, and who had in this way acquired so much skill at leading men that when he was obliged to go to war, none of his soldiers ever deserted his army; rather than abandon him, they preferred to die fighting near his corpse.5 In symmetrical fashion, the end of the text evokes the replica of that model ruler, such as one might find personified in those “great-minded” leaders whose armies always followed them without faltering, or in the estate master whose kingly ways sufficed to stir the workers to greater efforts as soon as they saw him, without his having to lose his temper, threaten, or punish. The domestic art was of the same nature as the political art or the military art, at least insofar as all three involved ruling others.6

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

  REMIGIUS. Life returned by the same entrance through which death had entered in. By Adam’s disobedience we were ruined, by Joseph’s obedience we all begin to be recalled to our former condition; for in these words is commended to us the great virtue of obedience, when it is said, And Joseph rising from sleep, did as the Angel of the Lord had commanded him. GLOSS. (ord. et ap. Anselm ex Beda cit.) He not only did what the Angel commanded, but as he commanded it. Let each one who is warned of God, in like manner, break off all delays, rise from sleep, and do that which is commanded him. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Took unto him, not took home to him; for he had not sent her away; he had put her away in thought only, and now took her again in thought. REMIGIUS. Or, Took her so far, as that the nuptial rites being complete, she was called his wife; but not so far as to lie with her, as it follows, And knew her not.

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

  Here he summarizes the statements made by the ancient philosophers. He says that from what has been said above it is evident that the ancient philosophers attempted to investigate the cause which he [Aristotle] dealt with in the Physics, and that in their statements we find no cause in addition to those established in that work. However, these men discussed these causes obscurely; and while in a sense they have mentioned all of these causes, in another sense they have not mentioned any of them. For just as young children at first speak imperfectly and in a stammering way, in a similar fashion this philosophy, since it was new, seems to speak imperfectly and in a stammering way about the principles of all things. This is borne out by the fact that Empedocles was the first to say that bones have a certain ratio, or proportional mixture [of the elements], and that this is a thing ’ s quiddity or substance. But the same thing must also be true of flesh and of every other single thing or of none of them, for all of these things are mixtures of the elements. And for this reason it is evident that flesh and bone and all things of this kind are not what they are because of their matter, which he identified with the four elements, but because of this principle-their form. However, Empedocles, compelled as it were by the need for truth, would have maintained this view if it had been expressed more clearly by someone else, but he did not express it clearly. And just as the ancient philosophers have not clearly expressed the nature of form, neither have they clearly expressed the nature of matter, as was said above about Anaxagoras (90). Nor have they clearly expressed the nature of any other principles. Therefore, concerning such thing, as have been stated imperfectly, we have spoken of this before (190). And with regard to these matters we will restate again in Book III (423) whatever difficulties can be raised on both sides of the question. For perhaps from such difficulties we will discover some useful information for dealing with the problems which must be examined and solved later on throughout this whole science. BOOK II THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH AND CAUSES LESSON 1 The Acquisition of Truth: Its Ease and Its Difficulty ARISTOTLE ’ S TEXT Chapter 1: 993a 30-993b 19144. Theoretical, i.e., speculative, knowledge of truth is in one sense difficult and in another, easy. 145. An indication of this is found in the fact that, while no one can attain an adequate knowledge of it, all men together do not fail, because each one is able to say something true about nature. 146. And while each one individually contributes nothing or very little to the truth, still as a result of the combined efforts of all a great amount of truth becomes known.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  LUTHER DEPARTED WITTENBERG for Worms* on April 3, the Wednesday after Easter. Charles had sent his summons to Luther via his imperial herald, Caspar Sturm, and now he—along with his servant—would ride at the head of the procession along the three-hundred-mile journey, guaranteeing Luther’s safe-conduct. On his sleeve he wore the imperial eagle, which would have alerted any troublemakers along the way that to molest this party in any way was as if they had attacked the emperor personally. Wittenberg understood the importance of Luther’s trip and appearance and wanted to play its part. The wagon in which Luther would travel was provided by the Wittenberg city council and the goldsmith Christian Döring. The university kicked in twenty gulden for traveling expenses, to which Duke John—Frederick’s brother—added his own contributions, as did Luther’s friend Johannes Lang. [image file=image_rsrc6KY.jpg] Cranach’s 1521 profile portrait of Luther wearing his doctor’s biretta. Although Luther had been absolved of his obedience to the Augustinians by Staupitz, he nonetheless followed their tradition of traveling wherever he went with a fellow brother, and so an obscure member of the Wittenberg monastery—Johann Petzensteiner—was assigned to be his companion on this trip. But Luther would hardly lack for company. His friend Nicholas von Amsdorf would be along for the ride in the wagon, as would Peter Swawe, a nobleman from Pomerania, who had become sufficiently enamored of Luther in Leipzig that he had moved to Wittenberg, where he studied under him. Much of the way, Luther edified his wagon companions by teaching a Bible study on the book of Joshua and sometimes entertained them by gaily playing his lute. Everywhere their party traveled, Luther was greeted by throngs of admirers. How his writings and teachings had spread could never have been fully known to him until now, and there is no doubt that it was a stunning and humbling revelation. If he had ever doubted it before, he had by this time become a celebrity, although there was no such thing at that time in the world. But whatever he was, everyone knew the details of his case and wanted to see the man who was defying the pope in Rome and who would now stand before the emperor himself.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  We choose four cities to highlight the effects of Romanization: Pompeii in Italy, Nicopolis in Greece, Antioch in Syria, and Caesarea Maritima in Judea. That sweep from west to east serves as background for the Galatian cities in its middle. POMPEII ON THE CAMPANIAN COAST. Under Augustus a set of alterations undertaken by local initiative and private expense transformed the urban landscape of Pompeii and imitated the Augustan revolution’s emphasis on piety and virtue. Almost all of the Pompeian aristocrats who sponsored public structures also copied Augustus by enrolling in priestly offices. Not surprisingly, then, temples were the most important and visible buildings they built. Two examples will suffice. The first is a temple to Fortuna Augusta (Augustan Good Fortune) built on private land and paid for by one M. Tullius from his private funds. On a little plot at a well-traveled intersection, it mimicked Augustus’s new lavishly marbled temples in Rome, but on a smaller scale. Accompanying the statues of the imperial family was a toga-clad male priest, very likely M. Tullius himself, who in promoting Augustus also promoted his own association with the princeps. The second example is that enormous community building dedicated later in Augustus’s reign by the widow Eumachia, who as a civic priestess sponsored the building in part to support her son’s election to civic office. The large structure stood in the middle of the eastern side of the forum and was dedicated to Concordia et Pietas Augusta (Augustan Harmony and Piety). It echoes several themes and styles from the Augustan Forum and the Ara Pacis Augustae, by a gallery of Roman and Pompeian heroes in its portico, by inscriptions to Aeneas and Romulus, and by “luxuriant vines” that, as Paul Zanker says, “look as if they could have come from the same workshop responsible for the Ara Pacis” in Rome. To flatter the imperial family, Eumachia had the statue of the goddess Concordia carved with the features of Augustus’s wife Livia, but to flatter herself, she had her own statue imitate both Concordia and Livia, with head veiled as a sign of piety and as a symbol of her priestly status. Her building on the east side of the forum, two other imperial structures to its north, and an altar in the center of the forum reoriented the area’s north-south axis to an east-west axis. But even more significant for the daily lives of ordinary people was the new and abundant flow of water that came with Julio-Claudian rule. Earlier Pompeians relied on a set of rainwater cisterns and deep wells, but by the end of Augustus’s rule the city had tapped into the nearby imperial aqueduct that supplied the Roman fleet in the Bay of Naples. Paid for by Pompeians but permitted by and credited to Augustus, the new system distributed running water to wealthy private houses, public fountains, and very, very luxurious baths.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  The Socrates that appears in this passage is invested with powers that are characteristic of the traditional figure of the theios anēr: physical endurance, the ability to make oneself indifferent to sensations, and the power to absent oneself from the body and to concentrate all the soul’s energy on oneself.32 But it should be understood that these powers are operative here in the quite particular game of Eros; they ensure the domination that Socrates is able to exercise over himself in the game; and hence they qualify him as the highest object of love to which young men might appeal, but at the same time, as the only one who can guide their love all the way to truth. Into the lover’s game where different dominations confronted one another (that of the lover seeking to get control of the beloved, that of the beloved seeking to escape, and seeking, by means of his resistance, to enslave the lover), Socrates introduces another type of domination: that which is exercised by the master of truth and for which he is qualified by the dominion he exercises over himself. Platonic erotics can thus be considered from three viewpoints. First, it is a way of responding to an inherent difficulty, for Greek culture, in relationships between men and boys: namely, the question of what status to give the latter as objects of pleasure. From this angle, Plato’s answer seems only more complex and more elaborate than those that might have been put forward in the various “debates” on love, or—by “Socrates”—in the texts of Xenophon. Actually, Plato resolves the difficulty of the object of pleasure by bringing the question of the loved individual back to the nature of love itself; by structuring the love relation as a relation to truth; by doubling it and placing it in the one who is loved as well as in the one who is in love; and by reversing the role of the loved young man, making him a lover of the master of truth. In this sense, one can say that it meets the challenge that was issued by Aristophanes’ fable: it gives the latter a true content. It shows how it is indeed the same love which, in the same movement, can make a man both paiderastēs and philerastēs. The dissymmetries, the disparities, the resistances, and the evasions that organized the always difficult relations between the erastes and the eromenos—the active subject and the pursued object—in the practice of love no longer have any justification; or rather, they can develop according to a completely different movement, by taking a completely different form, and by imposing a quite different game: that of a process in which the master of truth teaches the boy the meaning of wisdom.

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

  JEROME. (cont. Helvid. 8.) Lastly, I would ask, Why then did Joseph abstain at all up to the day of birth? He will surely answer, Because of the Angel’s words, That which is born in her, &c. He then who gave so much heed to a vision as not to dare to touch his wife, would he, after he had heard the shepherds, seen the Magi, and known so many miracles, dare to approach the temple of God, the seat of the Holy Ghost, the Mother of his Lord? PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. It may be said, that know here signifies simply, to understand; that whereas before he had not understood how great her dignity, after the birth he then knew that she had been made more honourable and worthy than the whole world, who had carried in her womb Him whom the whole world could not contain. GLOSS. Otherwise; On account of the glorification of the most holy Mary, she could not be known by Joseph until the birth; for she who had the Lord of glory in her womb, how should she be known? If the face of Moses talking with God was made glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look thereon, how much more could not Mary be known, or even looked upon, who bare the Lord of glory in her womb? After the birth she was known of Joseph to the beholding of her face, but not to be approached carnally. JEROME. From the words, her firstborn Son, some most erroneously suspect that Mary had other sons, saying that first-born can only be said of one that has brethren. But this is the manner of Scripture, to call the first-born not only one who is followed by brethren, but the first-birth of the mother. JEROME. (Cont. Helvid. 10.) For if he only was first-born who was followed by other brethren, then no first-birth could be due to the Priests, till such time as the second birth took place. GLOSS. (Ord.) Or; He is first-born among the elect by grace; but by nature the Only-begotten of God the Father, the only Son of Mary. And called His name Jesus, on the eighth day on which the circumcision took place, and the Name was given. REMIGIUS. It is clear that this Name was well known to the Holy Fathers and the Prophets of God, but to him above all, who spake, My soul fainted for Thy salvation; (Ps. 119:81.) and, My soul hath rejoiced in Thy salvation. Also to him who spake, I will joy in God my Saviour. (Ps. 13:5. Hab. 3:18.) CHAPTER 2 2:1–21. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 2. Saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him.

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

  THEOPHYLACT. The wickedness of the Pharisees in tempting Christ, has been related above, and now is shewn the great faith of the multitude, who believed that Christ conferred a blessing on the children whom they brought to Him, by the mere laying on of His hands. Wherefore it is said: And they brought young children to him, that he might touch them. CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) But the disciples, out of regard for the dignity of Christ, forbade those who brought them. And this is what is added: And his disciples rebuked those who brought them. But our Saviour, in order to teach His disciples to be modest in their ideas, and to tread under foot worldly pride, takes the children to Him, and assigns to them the kingdom of God: wherefore it goes on: And he said unto them, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not. ORIGEN. (Matt. tom. xv. 7) If any of those who profess to hold the office of teaching1 in the Church should see a person bringing to them some of the foolish of this world, and low born, and weak, who for this reason are called children and infants, let him not forbid the man who offers such an one to the Saviour, as though he were acting without judgment. After this He exhorts those of His disciples who are already grown to full stature to condescend to be useful to children, that they may become to children as children, that they may gain children; for He Himself, when He was in the form of God, humbled Himself, and became a child. On which He adds: For of such is the kingdom of heaven. (1 Cor. 9:22) CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) For indeed the mind of a child is pure from all passions, for which reason, we ought by free choice to do those works, which children have by nature. THEOPHYLACT. Wherefore He says not, for of these, but of such is the kingdom of God, that is, of persons who have both in their intention and their work the harmlessness and simplicity which children have by nature. For a child does not hate, does nothing of evil intent, nor though beaten does he quit his mother; and though she clothe him in vile garments, prefers them to kingly apparel; in like manner he, who lives according to the good ways of his mother the Church, honours nothing before her, nay, not pleasure, which is the queen of many; wherefore also the Lord subjoins, Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

• From The Chronology of Water (2011)

  His hands. I remember his hands at work over great white expanses of paper, rows and rows of pens and pencils and sophisticated erasers, a T-square sliding up and down a wire on the drafting table, his tall form bent over the territory of his designs. I remember the sound of classical music coming from his room, orchestral arrangements weaving up my spine, the names of composers going into my head. I can still see the great thick-paged architectural and art magazines on the coffee table. This striking man teaching me how to draw, what is shadow, what is light, composition, perspective. I walked with him through the spaces of other men’s buildings, and in place of bedtime stories, I heard about Le Corbusier, Antonio Gaudí, Carlo Scarpa, Fumihiko Maki. The beauty of him speaking about art, slowly, a cigarette pointing toward heaven, swirls of smoke like curls of water around the sanctity of his speech. I walked with my father through Fallingwater. Before my father was an architect he was a navigator in the Korean War. I can only go to black and white photos here. When I hold them in my hand I suddenly have to face the fact of real war, and his body in it. The photos have barracks and rifles and uniforms. The photos have jeeps and helicopters and the landscape of the military. The photos are of my father with men I never met nor ever will, men who may be dead by now, men who went to war before I was born, before Vietnam. There are two kinds of photos. In the first kind each frame is filled with an extraordinary architecture - Korean Buddhist temples and shrines. The second kind carry men. There is a black man who reappears in several of the photos. When I hold the photos, my father isn’t the abusive fuck. He becomes a different story, the one he and my mother and uncle and aunt told and retold about the lengths he went to concerning his best friend - a black man whose name I will never know. I can’t remember it. I was a child when these stories were told. But the stories are all about how my dad would sit out in the car with this guy when the other guys would go out to eat or drink or dance when they were on leave. How he’d go in and get food or beer and bring it out to the car or the curb or some vacant lot near whatever establishment and they’d sit and share it together. I look at the black man in the photo. I wish I could talk to him. Ask him questions about my father then. Was he funny? Was he kind? Did he ever make a drawing for you? What things scared him, or hurt him, or made him happy? What was my father like during wartime? What is a man? My father was handsome.

• From The Chronology of Water (2011)

  We had no time. We had no energy. We had no money. What we had was making art in the woods. So when Andy turned to me one night over scotches and said “We should invent a Northwest press that isn’t about fucking old growth and salmon,” and I laughed my ass off, and then said, “Yeah, we should,” we just … did. Which is how the zenith of our depletion changed into the zenith of our creative production. Andy and me, we had another child. An unruly literary press, which we named “Chiasmus.” Turned out, there were lots of writers in the Northwest who were tired of old growth and salmon. Our first publication was an anthology called Northwest Edge: The End of Reality. Because, you know, it was. Everything we were before we were this, utterly transformed. Shakespeare. In our forest we gave art to life, and life to art made us. Angina I KNOW. I’M MAKING ANDY SOUND LIKE A MAGICAL MANSAVIOR. You’re going to have to forgive me. It’s an effect of meeting someone who is your equal. It’s an effect of an astonishment: that I love men. And it’s not like we have some relationship from a movie. For instance, in the beginning, we fought. Boy howdy. I fought like a woman whose father had betrayed her and whose mother abandoned her. He fought like a man who never had a father and whose mother’s heart didn’t quite reach him. Working out our childhood wounds at each other. Because … because we could take it. Because there was something on the other side. People - I guess I mean couples - don’t like to talk much about fighting. It’s not attractive. No one likes to admit it or describe it or lay claim to it. We want our coupledoms to look… sanitized and pretty and worthy of admiration. And anger blasts are ugly. But, I think that is a crock. There is a kind of fighting that isn’t ugly. There is a way for anger to come out as an energy you let loose and away. The trick is to give it a form, and not a human target. The trick is to transform rage. When I watch Andy work the heavy bag, or work his body to drop doing mixed martial arts, I see that anger can go somewhere - out and away from a body - like an energy let loose and given form. Like my junk comes out in art. Though like anyone else, our arguments are sloppy and dumb and artless. We look like cartoon adults, just like everyone. Like the time he put all our living room furniture out on the lawn. Or the time I grabbed his computer mouse and bit the cord in half. Yeah. Subtle. But I gotta tell you. People who never get angry frighten me. Andrew: man-warrior. From the Greek. Lidia doesn’t mean jack-shit, by the way. Figures.

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

  26. And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? 27. And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible, BEDE. (ubi sup.) A certain man had heard from the Lord that only they who are willing to be like little children are worthy to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and therefore he desires to have explained to him, not in parables, but openly, by the merits of what works a man may attain everlasting life. Wherefore it is said: And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? THEOPHYLACT. I wonder at this young man, who when all others come to Christ to be healed of their infirmities, begs of Him the possession of everlasting life, notwithstanding his love of money, the malignant passion which afterwards caused his sorrow. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. in Matt. 63) Because however he had come to Christ as he would to a man, and to one of the Jewish doctors, Christ answered him as Man. Wherefore it goes on: And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but the One God. In saying which He does not exclude men from goodness, but from a comparison with the goodness of God. BEDE. (ubi sup.) But by this one God, who is good, we must not only understand the Father, but also the Son, who says, I am the good Shepherd; (John 10:11) and also the Holy Ghost, because it is said, The Father which is in heaven will give the good Spirit to them that ask him. (Luke 2:15. Vulg.) For the One and Undivided Trinity itself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is the Only and One good God. The Lord, therefore, does not deny Himself to be good, but implies that He is God; He does not deny that He is good Master, but He declares that no master is good but God. THEOPHYLACT. Therefore the Lord intended by these words to raise the mind of the young man, so that he might know Him to be God. But He also implies another thing by these words, that when you have to converse with a man, you should not flatter him in your conversation, but look back upon God, the root and fount of goodness, and do honour to Him.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  [image "Seal logo" file=image_rsrc2JY.jpg] [image file=image_rsrc2JZ.jpg] About the AuthorJulia Serano is an Oakland, California–based writer, performer, activist, and biologist. She is the author of four other books: Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive (which was a finalist for the 2013 Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction), Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism, and 99 Erics: A Kat Cataclysm Faux Novel. Julia’s other writings have appeared in over a dozen anthologies, in magazines and news outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Time, The Advocate, The Daily Beast, Salon, Bitch, AlterNet, Out, and Ms., and have been used as teaching materials in queer and gender studies, sociology, psychology, and human sexuality courses across North America. As a scientist, Julia has a PhD in biochemistry from Columbia University, and spent seventeen years as a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fields of genetics and evolutionary-developmental biology. juliaserano.com. Praise forWHIPPING GIRL Named one of 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time by Ms. magazine “Seminal.” —Variety “It’s official: Whipping Girl is a twenty-first-century feminist classic. It’s also a gift to a culture (still) struggling to face its own misogyny. Serano’s writing is clear, gracious, and incredibly illuminating.” —Jennifer Baumgardner, activist, filmmaker, and author of Manifesta “A foundational text for anyone hoping to understand transgender politics and culture in the US today, particularly as experienced and shaped by trans women.” —NPR “Through literate discussions of historical references, psychological and psychiatric studies, and sociological data, the reader cannot help but receive an education. With Whipping Girl, Serano has, depending upon your vantage point, either opened a door into a new world or widened the scope of an already informed discussion of gender, transsexuality and femininity.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Not since bell hooks has someone so turned feminism on its head and located the heart of sexism in such a revelatory way.” —Toronto Xtra “Serano’s thinking continues to challenge and delight—Whipping Girl is a foundational text that will prove to be timeless.” —Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism and Sex Object “Rarely do I believe hyperbolic back-cover blurbs claiming ‘We desperately need this book.’ But this one’s absolutely accurate.” —NOW Toronto “Julia Serano did not invent transfeminism, but she’s done more to promote its ideas and demonstrate its necessity than any other writer. Her analysis of the misogyny at the root of transphobia is vital. This book should be taught in every introduction to gender and women’s studies class in the country—read it, teach it, learn from it, and act on it.” —Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History and distinguished chair in women’s leadership, Mills College “In this collection of essays, Serano not only slams misconceptions of transsexuality but also provides a searing interrogation of calcified ideas of ‘femininity’ as frivolous and weak. A transfeminist manifesto for the third wave, this book shows just how revolutionary embracing femininity can be.” —Bustle

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  The Buddha’s crucial insight was that to live morally was to live for others. It was not enough simply to enjoy a religious experience. After enlightenment, he said, a person must return to the marketplace and there practice compassion to all, doing anything he or she could to alleviate the misery of other people. After achieving Nirvana, he had been tempted to luxuriate in the transcendent peace he had found, but instead he spent the remaining forty years of his life on the road teaching his method to others. In Mahayana Buddhism, the hero is the bodhisattva, who is on the brink of enlightenment but instead of disappearing into the bliss of Nirvana, decides to return to the suffering world: “We will become a shelter for the world, the world’s place of rest, the final relief of the world, islands of the world, lights of the world, and the guides of the world’s salvation”23 The Chinese sages focused less on the psychology of compassion and more on its potential social and political implications. In the West, Confucius is often seen as a petty-minded ritualist, obsessed with the minutiae of stultifying rules governing family life. He did indeed revive these ancient rites but saw them as a means of controlling egotism and cultivating compassion. These rituals (li) had been deliberately developed in the Yellow River basin during the eighth century BCE to moderate the extravagant behavior of the nobility. Aggressive deforestation had made more land available for cultivation but had destroyed the natural habitat of many species and decimated the region’s wildlife.24 Hunters now came home empty-handed, and because so much land was now devoted to growing crops, there was less for the breeding of sheep and cattle. In the old days, without a thought for the morrow, aristocrats had slaughtered hundreds of beasts and given lavish gifts to demonstrate their wealth. Concerned above all with status and prestige, they had engaged in bloody vendettas and petty feuds. But in the dawning age of scarcity, the new watchwords were moderation, control, and restraint. Court ritualists evolved complex codes to control every detail of life (even warfare was strictly governed by elaborate chivalric rites that mitigated the horror of battle).25 The nobles discovered the virtue of self-restraint and no longer called out the army in response to every imagined slight.