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 The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  4FROM SINGLE CELLS TO NERVOUS SYSTEMS AND MINDSEver Since Bacterial LifeI will ask the reader to put human minds and brains aside, for a moment, and consider bacterial life instead. The goal is to see where and how life in single cells fits in the long history that leads to humanity. The exercise may sound a bit abstract, at first, because we are not used to seeing bacteria with the naked eye. But there is nothing abstract at all about microorganisms when you see them through a microscope and when you learn of the amazing things they accomplish. There is no doubt that bacteria were the first life-forms and that they are with us today. But to say that they are still around because they were brave survivors would be a gross understatement. They happen to be the most numerous and varied inhabitants of Earth. Not only that, many species of bacteria are truly part of us humans. Many have become incorporated in larger cells of the human body, over the eons of evolution, and many bacteria live within each of us now, in largely harmonious symbiosis. There are more bacterial cells inside each human organism than there are human cells in that same organism. The difference is staggering, by a factor of 10. In the human gut alone, there are usually around 100 trillion bacteria, while in one entire human being there are only about 10 trillion cells, counting all types. The microbiologist Margaret McFall-Ngai is well justified when she says that “plants and animals are a patina on the microbial world.”1 This huge success has its reasons. Bacteria are very intelligent creatures; that is the only way of saying it, even if their intelligence is not being guided by a mind with feelings and intentions and a conscious point of view. They can sense the conditions of their environment and react in ways advantageous to the continuation of their lives. Those reactions include elaborate social behaviors. They can communicate among themselves—no words, it is true, but the molecules with which they signal speak volumes. The computations they perform permit them to assess their situation and, accordingly, afford to live independently or gather together if need be. There is no nervous system inside these single-celled organisms and no mind in the sense that we have. Yet they have varieties of perception, memory, communication, and social governance. The functional operations that support all this “intelligence without a brain or mind” rely on chemical and electrical networks of the sort nervous systems eventually came to possess, advance, and explore later in evolution. In other words, later, much later in evolution, neurons and neuron circuits have come to make good use of older inventions that relied on molecular reactions and on components of the cell’s body known as the cytoskeleton—literally, the skeleton inside the cell—and the membrane.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Alcuin, first as head of the palace school, later as the Abbot of St Martin’s, Tours, France’s most revered monastery, became Charlemagne’s chief cultural and religious adviser – the two roles were inseparable. Indeed in the mind of a man like Alcuin the desire to spread the faith, to understand it fully through literacy and knowledge of the scriptures and the ancillary disciplines, and to adorn and celebrate it through art, was all part of the same Christian vision, whose intensity and brightness were the products of personal conviction. The level of culture was directly related to the degree of faith. It was Alcuin who filled Charlemagne’s mind with the missionary fervour of Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, and it was Alcuin who showed him a copy of Gregory the Great’s letter to King Æthelbert of Kent on the subject of conversion by race. In 789 Alcuin caused the king to issue the Admonitio Generalis, a magisterial statement of Church policy, based on earlier Frankish capitularies and Roman canonical collections, and dealing with almost everything. It has, as it were, a Roman imperial vision of a Christian society living at peace within itself, united under its king and fearing nothing but injustice – an Augustinian vision, we could say. Article 62 reads: ‘Let peace, concord and unanimity reign among all Christian people, and the bishops, abbots, counts and our other servants, great and small; for without peace we cannot please God.’ What is perhaps even more remarkable, however, is the central role which culture played in this vision. Article 72 dealt with the establishment and maintenance of monastic and cathedral schools, and the transcription and correction of biblical and liturgical texts. It is clear from this and other documents that Charlemagne, inspired by Alcuin, saw a cultural renaissance, directed by the Church, as the chief means by which the perfect Christian society would be brought into existence. The Church had given the rulers of the western barbarians an awareness of their classical heritage, and an anxiety to preserve and transmit it almost as strong as among the men of the late empire and after, like Cassiodorus and Boethius. But of course the inheritance was now seen entirely in a Christian context. And because the cultural urge was Christianized, it was linked to Christian policy and objectives. Charlemagne built and endowed schools because he needed a trained clergy to convert the Frisians, Saxons, Slavs and Avars, and live among them; and because he needed more priests for the Frankish world which was already nominally Christian. And, in teaching the faith, accurate and standardized texts were needed in huge quantities. There was thus a call for trained manpower to overhaul the texts and copy

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  Lily was a spirited woman, a passionate teacher and talker who explained in great detail what had happened to her, why it had happened, what she'd done about it, and what she'd learned from it, all with the idea of imparting life lessons to my mother. My mother—who struggles to remember my phone number—has an astonishing recall for details about her mother and father and about their parents as well as an amazing knowledge of the history and geology of Arizona. She never once told me something, whether about the Havasupai tribe or the Mogollon Rim, slaughtering cattle or breaking horses, that I could not confirm. While interviewing my mother and other family members, I came across a couple of books about her paternal grandfather and maternal great-grandfather that confirmed some of the family stories: Major Lot Smith, Mormon Raider, by Ivan Barrett, and Robert Casey and the Ranch on the Rio Hondo, by James Shinkle. Although those books substantiated certain events, such as the murder of Robert Casey and his children's feud over the herd, they contradicted others. Shinkle noted that while researching his book, he came across conflicting versions of events and was frequently unable to get to the ultimate truth. In telling my grandmother's story, I never aspired to that sort of historical accuracy. I saw the book more in the vein of an oral history, a retelling of stories handed down by my family through the years, and undertaken with the storyteller's traditional liberties. I wrote my story in the first person because I wanted to capture Lily's distinctive voice, which I clearly recall. At the time I didn't think of the book as fiction. Lily Casey Smith was a very real woman, and to say that I created her or the events of her life is giving me more credit than I'm due. However, since I don't have the words from Lily herself, and since I have also drawn on my imagination to fill in details that are hazy or missing—and I've changed a few names to protect people's privacy—the only honest thing to do is call the book a novel. Keep reading for a preview of Half Broke Horses [image "Half Broke Horses Cover" file=Image00016.jpg] by Jeannette Walls THOSE OLD COWS KNEW trouble was coming before we did. It was late on an August afternoon, the air hot and heavy like it usually was in the rainy season. Earlier we’d seen some thunderheads near the Burnt Spring Hills, but they’d passed way up to the north. I’d mostly finished my chores for the day and was heading down to the pasture with my brother, Buster, and my sister, Helen, to bring the cows in for their milking. But when we got there, those girls were acting all bothered.

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

  Other things have self-movement in a higher degree, that is, not only with regard to executing the movement, but even as regards to the form, the principle of movement, which form they acquire of themselves. Of this kind are animals, in which the principle of movement is not a naturally implanted form; but one received through sense. Hence the more perfect is their sense, the more perfect is their power of self-movement. Such as have only the sense of touch, as shellfish, move only with the motion of expansion and contraction; and thus their movement hardly exceeds that of plants. Whereas such as have the sensitive power in perfection, so as to recognize not only connection and touch, but also objects apart from themselves, can move themselves to a distance by progressive movement. Yet although animals of the latter kind receive through sense the form that is the principle of their movement, nevertheless they cannot of themselves propose to themselves the end of their operation, or movement; for this has been implanted in them by nature; and by natural instinct they are moved to any action through the form apprehended by sense. Hence such animals as move themselves in respect to an end they themselves propose are superior to these. This can only be done by reason and intellect; whose province it is to know the proportion between the end and the means to that end, and duly coordinate them. Hence a more perfect degree of life is that of intelligible beings; for their power of self-movement is more perfect. This is shown by the fact that in one and the same man the intellectual faculty moves the sensitive powers; and these by their command move the organs of movement. Thus in the arts we see that the art of using a ship, i.e. the art of navigation, rules the art of ship-designing; and this in its turn rules the art that is only concerned with preparing the material for the ship. But although our intellect moves itself to some things, yet others are supplied by nature, as are first principles, which it cannot doubt; and the last end, which it cannot but will. Hence, although with respect to some things it moves itself, yet with regard to other things it must be moved by another. Wherefore that being whose act of understanding is its very nature, and which, in what it naturally possesses, is not determined by another, must have life in the most perfect degree. Such is God; and hence in Him principally is life. From this the Philosopher concludes (Metaph. xii, 51), after showing God to be intelligent, that God has life most perfect and eternal, since His intellect is most perfect and always in act.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  Whatever God says to do, we do. That’s what Paul knew: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”15 Scripture is clear that Jesus “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”16 And there is no greater demonstration of this truth than Jesus humbling Himself, leaving heaven to come to earth in the form of a vulnerable baby, suffering unjust accusations, and enduring death on a Roman cross. The race that was set before Jesus involved emptying Himself, taking on the past and present and future sin of all humankind, and spending three days in a tomb. And yet. You remember what Hebrews 12 makes clear: He did all these things, never once losing touch with joy. “For the joy set before him,” says verse 2, “he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (NIV ). Jesus knew that His race centered on a mission that was big. He knew that His race would take Him right to the cross. But here is something else He knew: fulfilling the mission God had asked Him to fulfill was the best possible use of His life, so He chose it. “For the joy set before him.” That joy is real, and it is coming for us too. We have a future and a hope in Christ. We are set free to serve so our lives will point all people to the joy we have now and the joy that is to come . I can’t think of a better way to live. [image "Part Three: Thinking as Jesus Thinks" file=Image00052.jpg] 15 Who Do You Think You Are? My oldest kid went to college this year, and as any dedicated mother would, I tried to cram every last lesson into his precious mind in the final weeks before he moved out. Here is the essence of my final speech, delivered to Conner there in the front seat of my car: “Son, you are light. I know this because I have seen God in you. I have seen you go from a selfish punk kid to a young man who responds to conviction, a young man who hears from and responds to God. You love people. You put others’ interests ahead of your own.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  60 Lecture 11: Sophocles These characters see him as their protector and their strength. The contrast between Ajax’s heroic code and the more modern code of Odysseus may have endowed Ajax with a kind of archaic grandeur. All six of Sophocles’s isolated protagonists are both repellent and admirable; in Greek, they are called deinos, meaning “terrible, wondrous, strange.” Sophocles’s tragedies are also characterized by an almost total lack of direct human interaction with the gods. Athena is the only god who appears as a character in Sophocles’s plays, and her role in Ajax is far from helpful to the human characters. Unlike the Athena of Aeschylus’s Eumenides, Sophocles’s Athena does not solve any dilemmas or give any useful advice. She is the force behind Ajax’s madness. Furthermore, she brings the mad Ajax out of his tent to mock him in front of Odysseus and goad him into boasting. The sane Odysseus cannot see her, while the mad Ajax can. Thus, the one appearance of an Olympian deity in Sophocles’s extant plays is profoundly disturbing. Once Ajax has regained his sanity, there is no direct divine- human intervention. Athena’s absence after Ajax has regained his sanity re fl ects the situation in the rest of Sophocles’s extant plays. The characters must try to determine the will of the gods through ambiguous omens, prophecies, and oracles and their own understanding of the gods. This underscores the isolation of the characters; they try to take the gods’ will into account but may misinterpret omens and oracles. It also corresponds closely to the realities of human life in general. In this regard, Sophocles is the most “realistic” of the three tragedians. ■ Sophocles, Ajax. Essential Reading 61 Blundell, Helping Friends. Easterling, Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Knox, Heroic Temper, chapters 1–2. Reinhardt, “Ajax.” Segal, C. “Visual Symbolism.” 1. Given the small number of Aeschylus’s and Sophocles’s plays that have survived, are we justi fi ed in making stylistic judgments about the difference in the two tragedians’ portrayal of their main characters? 2. Ajax is a dif fi cult character for modern audiences to “identify” with or to feel sympathy toward. Does this have an impact on your reading of the play, or is it still moving even though the main character is not sympathetic? Questions to Consider Supplementary Reading

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

  In the court outside the tabernacle was the altar of holocausts, on which sacrifices of those things which the people possessed were offered to God: and consequently the people who offered these sacrifices to God by the hands of the priest could be present in the court. But the priests alone, whose function it was to offer the people to God, could approach the inner altar, whereon the very devotion and holiness of the people was offered to God. And this altar was put up outside the tabernacle and in the court, to the exclusion of idolatrous worship: for the Gentiles placed altars inside the temples to offer up sacrifices thereon to idols. The figurative reason for all these things may be taken from the relation of the tabernacle to Christ, who was foreshadowed therein. Now it must be observed that to show the imperfection of the figures of the Law, various figures were instituted in the temple to betoken Christ. For He was foreshadowed by the “propitiatory,” since He is “a propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 2:2). This propitiatory was fittingly carried by cherubim, since of Him it is written (Heb. 1:6): “Let all the angels of God adore Him.” He is also signified by the ark: because just as the ark was made of setim-wood, so was Christ’s body composed of most pure members. More over it was gilded: for Christ was full of wisdom and charity, which are betokened by gold. And in the ark was a golden pot, i.e. His holy soul, having manna, i.e. “all the fulness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9). Also there was a rod in the ark, i.e. His priestly power: for “He was made a . . . priest for ever” (Heb. 6:20). And therein were the tables of the Testament, to denote that Christ Himself is a lawgiver. Again, Christ was signified by the candlestick, for He said Himself (Jn. 8:12): “I am the Light of the world”; while the seven lamps denoted the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. He is also betokened in the table, because He is our spiritual food, according toJn. 6:41, 51: “I am the living bread”: and the twelve loaves signified the twelve apostles, or their teaching. Or again, the candlestick and table may signify the Church’s teaching, and faith, which also enlightens and refreshes. Again, Christ is signified by the two altars of holocausts and incense. Because all works of virtue must be offered to us to God through Him; both those whereby we afflict the body, which are offered, as it were, on the altar of holocausts; and those which, with greater perfection of mind, are offered to God in Christ, by the spiritual desires of the perfect, on the altar of incense, as it were, according to Heb. 13:15: “By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise always to God.”

• From The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (2020)

  The cause of that recognition is that each distinct kind of dog, man, chair, vase, and theory of justice participates in the single and eternal Form of Dog, Man, Chair, Vase, and Justice. Although no modern Christian philosopher would ascribe exactly to this theory, many, myself included, follow Augustine’s Christian version of Plato, in which the Forms do exist, but only in the Mind of God.1 No, from a biblical point of view, our World of Becoming is not merely a shadowy imitation of the World of Being; and yet, it is surely true to say that in comparison to the absolute reality of heaven, our earth is quite shadowy and insubstantial. Indeed, something very like this is stated in Hebrews, in which the author has this to say about the priests who serve in the great Temple of Jerusalem: “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain’ ” (Hebrews 8:5, italics added). In language that is shockingly Platonic, the author here describes the earthly tabernacle (both the one built by Moses and the one built by Solomon/Herod) as a copy and shadow of the absolute and perfect pattern that exists only in heaven/the Mind of God. Were this not shocking enough, the author goes on to say that the Holy of Holies is itself a copy of the very Throne Room of God: “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things , but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24, italics added). We, including and especially Christians, who live in a materialistic age must be constantly reminded that heaven is more real than earth, that our “light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Christians must, like Plato’s philosopher who leaves the cave and then returns to open the eyes of his fellow prisoners, be ready to bear witness to the “true light that gives light to every man” (John 1:9, NIV)—no matter the cost. Indeed, over the last two thousand years, many Christian missionaries have felt so compelled to bring the Good News of Jesus to areas of the world that are hostile to Christianity that they, like Plato’s philosopher, have been killed (martyred) by the very people they set out to liberate and enlighten. A pplications Start by asking students to share their perceptions of what heaven will be like. Listen carefully for answers that depict heaven as a shadowy kind of place.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Jehovah had been the God of the nation, and the God of the individual in so far as he was part of the nation. Now the nation was gone, and the righteous and lowly in their suffering and isolation stretched the lonely hand of faith to him and found him near with a personal touch of love and comfort. Thus the death-pangs of the national life were the birth-pangs of the personal religious life. This was a wonderful triumph of religion, an evidence of the indestructibility of the religious impulse. It was fraught with far-reaching importance for the future of religion and of humanity in general. The subtlest springs of human personality were liberated when the individual realized that he personally was dear to God and could work out his salvation not as a member of his nation, but as a man by virtue of his humanity. The value of this religious achievement has so impressed the students of Hebrew religious history that they have frequently assumed that this change in religion was pure gain. The real edifice of religion in the individual soul was now ready to stand for itself, they say, and the scaffolding of political and social religion could be torn down and its planking abandoned. It is assumed that Jeremiah and those who followed him recognized that the external means of realizing the ideal theocracy had failed, and they now set themselves deliberately to build a new religious community of regenerate souls. They turned their back on the Jewish nation and created the Jewish church. That seems to me a misleading construction of the historical situation. It is true that the progress of religion toward spirituality was sure to make religion more personal. But every new religious synthesis should contain all that was good and true in the old. If the religious value of the individual was being discovered, why should the religious value of the community be forgotten? As a matter of fact, this concentration of religious life in the individual was not a deliberate step of progress, freely taken, but was forced upon these men by dire necessity. Religion found the broad plains of national life destroyed and in possession of the enemy, and it retreated into the mountain fastnesses of individual soul-life. It is a triumph of religious faith if a man who is crippled for life, and confined to a hopeless bed of pain and uselessness, still keeps his faith in God intact, or even develops so strong a trust in him who has slain him that others come to his bedside to draw faith from his mere look and existence. But that is not normal religion. Religion is the hallowing of all life, and its health-giving powers are always impaired if it is denied free access to some of the organs through which it fulfils its functions. Moreover, even with the prophets of the Exile, the restoration of the nation was the controlling desire.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self (1984)

  But Epictetus does not stop there. He fixes a limit to this incompatibility. It is limited by the present situation, by what he calls the current “catastasis” of the world. If in fact we lived in a city of wise men, there would be no further need of these men who are sent by the gods and who, unburdening themselves of everything, rise up to awaken others to truth. Everyone would be a philosopher. The Cynic and his rude profession would be unnecessary. Furthermore, marriage, in this state of things, would not present the same kind of difficulties as it does today, in the present form of humanity. Each philosopher would be able to find in his wife, in his father-in-law, in his children, people like him and brought up in the same manner as he.15 The conjugal relation would bring the sage face to face with an alter ego. Hence it must be borne in mind that the militant philosopher’s refusal of marriage does not bespeak an essential condemnation. It answers only to a circumstantial necessity. The philosopher’s celibacy could just as well be abandoned if all humans were in a condition to lead an existence conforming to their essential nature. 3. A singular relation. The philosophers of the imperial epoch obviously did not invent the affective dimension of the conjugal relationship, just as they did not efface the useful purposes it might serve in individual, familial, or civic life. But to that relationship and to the way in which it established a bond between husband and wife, they proposed to give a form and particular qualities. Aristotle ascribed considerable importance and strength to the relationship between spouses. But when he analyzed the ties that attach humans to one another, it was blood relations that he seemed to favor. According to him, no tie was more intense than the attachment of parents to their children, in whom they could recognize a part of themselves.16 The hierarchy Musonius posits in the treatise Is Marriage a Handicap for the Pursuit of Philosophy? is different. Of all the communities that can be established among humans, Musonius designates marriage as the highest, the most important, and the most venerable (presbytatē). It is greater in strength than that which can join a friend to a friend, a brother to a brother, a son to his parents. It even surpasses—this is the decisive point—the bond that attaches parents to their offspring. No father, no mother, writes Musonius, will feel greater friendship for their child than for their marriage partner, and he cites the example of Admetus: Who was willing to die for him? Not his old parents, but his wife, Alcestis, in spite of her youth.17

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  The NT holds that the best missionary weapon which the Church possesses is the truly Christian life. It holds that men are to be attracted, far more than argued, into the Christian life. There should be in the life of the Christian not only a goodness, but also a loveliness, which will make all men who see it desire the secret which is his. It is one of the most suggestive and the most illuminating facts about the word kalos that, out of its 100 appearances in the NT, 24 are in the Pastoral Epistles. These letters to Timothy and to Titus were written at a crucial time in the history of the Church. They were written when the Church was a little island of Christianity surrounded by a sea of paganism. They were written at a time when the Church’s missionary task was at its most demanding and its most difficult. To meet that situation every person in the Church, and every action of every person in the Church had to be kalos. The world had to be presented with the loveliness, the winsomeness, the attractiveness of the Christian faith. We might almost say that men had to be charmed into Christianity. (i) Office in the Church must be kalos (I Tim. 3.1; 3.13). Too often office in the Church is characterized by criticism, obstructiveness, self-righteousness and self-importance; it ought to be characterized by the loveliness of service, encouragement, support and love. (ii) The Christian is to be a good soldier and he is to fight a good campaign, which indeed Paul was able to claim that he himself had done (I Tim. 1.18; 6.12; II Tim. 2.3; 4.7). There must be a quality of chivalrous gallantry about the Christian life. The Christian must not serve like a conscript, press-ganged into the service of Christ; he must be the adventurer of Christ. He must make it clear to all by his vital happiness that he finds the service of Christ a thrilling thing, even when it is hard and difficult. The Christian must be the laughing cavalier of Christ. (iii) The Christian must be the good servant of Jesus Christ (I Tim. 4.6). The service of the Christian both to Christ and to his fellow men must be service with a smile, the service of the extra mile, the service given always without a grudge, the service in which the servant obviously finds pleasure and delight. It is not enough to serve Christ efficiently; to the efficiency there must be added the charm and the loveliness which kalos always includes.

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

  It is more seemly for a religious to fight with spiritual weapons, than with sword and shield. But there are already in existence several military orders. It is therefore expedient that an order should be founded for the purposes of spiritual warfare. The religious of such an order ought, principally to preach the gospel, according to the exhortation of St, Paul, “Labour like a good soldier of Christ” (2 Tim ii. 3), “by preaching the gospel against the enemies of the Faith,” as the Gloss explains. It is essential that they who labour for the salvation of souls should be remarkable both for learning, and for sanctity of life. It is not easy to find enough priests with such a reputation to take charge of all the parishes throughout the world: neither is it possible, among secular priests, to carry out the statute of the Council of Lateran, which enjoins that there should be teachers of theology in every metropolitan church. This desire of the Church is, however, through the mercy of God, being carried out through the instrumentality of religious. In the words of Isaiah (xi. 9), “The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord.” Thus, it is highly expedient that a religious order should be founded, in which the brethren are learned and addicted to study, and at the same time have leisure to help secular priests who are not so well adapted to teach theology. The advantage of such orders is further proved by the beneficial results produced by their labours. For in many parts of the world, heresy has been destroyed; many infidels have been converted; careless Christians have been instructed in the law of God; and many have been brought to penance by the efforts of religious. Hence anyone who condemns such orders as useless is clearly sinning against the Holy Spirit, by envy of the grace whereby God co-operates in the labours of these men. Again, in XXV. quaest. I, we read the following words: “No one can, either safely or rightly, pass rash judgments either on the Divine constitutions or on the decrees of the Holy See.” Since, therefore, certain religious Orders, as is proved by their very name (for, as St. Augustine puts it in his book The Christian Life, “no one is called by a name without a cause”), have been established, by the Apostolic See for the purposes of which we have spoken, anyone who condemns them does, by so doing, himself incur condemnation. 6. We must now proceed to our final task that of answering the objections of our opponents.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  among Europe’s leading abbeys until the age of the French revolution. The continuity and permanence of these foundations, the merging of the individual life- span in the eternal collectivity, was particularly well adapted to to the slow transformation of forest, scrub and marsh into arable and pasture. But great abbots supplied the dynamism of individualist ambition: they were, like Gregory himself, drawn from the ruling class, administrators by blood, whose masterful gifts allowed them to play a role in the making of Europe comparable to the captains of industry in the nineteenth century. Some records survive of their efforts. From the late eighth and early ninth centuries comes the Polyptyque of Abbot Irminon as it is called. A polyptyque was an ecclesiastical land survey or inventory, in this case dealing with the Parisian Abbey of St Germain-des-Prés, which had wide estates in the area now covered by the Paris suburban belt. Within the compass of this single document, the abbot amassed a staggering amount of information about the twenty-four manors it covers; everything, down to the last egg and the odd piece of spare roof-timber, is carefully listed. The polyptyque indicates how the optimum use was made of the total labour force on the acres available. In many cases the Church found that most efficient returns could be secured by settling manors with coloni, peasant tenant-farmers. In this way the Church led the move away from slavery, and hopelessly unproductive slave-farming. It had never opposed slavery root and branch, while always urging that manumission was meritorious. What the monastery showed was that slavery was economically unnecessary – indeed, undesirable. Of course close supervision was needed: the St Germain records show that the closer the estate lay to Paris the more effectively it was worked. So branch houses were set up further afield; and often these in turn expanded into major houses and so began a new cycle of growth. The monks also moved into fresh areas where the vine could be cultivated. The Church needed wine to celebrate mass, and the liturgy gave it a decisively higher status than beer, so the monks pushed the vineyards north and east, and the Franks got wine as part of their Roman (and Christian) inheritance. The monks were innovators in other ways. We find them pioneering the systematic and large-scale use of hedges, banks and ditches. And they founded towns – Laval, for instance, created by the monks of Marmoutier – and developed markets for their surplus produce. The great Gaulish abbeys were mostly of the sixth and seventh centuries; east of the Rhine, monasticism followed in the wake of conversion and Carolingian

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  between the Creator and creation. The more typical phrase is “God of all” (36:1). He does, however, see a very close relation between God and nature or creation. In this he is typical of the wisdom tradition. The Praise of the Fathers The long section in chapters 44–50 is devoted to the praise of famous men from Israel’s past (Ben Sira includes no women in the list). This catalog differs from most reviews of biblical history. It is not focused on events or on the mighty acts of God. It is rather focused on individuals and their character. Primary attention is given to those who were leaders of their people. Ben Sira is especially interested in the priesthood. The praise of Aaron in chapter 45 is three times as long as that of Moses and is followed by praise of another priest, Phinehas. David and Solomon are praised at length, as are Elijah and Elisha. Mention is also made of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve (Ben Sira did not know Daniel). Surprisingly, there is no mention of Ezra, although Nehemiah is praised for raising up the fallen walls (49:13). The series concludes with a figure who was a contemporary of Ben Sira. This was Simon the high priest, known as Simon the Just, who was high priest from 219 to 196 B.C.E. During his time (in 198), Jerusalem passed from the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt to the Seleucids of Syria. Simon welcomed the Syrians and was rewarded for his loyalty. Ben Sira’s admiration for Simon was undoubtedly colored by the success Simon enjoyed under Syrian patronage. He was able to repair the temple and the fortifications. Syrian favor, however, would be short-lived, as we know from the stories in the books of Maccabees, which describe events that began a mere quarter of a century after Simon welcomed the Syrians to Jerusalem. The Role of the Scribe Ben Sira gives us a clearer picture of his role in society than do most biblical writers, and certainly more than any other wisdom writer. In 38:24—39:11 he

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The volunteer workers of the Church One of the finest results of our free church life is that it has developed the resources of the laity and has offered to the ordinary members the opportunity to express their Christian life in Christian work. The American conception of a church is not to have an active priest or minister with a passive people. All recent movements in church organization, for instance the Endeavor Societies and Men’s Clubs, have tended to draw new groups of the membership into active participation in church work. Church work has been laicized. The instinct of the leaders of these movements has been entirely right. In our schools we have learned that a child profits not by what is said to it by the teacher, but by what it says and does itself. In the volunteer work of our churches lies their chief educational value, and the lay workers are the main reservoir of religious strength. It is, then, of the utmost importance to the churches to have a large supply of intelligent and competent men and women, who have a margin of leisure time and a reserve fund of physical and mental strength which they can devote to church work. If these volunteer workers labor in factories or stores all week for long hours, at a rapid pace, and under unwholesome conditions, they cannot bring the same physical and mental elasticity to their church work. While youth and health last, they may manage; but when age approaches or ill health drains their strength, they have to husband their forces for the task of getting a living. They will henceforth come to church to be cheered and helped, and can no longer put forth much service. If a young woman is on her feet all day Saturday till late, her work in Sunday-school must be impaired by it. Thus the churches are concerned in the hours and conditions of labor. The exhaustion of the people drains the churches of their working force. Christian workers, to be effective, must also have some measure of trained intelligence, managing ability, and resourcefulness. Those professions which develop these qualities furnish the ablest church workers. The business manager, the doctor, the school principal, make the ideal Sunday-school superintendent or elder. In so far as our industrial life deprives the ordinary workers of all opportunity for executive planning and reduces them to automatic parts of the machinery, it fails to develop their latent mental resources and thereby stunts their possibilities as Christian workers. Among the higher classes the churches can lay hold of minds trained by their daily work and press them into Christian service. Among the lower classes it has to take minds blunted by their daily work and itself train them.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Professor George Adam Smith, in discussing the development of prophetic religion, says on the contrary: “Confine religion to the personal, it grows rancid, morbid. Wed it to patriotism, it lives in the open air, and its blood is pure.” I do not think so sweeping a generalization about purely private religion is just. But those who hold that the flower of religion can be raised only in flowerpots will have to make their reckoning with the prophets of Israel. The very book on which they feed their private devotion and that entire religion out of which Christianity grew, took shape through a divine inspiration which found its fittest and highest organs in a series of political and social preachers. It is safe to say that the “ethical monotheism” which has been Israel’s invaluable contribution to the religious life of humanity, would never have developed and survived if the prophets had from the outset limited their religion in the way in which we are nowadays advised to limit it. The later religious individualism That virility and humaneness of the prophets and that capacity for growth which stir our enthusiasm were largely due to the breadth and inclusiveness of their religious sympathy and faith. All the world was God’s field; all the affairs of the nation were the affairs of religion. Every great event in history taught them a lesson in theology. This type of religion was destroyed when the national life itself was destroyed by the foreign conquerors. The nation had been the subject of prophecy, and now the nation as such was blotted out. How could the prophets any longer appeal for national righteousness, when it was not at the option of the people to be righteous? Political agitation among a people under jealous foreign despotism would mean revolutionary agitation and would never be tolerated. Thus all the religious passion and reflection which had formerly flowed into social and political channels was dammed up and turned back. Prayer and private devoutness in pious individuals and in groups of pious men was the only field left to the religious impulse. The religious history and the ceremonial worship of Israel were the only bond of national unity that survived. Jeremiah began the turn toward individual piety. The nation was breaking up about him. His prophetic activity had failed; the people refused to believe that his words were the word of Jehovah. But he heard the insistent inner voice of God, and the consciousness of this personal communion with Jehovah was his stay and comfort. Through his very failure and sufferings a tender personal relation developed between the soul of the prophet and his God. Other choice spirits were in the same situation. The influence of Jeremiah’s writings reproduced in others that personal piety which was the outcome of his peculiar experience. For religious experience has a remarkable capacity for perpetuating and reproducing its type; witness the Confessions of Saint Augustine and the mysticism of Saint Bernard.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  We may very briefly look at the use of this word in the papyri. It is used to describe animals which are in good condition and of gentle nature; it is used to describe drugs which are in good condition and efficient in contrast with drugs which have lost their efficacy. It is used to describe grapes which are fully ripe, sweet to the taste and beautiful to look upon. It is used to describe wine which has been left to settle and to mature until it is mellow and at its best. It is used to describe a favourable sale, a well-cut tunic. In describing people it is joined with pistos, which means dependable and reliable. It is used of honourable men whose word and pledge and oath can be unquestionably accepted. In discussing kalos in the papyri Milligan speaks of the self-evidencing power which is in kalos. That which is kalos bears its goodness on its face. Clearly kalos is a noble word. It describes that which is beautiful, that which commands love and admiration, that which is useful, that which is honourable. Kalos is the word of the goodness which is a lovely thing, the goodness which not only satisfies the conscience, but which also delights the heart, and gives pleasure to the eyes. Having studied the word kalos in classical Greek and in the papyri, we now turn to its usage in the NT. (i) Kalos is used in the NT as it is in secular Greek, to describe things which are useful for all the purposes of life and which are pleasant to see. It describes the stones of which the Temple is built (Luke 21.5). It describes the fruit which the fruitful and the good tree produces (Matt. 3.10; cp. Luke 3.9; Matt. 7.17-19; 12.33; Luke 6.43). It describes the good ground which is clean and rich and fertile (Matt. 13.8, 23; cp. Mark 4.8, 20 and Luke 8.15). It describes the good seed which is sown into the ground (Matt. 13.24, 27, 37, 38). It describes the good and useful fish which are caught in the assortment which the dragnet brings in (Matt. 13.48). Salt is said to be kalos (Mark 9.50). It describes good wine (John 2.10). It describes the good measure which is generously given (Luke 6.38). The Law is kalos (Rom. 7.16; I Tim. 1.8). The name of Christ is kalos (James 2.7). The word of God is kalos (Heb. 5.14). Kalos is the word which characteristically describes the good and useful and pleasant things of life. (ii) One of the most interesting and significant uses of kalos is that it is repeatedly and consistently used to describe the good deeds which should characterize the life of the Christian. Our light is so to shine before men that they may see our good deeds (Matt. 5.16). Jesus has shown his enemies many good works (John 10.32, 33).

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  127 Ambiguous or not, the Aeneid stands as one of the most in fl uential texts in Western culture. In late antiquity, it was one of the most commonly read and cited works; St. Augustine mentions weeping over Dido’s death. The Aeneid’s infl uence continued into the Middle Ages; Dante’s Divine Comedy is the most obvious example. The Aeneid’s popularity and in fl uence continued to grow during the Renaissance and after; the work of such authors as Marlowe, Spenser, and Milton is unimaginable without the Aeneid. ■ Virgil, The Aeneid. Bowra, “Aeneas and the Stoic Ideal.” Galinsky, “Anger of Aeneas.” Johnson, Darkness Visible. Parry, “Two V oices.” Stockton, “The Founding of the Empire.” Wiltshire, Public and Private. 1. Scholars disagree over whether the Aeneid is optimistic or pessimistic, pro-Augustan or anti-Augustan. Does it matter? Can we enjoy so very historically grounded an epic “on its own terms,” without reference to the author’s possible political agenda? 2. What is your own view of the end of the Aeneid? Is Aeneas justifi ed in killing Turnus? Why or why not? Questions to Consider Supplementary Reading Essential Reading

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

  EPIPHANIUS. (cont. Hær. l. ii. hær. 31.) Let Ebion know that at twelve years old, not thirty, Christ is found the astonishment of all men, wonderful and mighty in the words of grace. We can not therefore say, that after that the Spirit came to Him in Baptism He was made the Christ, that is, anointed with divinity, but from His very childhood He acknowledged both the temple and His Father. GREEK EXPOSITOR. (Geometer.) This is the first demonstration of the wisdom and power of the Child Jesus. For as to what are called thea acts of His childhood, we can not but suppose them to be the work not only of a childish but even of a devilish mind and perverse will, attempting to revile those things which are contained in the Gospel and the sacred prophecies. But should one desire to receive only such things as are generally believed, and are not contrary to our other declarations, but accord also with the words of prophecy, let it suffice that Jesus was distinguished in form above the sons of men; obedient to His mother, gentle in disposition; in appearance full of grace and dignity; eloquent in words, kind and thoughtful of the wants of others, known among all for a power and energy, as of one who was filled with all wisdom; and as in other things, so also in all human conversation, though above man, Himself the rule and measure. But that which most distinguished Him was His meekness, and that a razor had never come upon His head, nor any human hand except His mother’s. But from these words we may derive a lesson; for when the Lord reproves Mary seeking Him among His relations, He most aptly points to the giving up of all fleshly ties, shewing that it is not for him to attain the goal of perfection who is still encompassed by and walks among the things of the body, and that men fall from perfection through love of their relations. BEDE. It follows, And they understood him not, that is, the word which He spoke to them of His divinity. ORIGEN. Or they knew not whether when He said about my Father’s business, He referred to the temple, or something higher and more edifying; for every one of us who doeth good, is the seat of God the Father; but whoso is the seat of God the Father, has Christ in the midst of him. 2:51–5251. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. 52. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. GREEK EXPOSITOR. (ubi sup.) All that time of the life of Christ which He passed between His manifestation in the temple and His baptism, being devoid of any great public miracles or teaching, the Evangelist sums up in one word, saying, And he went down with them.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  fact, the accident of the troubles which followed the collapse of Justinian’s restored empire in Italy, and the Lombard invasions, which gave Gregory a monastic policy. Benedict of Nursia, according to Gregory’s later account, was born about 480, of wealthy parents, and educated at Rome. First at Subiaco, later at Monte Cassino, he alienated some of the family property to establish a monastery following a rule he devised himself. He died in 547; about thirty years later, when the Lombards swept through Italy, some of the Monte Cassino monks escaped to Rome with the autograph copy of their rule in Benedict’s hand. They handed it to Gregory, who was enormously impressed. He not only wrote Benedict’s biography, which became famous, but did everything in his very considerable power to push the Benedictine rule as the norm for monasticism in the West. The great merit of Benedict’s system is common sense. It steered a skilful middle way between severity and decency. Monks were to have separate beds, except the younger ones, who were to be ‘dispersed among the seniors’. They were to be properly and warmly clad, with two tunics and cowls each; and they were issued with a mattress, a woollen blanket, under-blanket and pillow, shoes, stockings, girdle, knife, pen and writing tablets, needle and handkerchiefs. Otherwise no property was to be held individually, ‘neither a book, nor tablets, nor a pen . . . nothing at all’; and beds were to be searched frequently for private possessions. Monks were to be adequately but simply fed: two cooked dishes a day, a pound of bread, a pint of wine, and fruit and vegetables in season, but no meat, at any rate of four-footed beasts. On the other hand monks who were ill were to have a special diet; they must be kept healthy. ‘Before all things, and above all things, care must be taken of the sick’. ‘All guests are to be received as Christ himself, for which a special separate kitchen (also used by the abbot) was to be provided. The monks were to spend their time in manual labour and sacred reading, when not attending divine services. They were to ‘practise silence at all times, especially during the night’. Grumbling was the ‘greatest sin’, and ‘idleness is the enemy of the soul’. Infractions of the rules were to be met by withdrawal of communion; the abbot and the older and wiser brothers were to try to reconcile the excommunicated; but ‘the punishment of the lash’ was to be used if necessary, and ‘the surgeon’s knife’ (expulsion) in the last resort; boys were to be ‘punished with extra fasts or coerced with severe blows’. We possess the Benedictine rule in virtually its original state. In the time of Charlemagne, the then Abbot of Monte Cassino, Theodemar, had a copy made