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 Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  It is easy to see how this passage can be read against the terrible happenings of these days. The book of 4 Maccabees has two famous stories which were undoubtedly in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews when he made his list of the things that the people of faith have had to suffer. The first is the story of Eleazar, the elderly priest (4 Maccabees 5–7). He was brought before Antiochus and ordered to eat pig’s flesh, being threatened with the direst penalties if he refused. He did refuse. ‘We, O Antiochus,’ he said, ‘who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law.’ He would not comply with the king’s order, ‘not even if you gouge out my eyes and burn my entrails’. They stripped him naked and flogged him with whips, while a herald stood by him, saying: ‘Obey the king’s commands.’ His flesh was torn off by the whips, and he streamed down with blood, and his flanks were laid open by wounds. He collapsed, and one of the soldiers kicked him violently in the stomach to make him get up. In the end, even the guards were moved to amazed compassion. They suggested to him that they would bring him dressed meat which was not pork, and that he should eat it pretending that it was pork. He refused. ‘We should now change our course and ourselves become a pattern of impiety to the young by setting them an example in the eating of defiling food.’ In the end, they carried him to the fire and threw him on it, and ‘burned him with maliciously contrived instruments, threw him down and poured stinking liquids into his nostrils’. So he died, declaring: ‘I am dying by burning torments for the sake of the law.’ The second story is that of the seven brothers (4 Maccabees 8–14). They, too, were given the same choice and confronted with the same threats. They were confronted with ‘wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks and catapults and caldrons, braziers and thumb-screws and iron claws and wedges and bellows’. The first brother refused to eat the unclean things. They lashed him with whips and tied him to the wheel until he was dislocated and fractured in every limb. ‘They spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames they tightened the wheel further. The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine.’ But he withstood their tortures and died faithful. The second brother they bound to the catapults. They put on spiked iron gloves. ‘These leopardlike beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin and tore away his scalp.’ He, too, died faithful.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through.’ The seventh brother they roasted alive in a gigantic brazier. These, too, died faithful. These are the things of which the writer to the Hebrews is thinking; and these are things which we do well also to remember. It was due to the faith of these men that the Jewish religion was not completely destroyed. If that religion had been destroyed, what would have happened to the purposes of God? How could Jesus have been born into the world if Judaism had ceased to exist? In a very real way, we owe our Christianity to these martyrs of the times when Antiochus made his deliberate attempt to wipe out the Jewish religion. The day came when the situation ignited. The agents of Antiochus had gone to a town called Modein and had erected an altar there to make the inhabitants sacrifice to the Greek gods. The emissaries of Antiochus tried to persuade a certain Mattathias to set an example by offering sacrifice, for he was a distinguished and influential man. He refused in anger. But another Jew, seeking to gain approval and to save his own life, came forward and was about to sacrifice. Mattathias, moved to uncontrollable wrath, seized a sword and killed his faithless countryman and the king’s commissioner with him. The signal for rebellion had been given. Mattathias and his sons and other like-minded people took to the hills; and once again the phrases used to describe their life there were in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews, and he has echoes of them over and over again. ‘Then he [Mattathias] and his sons fled to the hills and left all that they had in the town’ (1 Maccabees 2:28). ‘Judas Maccabaeus, with about nine others, got away to the wilderness and kept himself and his companions alive in the mountains as wild animals do’ (2 Maccabees 5:27). ‘Others, who had assembled in the caves nearby, in order to observe the seventh day secretly, were betrayed … were all burned together’ (2 Maccabees 6:11). ‘They had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals’ (2 Maccabees 10:6). In the end, under Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, the Jews regained their freedom, the Temple was cleansed and the faith flourished again. In this passage, the writer to the Hebrews has done the same as before. He does not actually mention these things. Far better that his readers should be moved by a phrase here and there to remember them for themselves.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  His goodness consisted in the fact that he took God at his word. When others broke God’s commandments, Noah kept them; when others were deaf to God’s warnings, Noah listened to them; when others laughed at God, Noah held him in reverence. It has been said of Noah that ‘he threw the dark scepticism of the world into relief against his own shining faith in God’. In an age when people disregarded God, for Noah he was the supreme reality in the world. BELIEVING THE INCREDIBLE Hebrews 11:11–12 It was by faith that Sarah, too, received power to conceive and to bear a son, although she was beyond the age for it, for she believed that he who gave the promise could be absolutely relied upon. So from one man, and he a man whose body had lost its vitality, there were born descendants, as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, as countless as the sand upon the seashore. T HE story of the promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah is told in Genesis 17:15–22, 18:9–15 and 21:1–8. Its wonder is that Abraham and Sarah were each 90 years old, long past the age of having children; and yet, according to the old story, that promise was made and came true. The reaction of Abraham and Sarah to the promise of God followed a threefold course. (1) It began with sheer incredulity . When Abraham heard the promise, he fell upon his face and laughed (Genesis 17:17). When Sarah heard it, she laughed to herself (Genesis 18:12). On first hearing of the promises of God, the human reaction is often that this is far too good to be true. In words from F . W . Faber’s hymn: How thou canst think so well of us, And be the God thou art, Is darkness to my intellect, But sunshine to my heart. There is no mystery in all creation like the love of God. That he should love us and suffer and die for us is something that staggers us into sheer incredulity. That is why the Christian message is the gospel , good news ; it is news so good that it is almost impossible to believe it to be true. (2) It passed into dawning realization . After the incredulity came the dawning realization that this was God who was speaking ; and God cannot lie. The Jews used to lay it down as a primary law for a teacher that he must never promise his pupils what he was unwilling or unable to perform; to do so would be to introduce pupils at an early stage to broken promises. When we remember that the one who makes the promise is God , we begin to realize that, however astonishing that promise may be, it must nonetheless be true. (3) It culminated in the ability to believe in the impossible .

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  You may hear the bells of temple Taiji By raising your head from the pillow, But to see the snows of Mount Koro You must unroll the blind before the door. Sasanosuke had considerable tact and intelligence, and he gave his master great pleasure by imitating this famous lady. From that time he became one of the Lord's favourites. When the Lord departed for Yedo to pay his respects to the Shyôgun, Sasanosuke Stayed in the Province and was free to do as he pleased. One day he went with three other pages to hunt birds in the fields. They walked for a long time without finding even a sparrow for their trouble, and decided to return home. But behind a clump of bamboos there was a hut where the country folk used to shelter their melons from birds and thieves during the summer, and, as the young men passed this, a pheasant flew out from it. With the help of their bamboos the pages caught the bird; and then several more pheasants flew from the hut. The young men were delighted with such a stroke of luck. But one of them was surprised to see so many pheasants, and made his way into the hut. There he saw two men hiding with a big cage full of these birds. He rebuked the men severely.'You are committing a crime against the Lord's law. Do you not know that it is forbidden by edict for a man of the people to catch birds?' While he was questioning the men, one of them escaped, hiding his face with his big rush Straw hat. But the other was seized by the pages and Stood in some danger, for the youths were very angry. But Sasanosuke interceded for the wretched man, saying: 'Perhaps these poor fellows caught the birds for food. Let us have mercy, and pardon him at least this time.' They released the man and returned to their houses, rejoicing at this easy capture. And they tied the birds to plum tree branches. But Sasanosuke, pretending that his foot hurt him, Stayed behind and, when the others were out of sight, insistently questioned the man: 'I shall not let you go until you tell me why you and your accomplice hid yourselves in this place. Be frank, and confess that something Strange underlies the matter.' The terrified man at once confessed: 'I am the slave of Hayemon Banno. My master escaped before you seized me.' 'I know Hayemon. He is, in fad:, known everywhere. Why did he run away? It is very Strange.' The slave answered: 'My master said to me this morning: "To-day Sasanosuke Yamawaki will come this way to hunt birds; but, after all the samurai who have birded here lately, he will find them very scarce and be disappointed. I am going to provide his sport with some of my own birds." That is why my master and I loosed these birds for your pleasure.'

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  That story left an indelible mark upon the memory of Israel. Centuries after this, Judas Maccabaeus and his men were facing the city of Caspis, so secure in its strength that its defenders laughed from their position of safety. ‘But Judas and his men, calling upon the great Sovereign of the world, who without battering rams or engines of war overthrew Jericho in the days of Joshua, rushed furiously upon the walls. They took the city by the will of God’ (2 Maccabees 12:15–16). The people never forgot what great things God had done for them; and, when some great effort was called for, they nerved themselves for it by remembering them. Here is the very point the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make. The taking of Jericho was the result of an act of faith. It was taken by men who thought not of what they could do but of what God could do for them. They were prepared to believe that God could turn their obvious weakness into strength that could accomplish an incredible task. After the destruction of the Spanish Armada, there was erected on Plymouth Hoe a monument with the inscription: ‘God sent his wind and they were scattered.’ When the people of England saw how the storm and the gale had shattered the Spanish Armada, they said: ‘God did it.’ When we are faced with any great and demanding task, God is the ally we must never leave out of the reckoning. The things which we find it impossible to accomplish alone are always possible with God. (2) The second story the writer to the Hebrews takes is that of Rahab. It is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and has its sequel in Joshua 6:25. When Joshua sent out spies to spy out the situation in Jericho, they found a lodging in the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken, she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. It is extraordinary how Rahab became imprinted on the memory of Israel. James (2:25) quotes her as a great example of the good works which demonstrate faith. The Rabbis were proud to trace their ancestry to her. And, amazingly, she is one of the names which appear in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). The early Church father Clement of Rome quotes her as an outstanding example of one who was saved ‘by faith and hospitality’.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  T HE writer to the Hebrews has finished describing the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek in all its glory. He has described it as the priesthood which is forever, without beginning and without end; the priesthood that God confirmed with an oath; the priesthood that is founded on personal greatness and not on any legal appointment or racial qualification; the priesthood which death cannot touch; the priesthood which is able to offer a sacrifice that never needs to be repeated; the priesthood which is so pure that it has no need to offer sacrifice for any sins of its own. Now he makes and underlines his great claim. ‘It is’, he says, ‘a priest precisely like that that we have in Jesus.’ He goes on to say two things about Jesus. (1) He took his seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens. That is the final proof of his glory . As words from Thomas Kelly’s great hymn ‘The head that once was crowned with thorns’ express it: The highest place that heaven affords Is his, is his by right, The King of kings, and Lord of lords, And heaven’s eternal light. There can be no glory greater than that of the ascended and exalted Jesus. (2) He says that Jesus is a minister of the sanctuary. That is the proof of his service . He is unique both in majesty and in service. Jesus never looked on majesty as something to be selfishly enjoyed. One of the greatest of the Roman emperors was Marcus Aurelius; as an administrator he was unsurpassed. He died at the age of 59, having worked himself to death in the service of his people. He was one of the Stoic saints. When chosen to succeed in due course to the imperial power, his biographer Capitolinus tells us, ‘he was appalled rather than overjoyed, and when he was told to move to the private house of Hadrian, the Emperor, it was with reluctance that he departed from his mother’s villa. And when the members of the household asked him why he was sorry to receive the royal adoption, he enumerated to them the toils which sovereignty involved.’ Marcus Aurelius saw kingship in terms of service and not of majesty. Jesus is the unique example of divine majesty and divine service combined. He knew that he had been given his supreme position, not jealously to guard it in splendid isolation, but rather to enable others to attain to it and to share it.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  A man who owned his land and the big many-windowed house with a porch that clung to its sides all around the house. An independent Black man. A near anachronism in Stamps. Bailey was the greatest person in my world. And the fact that he was my brother, my only brother, and I had no sisters to share him with, was such good fortune that it made me want to live a Christian life just to show God that I was grateful. Where I was big, elbowy and grating, he was small, graceful and smooth. When I was described by our playmates as being shit color, he was lauded for his velvet-black skin. His hair fell down in black curls, and my head was covered with black steel wool. And yet he loved me. When our elders said unkind things about my features (my family was handsome to a point of pain for me), Bailey would wink at me from across the room, and I knew that it was a matter of time before he would take revenge. He would allow the old ladies to finish wondering how on earth I came about, then he would ask, in a voice like cooling bacon grease, “Oh Mizeriz Coleman, how is your son? I saw him the other day, and he looked sick enough to die.” Aghast, the ladies would ask, “Die? From what? He ain't sick.” And in a voice oilier than the one before, he'd answer with a straight face, “From the Uglies.” I would hold my laugh, bite my tongue, grit my teeth and very seriously erase even the touch of a smile from my face. Later, behind the house by the black-walnut tree, we'd laugh and laugh and howl. Bailey could count on very few punishments for his consistently outrageous behavior, for he was the pride of the Henderson/Johnson family . His movements, as he was later to describe those of an acquaintance, were activated with oiled precision. He was also able to find more hours in the day than I thought existed. He finished chores, homework, read more books than I and played the group games on the side of the hill with the best of them. He could even pray out loud in church, and was apt at stealing pickles from the barrel that sat under the fruit counter and Uncle Willie's nose. Once when the Store was full of lunchtime customers, he dipped the strainer, which we also used to sift weevils from meal and flour, into the barrel and fished for two fat pickles. He caught them and hooked the strainer onto the side of the barrel where they dripped until he was ready for them. When the last school bell rang, he picked the nearly dry pickles out of the strainer, jammed them into his pockets and threw the strainer behind the oranges. We ran out of the Store.

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

  The thing that always impresses me about human beings is our diversity. Even when we are brought up in similar environments, we still somehow gravitate toward very different careers, hobbies, politics, manners of speaking and acting, aesthetic preferences, and so forth. Maybe this diversity is due to genetic variation. Or maybe, being naturally curious and adaptive creatures, we invariably tend to scatter all over the place, exploiting every niche we can possibly find. Either way, it’s fairly obvious that we also end up all over the map when it comes to gender and sexuality. That being the case, if we take the subversivist route and focus our energies on deriding stereotypically feminine and masculine genders, we will inevitably disparage some (perhaps many) people for whom those genders simply feel right and natural. Furthermore, by critiquing those gender expressions in an entitled way, we actively create new gender expectations that others may feel obliged to meet (which is exactly what’s now starting to happen in the queer/trans community). That is why I suggest that we turn our energies and attention away from the way that individuals “do” or “perform” their own genders and instead focus on the expectations and assumptions that those individuals project onto everybody else. By focusing on gender entitlement rather than gender performance, we may finally take the next step toward a world where all people can choose their genders and sexualities at will, rather than feeling coerced by others. Notes Trans Woman Manifesto 1 Viviane K. Namaste, Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 145, 215-216; Viviane Namaste, Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism (Toronto: Women’s Press, 2005), 92-93. 2 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 574-575. 3 Jacob Anderson-Minshall, “Michigan or Bust: Camp Trans Flourishes for Another Year,” San Francisco Bay Times, August 3, 2006, and my open letter in response to that article (www.juliaserano.com/frustration.html). For more on how lesbian attitudes toward trans women tend to be far more negative than toward trans men, see Michelle Tea, “Transmissions from Camp Trans,” The Believer, November 2003; Julia Serano, “On the Outside Looking In,” On the Outside Looking In: A Trans Woman’s Perspective on Feminism and the Exclusion of Trans Women from Lesbian and Women-Only Spaces (Oakland: Hot Tranny Action Press, 2005); Zachary I. Nataf, “Lesbians Talk Transgender,” The Transgender Reader, Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 439-448.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But as they passed from border to border, his brow cleared: ‘I’ve spent over three hundred,’ he said proudly, ‘never saw such a mess as this garden was in when I bought the place—had to dig in fresh soil for the roses just here, these are all new plants; I motored half across England to get them. See that hedge of York and Lancasters there? They didn’t cost much because they’re out of fashion. But I like them, they’re small but rather distinguished I think—there’s something so armorial about them.’ She agreed: ‘Yes, I’m awfully fond of them too;’ and she listened quite gravely while he explained that they dated as far back as the Wars of the Roses. ‘Historical, that’s what I mean,’ he explained. ‘I like everything old, you know, except women.’ She thought with an inward smile of his newness. Presently he said in a tone of surprise: ‘I never imagined that you’d care about roses.’ ‘Yes, why not? We’ve got quite a number at Morton. Why don’t you come over to-morrow and see them?’ ‘Do your William Allen Richardsons do well?’ he inquired. ‘I think so.’ ‘Mine don’t. I can’t make it out. This year, of course, they’ve been damaged by green-fly. Just come here and look at these standards, will you? They’re being devoured alive by the brutes!’ And then as though he were talking to a friend who would understand him: ‘Roses seem good to me—you know what I mean, there’s virtue about them—the scent and the feel and the way they grow. I always had some on the desk in my office, they seemed to brighten up the whole place, no end.’ He started to ink in the names on the labels with a gold fountain pen which he took from his pocket. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, as he bent his face over the labels, ‘yes, I always had three or four on my desk. But Birmingham’s a foul sort of place for roses.’ And hearing him, Stephen found herself thinking that all men had something simple about them; something that took pleasure in the things that were blameless, that longed, as it were, to contact with Nature. Martin had loved huge, primitive trees; and even this mean little man loved his roses. Angela came strolling across the lawn: ‘Come, you two,’ she called gaily, ‘tea’s waiting in the hall!’ Stephen flinched: ‘Come, you two—’ the words jarred on and she knew that Angela was thoroughly happy, for when Ralph was out of earshot for a moment she whispered: ‘You were clever about his roses!’ At tea Ralph relapsed into sulky silence; he seemed to regret his erstwhile good humour. And he ate quite a lot, which made Angela nervous—she dreaded his attacks of indigestion, which were usually accompanied by attacks of bad temper.

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

  She was admired even by the heathen, and the famous rhetorician Libanius, on hearing of her consistency and devotion, felt constrained to exclaim: "Ah! what wonderful women there are among the Christians."2015 She gave her son an admirable education, and early planted in his soul the germs of piety, which afterwards bore the richest fruits for himself and for the church. By her admonitions and the teachings of the Bible he was secured against the seductions of heathenism. He received his literary training from Libanius, who accounted him his best scholar, and who, when asked shortly before his death (395) whom he wished for his successor, replied: "John, if only the Christians had not carried him away." After the completion of his studies he became a rhetorician. He soon resolved, however, to devote himself to divine things, and after being instructed for three years by bishop Meletius in Antioch, he received baptism. His first inclination after his conversion was to adopt the monastic life, agreeably to the ascetic tendencies of the times; and it was only by the entreaties of his mother, who adjured him with tears not to forsake her, that he was for a while restrained. Meletius made him reader, and so introduced him to a clerical career. He avoided an election to the bishopric (370) by putting forward his friend Basil, whom he accounted worthier, but who bitterly complained of the evasion. This was the occasion of his celebrated treatise On the Priesthood, in which, in the form of a dialogue with Basil, he vindicates his not strictly truthful conduct, and delineates the responsible duties of the spiritual office.2016 After the death of his mother he fled from the seductions and tumults of city life to the monastic solitude of the mountains near Antioch, and there spent six happy years in theological study and sacred meditation and prayer, under the guidance of the learned abbot Diodorus (afterwards bishop of Tarsus, † 394), and in communion with such like-minded young men as Theodore of Mopsuestia, the celebrated father of Antiochian (Nestorian) theology († 429). Monasticism was to him a most profitable school of experience and self-government; because he embraced this mode of life from the purest motives, and brought into it intellect and cultivation enough to make the seclusion available for moral and spiritual growth. In this period he composed his earliest writings in praise of monasticism and celibacy, and his two long letters to the fallen Theodore (subsequently bishop of Mopsuestia), who had regretted his monastic vow and resolved to marry.2017 Chrysostom regarded this small affair from the ascetic stand-point of his age as almost equal to an apostasy from Christianity, and plied all his oratorical arts of sad sympathy, tender entreaty, bitter reproach, and terrible warning, to reclaim his friend to what he thought the surest and safest way to heaven.

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

  He wrote in the departments of exegesis and psychology, but it is as a poet he has enduring fame. Gautier, Neale and Trench have agreed in pronouncing him the "foremost among the sacred Latin poets of the Middle Ages"; but none of his hymns are equal to Bernard’s hymns,2096 the Stabat mater, or Dies irae. Many of Adam’s poems are addressed to Mary and the saints, including Thomas à Becket. A deep vein of piety runs through them all.2097 Hymns of a high order and full of devotion we owe to the two eminent theologians, Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas. Of Bonaventura’s sacred poems the one which has gone into many collections of hymns begins, —

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

  Individualism pushed aside the claims of birth, and it so happened in the 14th and 15th centuries that the heads of these states were as frequently men of illegitimate birth as of legitimate descent. In our change-loving Italy, wrote Pius II., "where nothing is permanent and no old dynasty exists, servants easily rise to be kings."987 It was in the free republic of Florence, where individualism found the widest sphere for self-assertion, that the Renaissance took earliest root and brought forth its finest products. That municipality, which had more of the modern spirit of change and progress than any other mediaeval organism, invited and found satisfaction in novel and brilliant works of power, whether they were in the domain of government or of letters or even of religion, as under the spell of Savonarola. There Dante and Lionardo da Vinci were born, and there Machiavelli exploited his theories of the state and Michelangelo wrought. The Medici gave favor to all forms of enterprise that might bring glory to the city. After Nicolas V. ascended the papal throne, Rome vied with its northern neighbor as a centre of the arts and culture. The new tastes and pursuits also found a home in Ferrara, Urbino, Naples, Milan and Mantua. Glorious the achievement of the Renaissance was, but it was the last movement of European significance in which Italy and the popes took the lead. Had the current of aesthetic and intellectual enthusiasm joined itself to a stream of religious regeneration, Italy might have kept in advance of other nations, but she produced no safe prophets. No Reformer arose to lead her away from dead religious forms to living springs of spiritual life, from ceremonies and relics to the New Testament. In spreading north to Germany, Holland and England, the movement took on a more serious aspect. There it produced no poets or artists of the first rank, but in Reuchlin and Erasmus it had scholars whose erudition not only attracted the attention of their own but benefited succeeding generations and contributed directly to the Reformation. South of the Alps, culture was the concern of a special class and took on the form of a diversion, though it is true all classes must have looked with admiration upon the works of art that were being produced. It was, then, the mission of the Renaissance to start the spirit of free inquiry, to certify to the mind its dignity, to expand the horizon to the faculties of man as a citizen of the world, to recover from the dust of ages the literary treasures and monuments of ancient Greece and Rome, to inaugurate a style of fresh description, based on observation, in opposition to the dialectic circumlocution of the scholastic philosophy, to call forth the laity and to direct attention to the value of natural morality and the natural relationships of man with man. To the monk beauty was a snare, woman a temptation, pleasure a sin, the world vanity of vanities.

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

  Literature has never had more liberal and intelligent patrons than it had in Italy in the 15th century. The munificence of Maecenas was equalled and surpassed by Cosimo and Lorenzo de’Medici in Florence and Nicolas V. in Rome. Other cities had their literary benefactors, but some of these were most noted for combining profligacy with their real or affected interest in literary culture. Humanists were in demand. Popes needed secretaries, and princes courted orators and poets who could conduct a polished correspondence, write addresses, compose odes for festive occasions and celebrate their deeds. Lionardo Bruni, Valla, Bembo, Sadoleto and other Humanists were secretaries or annotators at the papal court under Nicolas V. and his successors. Cosimo de’ Medici, d. 1464, the most munificent promoter of arts and letters that Europe had seen for more than a thousand years, was the richest banker

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  In the end, he says something. All these died before the final unfolding of God’s promise and the coming of his Messiah into the world. It was as if God had arranged things in such a way that the full blaze of his glory should not be revealed until we and they could enjoy it together. The writer to the Hebrews is saying: ‘See! the glory of God has come. But see what it cost to make it possible! That is the faith which gave you your religion. What can you do except be true to a heritage like that?’ THE STANDARD OF COMPARISON Hebrews 12:3–4 Consider him who steadfastly endured such opposition at the hands of sinners, and compare your lives with his, so that you may not faint and grow weary in your souls. You have not yet had to resist to the point of blood in your struggle against sin. T HE writer to the Hebrews uses two very vivid words when he speaks of fainting and growing weary . They are the words which Aristotle uses of an athlete who flings himself on the ground in a state of collapse after he has surged past the winning post of the race. So, this passage is in effect saying: ‘Don’t give up too soon; don’t collapse until the winning post is passed.’ To urge his readers to that, the writer uses two arguments. (1) For them, the struggle of Christianity has not yet become a mortal struggle. When he speaks of resisting to the point of blood, he uses the very phrase used by the Maccabaean leaders when they called on their troops to fight to the death. When the writer to the Hebrews says that his people have not yet resisted to the point of blood, as James Moffatt puts it, ‘he is not blaming them, he is shaming them’. When they think of what the heroes of the past went through to make their faith possible, surely they cannot drift into lethargy or flinch from conflict. (2) He pleads with them to compare what they have to suffer with what Jesus suffered. He gave up the glory which was his; he came into all the narrowness of the life of humanity; he faced hostility; in the end, he had to die upon a cross. So, the writer to the Hebrews in effect demands: ‘How can you compare what you have to go through with what he went through? He did all that for you – what are you going to do for him?’ These two verses stress the essential costliness of Christian faith. It cost the lives of the martyrs; it cost the life of the one who was the Son of God. A thing which cost so much cannot be discarded lightly.

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

  And unlike those male tranny-chasers who say that they like “T-girls” because we are supposedly “the best of both worlds,” I am attracted to trans women because we are all woman! My femaleness is so intense that it has overpowered the trillions of lameass Y chromosomes that sheepishly hide inside the cells of my body. And my femininity is so relentless that it has survived over thirty years of male socialization and twenty years of testosterone poisoning. Some kinky-identified thrill-seekers may envision trans women as androgyne fuck fantasies, but that’s only because they are too self-absorbed to appreciate how completely fucking female we are. At this point in the conversation, my friend tried to play what he probably thought was his trump card. He asked me, “Well, what if you found out that the trans woman you were attracted to still had a penis?” I laughed and replied that I am attracted to people, not to disembodied body parts. And I would be a selfish, ignorant, and unsatisfying lover if I believed that my partner’s genitals existed primarily for my pleasure rather than her own. All that you ever need to know about genitals is that they are made up of flesh, blood, and millions of tiny, restless nerve endings—anything else that you read into them is mere hallucination, a product of your own overactive imagination. To paraphrase that famous saying, the opposite of attraction is not repulsion, it’s indifference. Therefore, any person who would freak out over their female lover’s seemingly inconsistent genitals is probably a little more interested in penises than they’d ever care to admit. (And by the way, this also applies to those “womyn-born-womyn”-identified lesbians who seem to emulate stereotypical straight male attitudes when it comes to this particular issue.) My friend, still seemingly perplexed, asked me, “So if it’s not about genitals, what is it about trans women’s bodies that you find most attractive?” I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.

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

  1300–1400.—Lerida, 1300, by James II. of Aragon and Sicily; Rome, 1303, by Boniface VIII.; Angers, 1305; Orleans, 1306, by Philip the Fair and Clement V.; Perugia, 1308, by Clement V.; Lisbon, 1309, by King Diniz, transferred to Coimbra; Dublin, 1312, chartered by Clement V. but not organized; Treviso, 1318; Cahors, 1332, by John XXII.; Grenoble, 1339, by Benedict XII.; Verona, 1339, by Benedict XII.; Pisa, 1343, by Clement VI.; Valladolid, 1346, by Clement VI.; Prague, 1347, by Clement VI. and Charles IV.; Perpignan, 1349, by Peter IV. of Aragon, confirmed by Clement VII., 1379; Florence, 1349, by Charles IV.; Siena, 1357, by Charles IV.; Huesca, 1359; Pavia, 1361, by Charles IV. and by Boniface VIII., 1389; Vienna, 1365, by Rudolf IV. and Urban V.; Orange, 1365; Cracow, 1364, by Casimir III. of Poland and Urban V.; Fünfkirchen, Hungary, 1365, by Urban V.; Orvieto, 1377; Erfurt, 1379, by Clement VII.; Cologne, 1385, Urban VI.; Heidelberg, 1386, by the Elector Ruprecht of the Palatinate and Urban VI.; Lucca, 1387; Ferrara, 1391; Fermo, 1398. 1400–1500.—Würzburg, 1402; Turin, 1405; Aix, in Provence, 1409; Leipzig, 1409; St. Andrews, 1411; Rostock, 1419; Dôle, 1423; Louvain, Belgium, 1425; Poictiers, 1431; Caen, 1437; Catana, Sicily, 1444; Barcelona, 1450; Valence, France, 1452; Glasgow, 1453; Greifswald, 1455; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1455; Basel, 1459; Nantes, 1460; Pressburg, 1465; Ingolstadt, 1472; Saragossa, 1474; Copenhagen, 1475; Mainz, 1476; Upsala, 1477; Tübingen, 1477; Parma, 1482; Besançon, 1485; Aberdeen, 1494; Wittenberg, 1502, by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. § 94. The Cathedrals. Literature: J. Fergusson: Hist. of Architecture in All Countries, 2 vols. 1865–1867, and since.—Sir G. G. Scott: The Rise and Devel. of Med. Arch., London, 1879.—Viollet-Le Duc: Lectures on Arch., Engl. trans., 2 vols. London, 1877.—T. R. Smith: Arch. Gothic and Renaissance, N. Y., 1880.—B. Ferree: Christ. Thought in Arch., in Papers of Am. Soc. of Ch. Hist., 1892, pp. 113–140.—F. X. Kraus: Gesch. der christl. Kunst, 2 vols. Freib., 1896–1900.—F. Bond: Engl. cathedrals, London, 1899.—R. STURGIS: Dict. of Arch. and Building, 3 vols. N. Y., 1901 sq.—Art. Kirchenbau by Hauck, in Herzog, X. 774–793. P. Lacroix: The Arts of the Middle Ages, Engl. trans., London.—Ruskin: Stones of Venice, Seven Lamps of Arch., and other writings. This enthusiastic admirer of architecture, especially the Gothic, judged art from the higher standpoint of morality and religion. The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were the expression of religious praise and devotion and entirely the product of the Church. No other element entered into their construction. They were hymns in stone, and next to the universities are the most imposing and beneficent contribution the mediaeval period made to later generations. The soldiery of the Crusades failed in its attempt at conquest. The builders at home wrought out structures which have fed the piety and excited the admiration of all ages since. They were not due to the papacy but to the devotion of cities, nobles, and people.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  I must bring them, too, and they will hear my voice. Then there will be one flock, and one shepherd.” (10:11, 14–16) We should remind ourselves of the setting and the sequel. The setting is at the Dedication Festival (Hanukkah), the commemoration of the cleansing of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus in 164 BC and (by implication) of his founding of a new royal dynasty as a result. The sequel is that the Judaeans, confronted with these echoes of Ezekiel, ask Jesus, “How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, say so out loud!” (John 10:24). But Jesus, of course, cannot simply give them the answer they want. Jesus is redefining the notion of messiahship around his own sense of particular vocation; we can see this elsewhere in the story, as we already noted in the exchange with Pilate, and as is apparent in 6:15, where Jesus has to escape from the crowd because they want to make him king, according to their aspirations for kingship. But the same sense of parallel tracks, of God and David being somehow fused together in this shepherd work and yet also remaining separate, is exactly focused in the extraordinary claim a few verses later: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them the life of the coming age. They will never, ever perish, and nobody can snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and nobody can snatch them out of my father’s hand. I and the father are one.” (10:27–30) This is as clear a statement as we find anywhere in the four gospels. When we are watching the story of Jesus unfold, we are also watching the story of Israel’s God coming back, as he had long promised, to rescue and “shepherd” his people. To be sure, neither John nor any of the others makes the mistake one often encounters in popular parlance, of saying “Jesus is God” without remainder. Jesus constantly refers to “the father” both as distinct from himself and as bound with him in a tight bond of love and obedience. And the point to be made here for our present purposes is that in this central “incarnational” passage we find the themes of cross and kingdom once more tightly interwoven.

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

  His grand ambition was to unite all the Teutonic and Latin races on the Continent under his temporal sceptre in close union with the spiritual dominion of the pope; in other words, to establish a Christian theocracy, coëxtensive with the Latin church (exclusive of the British Isles and Scandinavia). He has been called the "Moses of the middle age," who conducted the Germanic race through the desert of barbarism and gave it a now code of political, civil and ecclesiastical laws. He stands at the head of the new Western empire, as Constantine the Great had introduced the Eastern empire, and he is often called the new Constantine, but is as far superior to him as the Latin empire was to the Greek. He was emphatically a man of Providence. Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse, towers high above the crowned princes of his age, and is the greatest as well as the first of the long line of German emperors from the eighth to the nineteenth century. He is the only prince whose greatness has been inseparably blended with his French name.240 Since Julius Caesar history had seen no conqueror and statesman of such commanding genius and success; history after him produced only two military heroes that may be compared with him) Frederick II. of Prussia, and Napoleon Bonaparte (who took him and Caesar for his models), but they were far beneath him in religious character, and as hostile to the church as he was friendly to it. His lofty intellect shines all the more brightly from the general ignorance and barbarism of his age. He rose suddenly like a meteor in dark midnight. We do not know even the place and date of his birth, nor the history of his youth and education.241 His Reign. His life is filled with no less than fifty-three military campaigns conducted by himself or his lieutenants, against the Saxons (18 campaigns), Lombards (5), Aquitanians, Thuringians, Bavarians) Avars or Huns, Danes, Slaves, Saracens, and Greeks. His incessant activity astonished his subjects and enemies. He seemed to be omnipresent in his dominions, which extended from the Baltic and the Elbe in the North to the Ebro in the South, from the British Channel to Rome and even to the Straits of Messina, embracing France, Germany, Hungary, the greater part of Italy and Spain. His ecclesiastical domain extended over twenty-two archbishoprics or metropolitan sees, Rome, Ravenna, Milan, Friuli (Aquileia), Grado, Cologne, Mayence, Salzburg, Treves, Sens, Besançon, Lyons, Rouen, Rheims, Arles, Vienna, Moutiers-en-Tarantaise, Ivredun, Bordeaux, Tours, Bourges, Narbonne.242 He had no settled residence, but spent much time on the Rhine, at Ingelheim, Mayence, Nymwegen, and especially at Aix-la-Chapelle on account of its baths. He encouraged trade, opened roads, and undertook to connect the Main and the Danube by canal. He gave his personal attention to things great and small.

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

  Luther gives him the testimony: "He hated not only the popish abominations, but also all sectaries; he sincerely loved the pure word, and handled it with all diligence and faithfulness, as his writings abundantly show."771 The Dukes of Mecklenburg, Heinrich and Albrecht, applied to Luther in 1524 for "evangelists," and Luther sent them two Augustinian monks. Heinrich favored the Reformation, but very cautiously. The university of Rostock, founded 1419, became at a later period a school of strict Lutheran orthodoxy. § 97. Protestantism in Augsburg and South Germany. Augsburg, first known twelve years before Christ as a Roman colony (Augusta Vindelicorum), and during the middle ages an imperial city (since 1276), the seat of a bishop, the chief emporium for the trade of Northern Europe with the Mediterranean and the East, and the home of princely merchants and bankers (the Fuggers and Welsers), figures prominently in the early history of the Reformation, and gave the name to the standard confession of the Lutheran Church in 1530, and to the treaty of peace in 1555.772 Luther was there in 1518 at a conference with Cardinal Cajetan, and lodged with the Carmelite friar Frosch, who remained faithful to him. Peutinger, the bishop (Christoph von Stadium), and two canons (Adelmann) were friendly to reform, at least for a time. Urbanus Rhegius preached there from 1523 to 1530, and exerted great influence. He distributed, with Frosch, the communion with the cup at Christmas, 1524. Both married in 1526. But the Zwinglians, under the lead of Michael Keller, gradually gained the upper hand among influential men. Zwingli took advantage of the situation in his famous letter to Alber, Nov. 16, 1524, in which he first fully developed his theory. Even Rhegius, who had written before against Carstadt (sic) and Zwingli, became a Zwinglian, though only for a short period. The Anabaptist leaders, Hubmaier, Denck, Hetzer, Hut, likewise appeared in Augsburg, and gathered a congregation of eleven hundred members. They held a general synod in 1527. They baptized by immersion. Rhegius stirred up the magistrate against them: the leaders were imprisoned, and some

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

  The admirable editor of Bacon’s Opus majus, Dr. Bridges, has compared Bacon’s procedure to a traveller in a new world, who brings back specimens of produce with the view of persuading the authorities of his country to undertake a more systematic exploration.1608 Without entering into the discussion of those great themes which the other Schoolmen so much delighted in, Bacon asserted the right principle of theological study which excludes from prolonged discussion subjects which have no immediate bearing upon the interests of daily life or personal faith, and pronounced as useless the weary systems which were more the product of human ingenuity in combining words than of a clear, spiritual purpose. To him Abaelard is not to be compared. Abaelard was chiefly a scholastic metaphysician; Bacon an observer of nature. Abaelard gives the appearance of being a vain aspirant after scholastic honors; Bacon of being a patient and conscientious investigator. Professor Adamson and Dr. Bridges, two eminent Baconian scholars, have placed Roger Bacon at the side of such thinkers as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. A close student of the Middle Ages, Coulton, has recently gone so far as to pronounce him a greater intellect than Thomas Aquinas.1609 The honor accorded to him in these recent days in circles of scientific research is as genuine as the honor given to the Angelic doctor in the Catholic communion. There is, however, danger of ascribing to him too much. Nevertheless, this forerunner of modern investigation may by common verdict, though unhonored in his own age, come to be placed higher as a benefactor of mankind than the master of metaphysical subtlety, Duns Scotus, who spoke to his age and its immediate successors with authority. CHAPTER XIV.THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM.§ 112. Literature on the Sacraments. Literature:—General Works: The Writings of Abaelard, Hugo of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, Alb. Magnus, Th. Aquinas, Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, and other Schoolmen.—G. L. Hahn: Lehre von d. Sakramenten, Breslau, 1864.—*J. Schwane: Dogmengesch. der mittleren Zeit, 787–1517, Frei b. 1882, pp. 579–693.—J. H. Oswald: D. dogmatische Lehre von d. hl. Sakramenten d. kathol. Kirche, 5th ed., Munich, 1894. The Histories of Christ. Doctr. of Fisher, pp. 254–263; Harnack, II. 462–562; Loofs, pp. 298–304; Seeberg, II. 107 sqq.—Hergenröther-Kirsch: Kirchengesch., II. 682–701. The works on Canon Law of Hinschius; P. Hergenröther (Rom. Cath.), pp. 667–684; Friedberg, pp. 374–495.—Hefele-Knöpfler, V. VI.—The art. Sakrament in Wetzer-Welte and Herzog.—D. S. Schaff: The Sacramental Theory of the Med. Ch. in "Princeton Rev.," 1906, pp. 206–236. On the Eucharist, §§ 115, 116: Dalgairns: The Holy Communion, its Philos., Theol., and Practice, Dublin, 1861.—F. S. Renz: D. Gesch. d. Messopfer-Begriffs, etc., 1st vol., Alterthum und Mittelalter, Munich, 1901.—J. Smend: Kelchversagung und Kelchspendung in d. abendländ. Kirche, Götting., 1898.—A. Franz: D. Messe im deutschen Mittelalter, Freib., 1902.—Artt. Communion, Messe, Transubstantiation in Wetzer-Welte and Abendmahl and Kindercommunion in Herzog.