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

  The sources of Paul’s theology are his discourses in the Acts (especially the speech on the Areopagus) and his thirteen Epistles, namely, the Epistles to the Thessalonians—the earliest, but chiefly practical; the four great Epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, which are the mature result of his conflict with the Judaizing tendency; the four Epistles of the captivity; and the Pastoral Epistles. These groups present as many phases of development of his system and discuss different questions with appropriate variations of style, but they are animated by the same spirit, and bear the marks of the same profound and comprehensive genius. Paul is the pioneer of Christian theology. He alone among the apostles had received a learned rabbinical education and was skilled in logical and dialectical argument. But his logic is vitalized and set on fire. His theology springs from his heart as well as from his brain; it is the result of his conversion, and all aglow with the love of Christ; his scholasticism is warmed and deepened by mysticism, and his mysticism is regulated and sobered by scholasticism; the religious and moral elements, dogmatics, and ethics, are blended into a harmonious whole. Out of the depths of his personal experience, and in conflict with the Judaizing contraction and the Gnostic evaporation of the gospel be elaborated the fullest scheme of Christian doctrine which we possess from apostolic pens. It is essentially soteriological, or a system of the way of salvation. It goes far beyond the teaching of James and Peter, and yet is only a consistent development of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels.773 The Central Idea.

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

  This tradition is confirmed by the book: it is derived from the apostolic preaching of Peter, but is the briefest and so far the least complete of all the Gospels, yet replete with significant details. It reflects the sanguine and impulsive temperament, rapid movement, and vigorous action of Peter. In this respect its favorite particle "straightway" is exceedingly characteristic. The break-down of Mark in Pamphylia, which provoked the censure of Paul, has a parallel in the denial and inconsistency of Peter; but, like him, he soon rallied, was ready to accompany Paul on his next mission, and persevered faithfully to the end. He betrays, by omissions and additions, the direct influence of Peter. He informs us that the house of Peter was "the house of Simon and Andrew" (Mark 1:29). He begins the public ministry of Christ with the calling of these two brothers (1:16) and ends the undoubted part of the Gospel with a message to Peter (16:7), and the supplement almost in the very words of Peter.953 He tells us that Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he proposed to erect three tabernacles, "knew not what to say" (9:6). He gives the most minute account of Peter’s denial, and—alone among the Evangelists—records the fact that he warmed himself "in the light" of the fire so that he could be distinctly seen (14:54), and that the cock crew twice, giving him a second warning (14:72). No one would be more likely to remember and report the fact as a stimulus to humility and gratitude than Peter himself. On the other hand, Mark omits the laudatory words of Jesus to Peter: "Thou art Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church;" while yet he records the succeeding rebuke: "Get thee behind me, Satan."954 The humility of the apostle, who himself warns so earnestly against the hierarchical abuse of the former passage, offers the most natural explanation of this conspicuous omission. "It is likely," says Eusebius, "that Peter maintained silence on these points; hence the silence of Mark."955 Character and Aim of Mark. The second Gospel was—according to the unanimous voice of the ancient church, which is sustained by internal evidence—written at Rome and primarily for Roman readers, probably before the death of Peter, at all events before the destruction of Jerusalem.956

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  Finally, they were told to answer the questions the way they think they will answer them after they have been discipled [by the BCC] for five more years.” Yeakley noted “the degree of change in psychological type scores” and saw there was a “pattern of convergence in a single type.” The MBTI personality profile ESFJ (i.e. extroverted, sensing, feeling judging) was the preferred and sought after point of convergence. Yeakley observed that “the past distribution [before entering the BCC] was the closest to population norms while the present and future distributions increasingly deviated from those norms.”603 Additional testing of other churches or organizations used as control groups appeared to show similar results.604 Yeakley explains, “What was being investigated in this research was simply the overall group pattern. The focus was not on any individual, but on the dynamics of the group.”605 We should note that Yeakley’s testing results might also be attributed to the so-called halo effect or halo bias. 606 That is, those BCC members he tested may have tried to emulate qualities they attributed to their leader, Kip McKean, because he was perceived as an ideal person. Marty Wooten, a prominent group leader who worked closely with McKean, demonstrated this fact. Wooten said, “I cannot think of any virtue that Kip is not known for. There is no greater discipler, disciple, brother, husband, father, leader, and friend than Kip McKean. Some say it is dangerous to respect any one man that much. I believe it is more dangerous not to.”607 Another ranking leader in the BCC, Jim Blough, said, “Let me tell you my attitude towards Kip. Let me explain to you. You know, I may have a good quality here and there, occasionally. If you look hard enough, you can find one in almost everyone, you know. But I believe this. I believe if I could become exactly like Kip, I’ll be a whole lot more useful to God than I am by myself.”608 Based on his study, Yeakley interpreted and hypothesized the following: “Most of the members of the Boston Church of Christ showed a high level of change in psychological type scores.”“There was a strong tendency for introverts to become extroverts, for [intuitive people] to become [sensing people], for thinkers to become feelers, and for perceivers to become judgers.”“This kind of pattern was not found among other churches of Christ or among members of five mainline denominations, but that it was found in studies of six manipulative sects.”609Interestingly, the “manipulative sects” Yeakley referred to with the same pattern of results as the BCC included the Unification Church, Scientology, Hare Krishnas (ISKCON), and the Children of God.610 What Yeakley hoped to demonstrate through his research was the process of personal manipulation, which he believed occurred through the discipleship training process within the BCC.

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

  As Mark is inseparably associated with Peter, so is Luke with Paul. There was, in both cases, a foreordained correspondence and congeniality between the apostle and the historian or co-laborer. We find such holy and useful friendships in the great formative epochs of the church, notably so in the time of the Reformation, between Luther and Melanchthon, Zwingli and Oecolampadius, Calvin and Beza, Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley; and at a later period between the two Wesleys and Whitefield. Mark, the Hebrew Roman "interpreter" of the Galilaean fisherman, gave us the shortest, freshest, but least elegant and literary of the Gospels; Luke, the educated Greek, "the beloved physician," and faithful companion of Saul of Tarsus, composed the longest and most literary Gospel, and connected it with the great events in secular history under the reigns of Augustus and his successors. If the former was called the Gospel of Peter by the ancients, the latter, in a less direct sense, may be called the Gospel of Paul, for its agreement in spirit with the teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles. In their accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper there is even a verbal agreement which points to the same source of information. No doubt there was frequent conference between the two, but no allusion is made to each other’s writings, which tends to prove that they were composed independently during the same period, or not far apart.988 Luke nowhere mentions his name in the two books which are by the unanimous consent of antiquity ascribed to him, and bear all the marks of the same authorship; but he is modestly concealed under the "we" of a great portion of the Acts, which is but a continuation of the third Gospel.989 He is honorably and affectionately mentioned three times by Paul during his imprisonment, as "the beloved physician" (Col. 4:14), as one of his "fellow-laborers" (Philem. 24), and as the most faithful friend who remained with him when friend after friend had deserted him (2 Tim. 4:11). His medical profession, although carried on frequently by superior slaves, implies some degree of education and accounts for the accuracy of his medical terms and description of diseases.990 It gave him access to many families of social position, especially in the East, where physicians are rare. It made him all the more useful to Paul in the infirmities of his flesh and his exhausting labors.991

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

  The Epistle in our canon, which purports to be written by "James, a bond-servant of God and of Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes of the dispersion," though not generally acknowledged at the time of Eusebius and Jerome, has strong internal evidence of genuineness. It precisely suits the character and position of the historical James as we know him from Paul and the Acts, and differs widely from the apocryphal James of the Ebionite fictions.331 It hails undoubtedly from Jerusalem, the theocratic metropolis, amid the scenery of Palestine. The Christian communities appear not as churches, but as synagogues, consisting mostly of poor people, oppressed and persecuted by the rich and powerful Jews. There is no trace of Gentile Christians or of any controversy between them and the Jewish Christians. The Epistle was perhaps a companion to the original Gospel of Matthew for the Hebrews, as the first Epistle of John was such a companion to his Gospel. It is probably the oldest of the epistles of the New Testament.332 It represents, at all events, the earliest and meagerest, yet an eminently practical and necessary type of Christianity, with prophetic earnestness, proverbial sententiousness, great freshness, and in fine Greek. It is not dogmatic but ethical. It has a strong resemblance to the addresses of John the Baptist and the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, and also to the book of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon.333 It never attacks the Jews directly, but still less St. Paul, at least not his genuine doctrine. It characteristically calls the gospel the "perfect law of liberty,"334 thus connecting it very closely with the Mosaic dispensation, yet raising it by implication far above the imperfect law of bondage. The author has very little to say about Christ and the deeper mysteries of redemption, but evidently presupposes a knowledge of the gospel history, and reverently calls Christ "the Lord of glory," and himself humbly his "bond-servant."335 He represents religion throughout in its practical aspect as an exhibition of faith by good works. He undoubtedly differs widely from Paul, yet does not contradict, but supplements him, and fills an important place in the Christian system of truth which comprehends all types of genuine piety. There are multitudes of sincere, earnest, and faithful Christian workers who never rise above the level of James to the sublime heights of Paul or John. The Christian church would never have given to the Epistle of James a place in the canon if she had felt that it was irreconcilable with the doctrine of Paul. Even the Lutheran church did not follow her great leader in his unfavorable judgment, but still retains James among the canonical books.

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

  But while Matthew wrote from the Jewish Christian point of view, he is far from being Judaizing or contracted. He takes the widest range of prophecy. He is the most national and yet the most universal, the most retrospective and yet the most prospective, of Evangelists. At the very cradle of the infant Jesus he introduces the adoring Magi from the far East, as the forerunners of a multitude of believing Gentiles who "shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" while "the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness." The heathen centurion, and the heathen woman of Canaan exhibit a faith the like of which Jesus did not find in Israel. The Messiah is rejected and persecuted by his own people in Galilee and Judaea. He upbraids Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, wherein his mighty works were done, because they repented not; He sheds tears over Jerusalem because she would not come to Him; He pronounces his woe over the Jewish hierarchy, and utters the fearful prophecies of the destruction of the theocracy. All this is most fully recorded by Matthew, and he most appropriately and sublimely concludes with the command of the universal evangelization of all nations, and the promise of the unbroken presence of Christ with his people to the end of the world.917 Topical Arrangement. The mode of arrangement is clear and orderly. It is topical rather than chronological. It far surpasses Mark and Luke in the fulness of the discourses of Christ, while it has to be supplemented from them in regard to the succession of events. Matthew groups together the kindred words and works with special reference to Christ’s teaching; hence it was properly called by Papias a collection of the Oracles of the Lord. It is emphatically the didactic Gospel. The first didactic group is the Sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes, which contains the legislation of the kingdom of Christ and an invitation to the whole people to enter, holding out the richest promises to the poor in spirit and the pure in heart (Matt. 5–7. The second group is the instruction to the disciples in their missionary work (Matt. 10). The third is the collection of the parables on the kingdom of God, illustrating its growth, conflict, value, and consummation (Matt. 13). The fourth, the denunciation of the Pharisees (Matt. 23), and the fifth, the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world (Matt. 24 and 25).

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  I MET BILLY for his twenty-five-year interview at the Berkeley bakery and coffeehouse where he works—a large establishment with hardwood floors, lots of green plants, and skylights atop fifteen-foot-high ceilings. The smell of cinnamon rolls followed Billy as he emerged from the kitchen in a floury apron, his long hair tied back in a net. Billy had invited me to join him for breakfast at nine o’clock, which is when his early morning shift ends and he can begin what for the rest of us would be lunch break. He was almost breathless. “We have a special order just coming out of the oven and I’ll be a while. I apologize. Here, Sue will take care of you.” A waitress showed me to a table and gave me coffee. “Billy is so conscientious,” Sue said to me shyly. “He oversees every order and he’s the one they trust to do the really delicate cases.” I pondered her words “the really delicate cases.” I first met Billy when he was nine years old and he had certainly been a “delicate case.” Small-boned, pale, and seeming to want to make himself invisible, he sat huddled in an oversized San Francisco Giants parka. I remember the sour, miserable look on his face and his refusal to answer most of my questions. His mother complained that he had been rude and jealous of her friends since the divorce. His father told me that Billy was spoiled. Born with a congenital heart defect that had been only partially repaired surgically when he was six months old, Billy had been on medication all his life and needed extra care and protection. Small, thin, and weak, his activities and diet had to be closely monitored. He was hospitalized several times and missed a considerable amount of school. Throughout his early years Billy’s mother was his nurse, overseer, adviser, and closest friend. She took him to endless medical appointments, consulted with doctors and dietitians, and watched over his daily meals and routines. During the long days at home when he had to miss school and rest, Billy’s mother was there helping with homework, playing games, and inventing diversions. Her care and attention paid off. From almost being held back in kindergarten and first grade, Billy’s academic work and self-esteem steadily improved. Shortly before his parents divorced, Billy was at the top of his fourth-grade class and was an especially gifted writer. Other kids liked him.

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

  In these inspired writings we have, not indeed an equivalent, but a reliable substitute for the personal presence and the oral instruction of Christ and his apostles. The written word differs from the spoken only in form; the substance is the same, and has therefore the same authority and quickening power for us as it had for those who heard it first. Although these books were called forth apparently by special and accidental occasions, and were primarily addressed to particular circles of readers and adapted to peculiar circumstances, yet, as they present the eternal and unchangeable truth in living forms, they suit all circumstances and conditions. Tracts for the times, they are tracts for all times; intended for Jews and Greeks of the first century, they have the same interest for Englishmen and Americans of the nineteenth century. They are to this day not only the sole reliable and pure fountain of primitive Christianity, but also the infallible rule of Christian faith and practice. From this fountain the church has drunk the water of life for more than fifty generations, and will drink it till the end of time. In this rule she has a perpetual corrective for an her faults, and a protective against all error. Theological systems come and go, and draw from that treasury their larger or smaller additions to the stock of our knowledge of the truth; but they can never equal that infallible word of God, which abideth forever. "Our little systems have their day, They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O God, art more than they." The New Testament evinces its universal design in its very, style, which alone distinguishes it from all the literary productions of earlier and later times. It has a Greek body, a Hebrew soul, and a Christian spirit which rules both. The language is the Hellenistic idiom; that is, the Macedonian Greek as spoken by the Jews of the dispersion in the time of Christ; uniting, in a regenerated Christian form, the two great antagonistic nationalities and religions of the ancient world. The most beautiful language of heathendom and the venerable language of the Hebrews are here combined, and baptized with the spirit of Christianity, and made the picture of silver for the golden apple of the eternal truth of the gospel. The style of the Bible in general is singularly adapted to men of every class and grade of culture, affording the child the simple nourishment for its religious wants, and the profoundest thinker inexhaustible matter of study. The Bible is not simply a popular book, but a book of all nations, and for all societies, classes, and conditions of men. It is more than a book, it is an institution which rules the Christian world.

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

  Fortunately even the most exacting school of modern criticism leaves us a fixed fulcrum from which we can argue the truth of Christianity, namely, the four Pauline Epistles to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians, which are pronounced to be unquestionably genuine and made the Archimedean point of assault upon the other parts of the New Testament. We propose to confine ourselves to them. They are of the utmost historical as well as doctrinal importance; they represent the first Christian generation, and were written between 54 and 58, that is within a quarter of the century after the crucifixion, when the older apostles and most of the principal eye-witnesses of the life of Christ were still alive. The writer himself was a contemporary of Christ; he lived in Jerusalem at the time of the great events on which Christianity rests; he was intimate with the Sanhedrin and the murderers of Christ; he was not blinded by favorable prejudice, but was a violent persecutor, who had every motive to justify his hostility; and after his radical conversion (A.D. 37) he associated with the original disciples and could learn their personal experience from their own lips (Gal. 1:18; 2:1–11). Now in these admitted documents of the best educated of the apostles we have the clearest evidence of all the great events and truths of primitive Christianity, and a satisfactory answer to the chief objections and difficulties of modern skepticism.243 They prove 1. The leading facts in the life of Christ, his divine mission, his birth from a woman, of the royal house of David, his holy life and example, his betrayal, passion, and death for the sins of the world, his resurrection on the third day, his repeated manifestations to the disciples, his ascension and exaltation to the right hand of God, whence he will return to judge mankind, the adoration of Christ as the Messiah, the Lord and Saviour from sin, the eternal Son of God; also the election of the Twelve, the institution of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the mission of the Holy Spirit, the founding of the church. Paul frequently alludes to these facts, especially the crucifixion and resurrection, not in the way of a detailed narrative, but incidentally and in connection with doctrinal expositions arid exhortations as addressed to men already familiar with them from oral preaching and instruction. Comp. Gal 3:13; 4:4–6; 6:14; Rom. 1:3; 4:24, 25; 5:8–21; 6:3–10; 8:3–11, 26, 39; 9:5; 10:6, 7; 14:5; 15:3 1 Cor. 1:23; 2:2, 12; 5:7; 6:14; 10:16; 11:23–26; 15:3–8, 45–49; 2 Cor. 5:21. 2. Paul’s own conversion and call to the apostleship by the personal appearance to him of the exalted Redeemer from heaven. Gal. 1:1, 15, 16; 1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8.

• From Fragments (7)

  All in fields and woods thou knowest. Thou, of husbandmen the friend, Ne'er with harm dost them offend. All the mortals give thee honor, Summertime's sweet prophet true. Phoebus, thy clear music's donor, And the Muses love thee too. Thee old age oppresses never; Wisdom, song thou lovest ever; Earth-born, bloodless, blithe of heart, Almost like the gods thou art. TO EROS (33) Eros once in rosy bowers Failed to see a bee. Which amidst the fragrant flowers. Stung him grievously. With his finger sorely paining, Loudly he cried out; Then to Venus flew complaining. And to her did shout: " Mother, I by death am smitten ; I am ruined, see. Me a small winged snake has bitten : Farmers call it bee." 139 Lyric Songs of the Greeks And she said : " Thus sorely troubled By a bee thou art? Eros, think what pain redoubled Brings to man thy dart." TO A MISER (34) If Plutus gave to man to lengthen His life through power of paltry gold, My courage would I surely strengthen, So that of him I would take hold. And when it were my time for dying, For gold Death then would pass me by; But now of life there is no buying. For gold why should I therefore sigh? For e'en if death is surely fated. Why should I always groan in vain ? Why should I be with sorrow weighted? Far more by drink I hope to gain. To drink sweet wine, which cares effaces, To be with friends is my desire, And to love's tender sweet embraces May Aphrodite me inspire. A DREAM (35) Once at midnight I was sleeping. Under purple rugs I lay ; 140 Anacreontea Had myself in wine been steeping — Now I dreamed of maidens gay. Racing with them like a steed, On my toe-tips I did speed. Beauteous boys began to jeer me, That with charming maids I played. All did vanish who were near me, When to kiss them I essayed. No more sleep; for, all alone. For my dream did I atone. TO A SYMPOSIUM (36) Merrily let us drink sweet wine. In songs of praise of Bacchus join. Who first did graceful dances learn. Who e'er for song and dance doth yearn, Who like light-hearted Cupids dives. To whom her love fair Venus gives; Through whom strong drink, hilarious mirth, Through whom was good will given birth. Through whom from sorrows comes relief, Through whom is laid to rest our grief. Now beauteous boys, distributing, _ Wine mixed with water to us bring; But from our hearts has sadness fled. Mingled with blasts by tempests fed. The wine, pray, let us therefore take. But off from us our sorrows shake; For tell me what it profits thee 141 Lyric Songs of the Greeks

• From Fragments (7)

  In one's hand and warm to make thee, To the temples thee to move, Thee who art the flower of Love. Where the festive banquet lingers, How could roses absent be? Think of Dawn of rosy fingers, Nymphs whose arms glow rosily, Rose-complexioned Aphrodite, Named by those in wisdom mighty. Roses sickness, death oppose; Time is conquered by the rose. Of the rose whose beauteous glory Makes old age breathe youthfully, 152 Anacreontea We shall now relate the story: 'Twas when from the foamy sea Dewy Aphrodite rising, First was born, while Zeus, apprizing All the gods of Pallas' birth, Showed his head whence she sprang forth. And the warrior-goddess frightened All Olympus, but the rose With its splendor then first brightened Every land where'er it grows; And, its cups with nectar filling. And immortal beauty instilling, Bacchus godlike it would show: From the thorns he let it grow. TO DIONYSUS (54) That god to us doth now appear, Who from young lovers takes their fear; Through him the troubled no more tire, Whom drink and dancing doth inspire. To man a wondrous charm he hath shown, Love to arouse, yet not to groan. He guards the offspring of the vine, Which in its fruit hems in the wine Imprisoned in the clustered grapes. When once from them their juice escapes. Then all without disease shall be, Then sickness shall our bodies flee. And from our glad minds disappear. As time flies on year after year. 153 Lyric Songs of the Greeks TO A DISCUS WITH AN ENGRAVING OF APHRODITE (55) Who fashioned artfully this sea In wild enthusiasm? Who on this discus cunningly Furrowed the waves' deep chasm ? Upon the Ocean's back whose art With white shows Cypris gleaming? Gods surely did his skill impart, Who was godlike visions dreaming. Her upper half alone doth show, Without a dress or cover ; The half of her that is below, The waves are passing over. A furrow she behind her draws, As she skims o'er them lightly; Just like a delicate flower she goes. While calm is beaming brightly. The wave which o'er her soft neck heaves. And o'er her breasts like roses. She vigorously before her cleaves, Nor long it her opposes. And in the furrow right between Cypris, like lilies' whiteness 154 Anacreontea With violets entwined, is seen Through the calm's peaceful brightness. On dancing dolphins Love doth ride, And Eros, gaily smiling; Pothos o'er silvery waves doth glide, His playful steed beguiling. And shoals of tumbling fishes gay Over the waves are skimming; Near smiling Paphia they play, As she is onward swimming. TO GOLD S6 When gold, the fugitive runner fleet, Doth me to flee endeavor Upon his swift tempestuous feet — Well, let him shun me ever — I'll never follow him; for who Would such a hateful thing pursue? But, since I far away have strolled, And gave my grief to carry Upon the wind to fugitive gold,

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

  But how could Paul consistently afterwards circumcise Timothy?445 The answer is that he circumcised Timothy as a Jew, not as a Gentile, and that he did it as a voluntary act of expediency, for the purpose of making Timothy more useful among the Jews, who had a claim on him as the son of a Jewish mother, and would not have allowed him to teach in a synagogue without this token of membership; while in the case of Titus, a pure Greek, circumcision was demanded as a principle and as a condition of justification and salvation. Paul was inflexible in resisting the demands of false brethren, but always willing to accommodate himself to weak brethren, and to become as a Jew to the Jews and as a Gentile to the Gentiles in order to save them both.446 In genuine Christian freedom he cared nothing for circumcision or uncircumcision as a mere rite or external condition, and as compared with the keeping of the commandments of God and the new creature in Christ.447 In the debate Peter, of course, as the oecumenical chief of the Jewish apostles, although at that time no more a resident of Jerusalem, took a leading part, and made a noble speech which accords entirely with his previous experience and practice in the house of Cornelius, and with his subsequent endorsement of Paul’s doctrine.448 He was no logician, no rabbinical scholar, but he had admirable good sense and practical tact, and quickly perceived the true line of progress and duty. He spoke in a tone of personal and moral authority, but not of official primacy.449 He protested against imposing upon the neck of the Gentile disciples the unbearable yoke of the ceremonial law, and laid down, as clearly as Paul, the fundamental principle that "Jews as well as Gentiles are saved only by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ."450 After this bold speech, which created a profound silence in the assembly, Barnabas and Paul reported, as the best practical argument, the signal miracles which God had wrought among the Gentiles through their instrumentality.

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

  The unity of Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian theology meets us in the writings of John, who, in the closing decades of the first century, summed up the final results of the preceding struggles of the apostolic age and transmitted them to posterity. Paul had fought out the great conflict with Judaism and secured the recognition of the freedom and universality of the gospel for all time to come. John disposes of this question with one sentence: "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."814 His theology marks the culminating height of divine knowledge in the apostolic age. It is impossible to soar higher than the eagle, which is his proper symbol.815 His views are so much identified with the words of his Lord, to whom he stood more closely related than any other disciple, that it is difficult to separate them; but the prologue to his Gospel contains his leading ideas, and his first Epistle the practical application. The theology of the Apocalypse is also essentially the same, and this goes far to confirm the identity of authorship.816 John was not a logician, but a seer; not a reasoner, but a mystic; he does not argue, but assert; he arrives at conclusions with one bound, as by direct intuition. He speaks from personal experience and testifies of that which his eyes have seen and his ears heard and his hands have handled, of the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.817 John’s theology is marked by artless simplicity and spiritual depth. The highest art conceals art. As in poetry, so in religion, the most natural is the most perfect. He moves in a small circle of ideas as compared with Paul, but these ideas are fundamental and all-comprehensive. He goes back to first principles and sees the strong point without looking sideways or taking note of exceptions. Christ and Antichrist, believers and unbelievers, children of God and children of the devil, truth and falsehood, light and darkness, love and hatred, life and death: these are the great contrasts under which he views the religious world. These he sets forth again and again with majestic simplicity. John and Paul.

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

  " ’Now James, the brother of the Lord, who (as there are many of this name) was surnamed the Just by all (oJ ajdelfov" tou' Kurivou jIavkwbo" oJ ojnomasqei;" uJpo; pavntwn divkaio"), from the Lord’s time even to our own, received the government of the church with (or from) the apostles [metav, in conjunction with, or according to another reading, para; tw'n ajpostovlwn, which would more clearly distinguish him from the apostles]. This man [ou|to" not this apostle] was consecrated from his mother’s womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, and abstained from animal food. No razor came upon his head, he never anointed himself with oil, and never used a bath [probably the luxury of the Roman bath, with its sudatorium, frigidarium, etc., but not excluding the usual ablutions practised by all devout Jews]. He alone was allowed to enter the sanctuary [not the holy of holies, but the court of priests]. He wore no woolen, but linen garments only. He was in the habit of entering the temple alone, and was often found upon his bended knees, and interceding for the forgiveness of the people; so that his knees became as hard as a camel’s, on account of his constant supplication and kneeling before God. And indeed, on account of his exceeding great piety, he was called the Just [Zaddik] and Oblias [divkaio" kai; wjbliva", probably a corruption of the Hebrew Ophel am, Tower of the People], which signifies justice and the bulwark of the people (perioch; tou' laou'); as the prophets declare concerning him. Some of the seven sects of the people, mentioned by me above in my Memoirs, used to ask him what was the door, [probably the estimate or doctrine] of Jesus? and he answered that he was the Saviour. And of these some believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the aforesaid sects did not believe either a resurrection, or that he was coming to give to every one according to his works; as many, however, as did believe, did so on account of James. And when many of the rulers also believed, there arose a tumult among the Jews, Scribes, and Pharisees, saying that the whole people were in danger of looking for Jesus as the Messiah. They came therefore together, and said to James: We entreat thee, restrain the people, who are led astray after Jesus, as though he were the Christ. We entreat thee to persuade all that are coming to the feast of the Passover rightly concerning Jesus; for we all have confidence in thee. For we and all the people bear thee testimony that thou art just, and art no respecter of persons. Persuade therefore the people not to be led astray by Jesus, for we and all the people have great confidence in thee. Stand therefore upon the pinnacle of the temple, that thou mayest be conspicuous on high, and thy words may be easily heard by all the people; for all the tribes have come together on account of the Passover, with some of the Gentiles also. The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees, therefore, placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried out to him: "O thou just man, whom we ought all to believe, since the people are led astray after Jesus that was crucified, declare to us what is the door of Jesus that was crucified." And he answered with a loud voice: "Why do ye ask me respecting Jesus the Son of Man? He is now sitting in the heavens, on the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come on the clouds of heaven." And as many were confirmed, and gloried in this testimony of James, and said:, "Hosanna to the Son of David," these same priests and Pharisees said to one another: "We have done badly in affording such testimony to Jesus, but let us go up and cast him down, that they may dread to believe in him." And they cried out: "Ho, ho, the Just himself is deceived." And they fulfilled that which is written in Isaiah, "Let us take away the Just, because he is offensive to us; wherefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings." [Comp. Is. 3:10.]

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Meanwhile, the prestige of ascetic renunciation flourished in Gaul. Augustine’s future friend Paulinus (not yet of Nola) was just a wealthy gentleman who kept getting himself into scrapes.536 In the 380s, he fled Italy one step ahead of a usurping general’s invasion, only to find himself the object of calumny in Gaul (perhaps he was suspected of Priscillianism);537 he subsequently made his way to Spain and was almost hooked into the local clergy, but finally succeeded in fleeing back to Italy, to Nola and the shrine of a safely martyred saint of an earlier age. There he organized the sale of his vast estates (but seems to have controlled the dispensation of the proceeds, much as a modern billionaire might turn his wealth over to a foundation of his own shaping), swore a life of chaste cohabitation with his wife, and settled down to be the gracious impresario of Italian Christianity, entertaining visitors, engaging in a wide correspondence, never traveling, always au courant. He was friends with everyone, both Jerome and Rufinus, Augustine and Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum, while Melanie the younger and her husband, Pinian, were special friends. Paulinus promoted some lightweight books (including apparently the translation into Latin of the Recognitions, that supposed autobiography of one of the earliest popes but really a novel about clerical life at Rome in the olden days) and was the master of a new Christian style in poetry and prose—we’ve seen some of it rubbed off on Augustine—and succeeded in making himself his own greatest creation. The life he led was ascetic, if one accepts that a spartan but well-prepared diet counts as asceticism in a world where people are starving to death. Paulinus was always happier to display a nonthreatening form of Christian excellence than to preach it or even to decry its absence in others too indiscreetly.538 He is still remembered in Nola and in Brooklyn.539 Among Paulinus’s correspondents was Sulpicius Severus, rusticated in a remote part of southern Gaul, there engaged in his own literary panegyric directed toward ascetic practices he did not quite emulate himself. Sulpicius wrote the life of Martin of Tours, a monk turned bishop. That book would have a great afterlife centuries later when Merovingian kings took up Martin as their patron, after which his cult spread also to Christian Ireland. Sulpicius wrote as well Dialogues that recount the stories of local Gallic worthies in competitive terms. If you think the Egyptians know about miracles and self-denial, the text repeatedly says, look at what we have in Gaul!

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  The title of this chapter is not a misprint, but is meant to emphasize something important about Augustine—his moods and voices, and even his counterfeits. We have seen him already on the rampage against the Donatists, where mother (and father) church must be defended with ferocity and skill. We have seen what was at stake when he took out after Pelagianism with hammer and tongs, at that point defending a particular ecclesiastical role. Those personae are the two that had in his own time and after the deepest and most lasting theological influence on the existing churches of his communion, but the favor those personae have found has faded sharply over the past century. A third Augustine is the one still most deeply admired by many and always the most sympathetic: if not a purveyor of mystic crystal revelations and the mind’s true liberation (though on some days that language would not have been foreign to him), at least a theologian of a deeply intellectual and spiritual religion, one so exalted as to be in touch with the ordinary religious Christians of his time only by the fact of mutual presence in the same church building. That Augustine is the one who is generally given pride of place in organizing discussions of his thought in our time. And there are the counterfeit Augustines. The pious story I just told is one example, but many others can be told. Works attributed to Augustine that he did not really write were abundant in the middle ages. Some were attributed to him in all innocence, but even where deliberate counterfeits were in circulation, those who received them did so blithely and innocently. Bear in mind, for example, that the first work of “Augustine” ever to be printed was not by Augustine himself. It was a little pamphlet titled The Christian Life (De vita christiana), published in Mainz around 1465, and it enjoyed a broad circulation. After many generations in which handwritten copies of Augustine’s books had circulated widely and his name was sometimes applied to things that merely seemed to be his, this book was readily taken to be Augustine’s and it was doubtless meant to express his spirit and thought accurately, but it wasn’t him, whatever the printer and his public thought.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  But part of this independence is Augustine himself. It requires no partisanship and not even any approval of a single word he wrote to stand nevertheless in awe of his independence of mind, his freshness of approach, and the novelty of the questions he asked. Each time he takes up the task of writing, he approaches his subject afresh, asking good questions. Where Augustine repeats himself, he becomes the jazz improvisationalist, repeating old themes but never in the same way. Though many themes, expressions, and ideas recur in Augustine, few if any of his works may be dismissed out of hand as simple rehash of something that has gone before. Sermon after sermon and work after work does something he has not done before, asks some new question, presses some new line of argument. He is not dependent on others for the questions that press him, though he exploits the curiosity of others with rare resourcefulness. To read the dossier of correspondence with Marcellinus and Volusianus in the early 410s and then to turn to the City of God is to see the extraordinary range and power of thought Augustine could bring to bear on pedestrian lines of inquiry and thoughtless objections. The way in which Augustine continued to ask questions, fresh questions, and to press his inquiries well into late middle age has a moral elegance about it. Even in the gloomy days of whaling away at Julian, a fair reading will show that the strength of mind and the freshness of approach was still there, however the atmosphere had clouded. And what did people make of him? Many things. In the sixth century, the monk Eugippius, refugee from frontier Noricum (in modern Austria), compiled a thousand-page anthology of Augustine at the monastery of Lucullanum, near Naples. His monastic and literary endeavors were extensive, but he remains little known.606

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

  To the records of Veit Dietrich, Lauterbach, and Mathesius, which were often edited, though in bad taste, we owe the most remarkable "Table-Talk "ever published.604 Many of his sayings are exceedingly quaint, and sound strange, coarse, and vulgar to refined ears. But they were never intended for publication; and making due allowance for human weakness, the rudeness of the age, and his own rugged nature, we may agree with the judgment of one of his most accurate biographers, that "in all his words and deeds Luther was guided constantly by the loftiest principles, by the highest considerations of morality and religious truth, and that in the simple and straightforward manner which was his nature, utterly free from affectation or artificial effort."605 After dinner he indulged with his friends and children in music, sacred and secular songs, German and Latin hymns. He loved poetry, music, painting, and all the fine arts. In this respect he was ahead of those puritanical Reformers who had no taste for the beautiful, and banished art from the church. He placed music next to theology. He valued it as a most effectual weapon against melancholy and the temptations of the Devil. "The heart," he said, "is satisfied, refreshed, and strengthened by music." He played the lute, sang melodiously, and composed tunes to his hymns, especially the immortal, Ein feste Burg," which gives classic expression to his heroic faith in God and the triumph of the gospel. He never lost his love for Virgil and Cicero, which he acquired as a student at Erfurt. He was fond of legends, fables, and proverbs. He would have delighted in the stories of old "Mother Goose," and in Grimm’s "Hausmährchen." He translated some of Esop’s Fables, and wrote a preface to an edition which was published after his death.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  391. Mend. 13.23.392. Frend, The Donatist Church.393. Epp. 56–57.394. Ep. 139.395. Ep. 58.396. This is how I read Ep. 112 (to Donatus) and Ep. 89 (to Festus).397. Ep. 66, see C. litt. Petil. 2.83.184.398. Ep. 52.399. Mor. 1.1.1, 1.34.75; cf. from the same period, Ep. 21.2.400. So in Ep. 10.2 he speaks favorably for himself and Nebridius of “becoming gods [godlike] in retirement” by contrast to the busy distraction of clergy.401. Julian has not yet found a suitably skeptical biographer. The best scholarly study is G. Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978), but Gore Vidal’s novel Julian (Boston, 1964) is a very responsible, if partisan, attempt to do justice to the facts of his career.402. C. litt. Pet. 2.83.184.403. The word denotes a woman uprooted from her family and social situation to a committed life of celibate religious observance. “Nun” is the closest English equivalent.404. Ep. 35.4.405. Ep. 44.5.12.406. Ep. 93.5.17. On Augustine’s attitudes, see P. Brown, “Saint Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion,” Journal of Roman Studies 54(1964) 107–16; R.A. Markus, Saeculum 133–53.407. Ep. 185.8.33.408. Epp. 33, 34, 35.409. Ep. 108.5.14.410. Ep. 108.6.18.411. En. Ps. 54.20.412. S. 46.15.413. Ep. 185.1.1.414. Ep. 44.5.6.415. Ep. 93.5.17.416. Ep. 185.9.35, Io. ev. tr. 6.25, where Augustine is very disingenuous in claiming to have no interest in property. He makes the argument there that since property was given to the church (when it was given to a Donatist bishop), it is appropriate for the true church to take it over.417. Ep. 20.3 (to a layman, Antoninus): probably the first mention of Donatism in Augustine’s surviving works.418. Ep. 23.419. That particular Donatist, Maximinus of Siniti, may be identical with a Maximinus who turns up in Ep. 105.4 around the year 407 or later, converted to Caecilianism.420. Ep. 33.2.421. C. litt. Pet. 2.38.90.422. En. Ps. 21.s.2.31.423. Epp. 43–44.424. Ep. 53.425. Brown 405 is keen-eyed on this difference between the law of 405 and the later, more successfully coercive, decision of 411. If any one of these failed attempts at suppression had been the last, we would now inherit a history of heroic persistence and victory over cruel government persecutors.426. Ep. 185.27 quoted; cf. C. Cresc. 3.43.47.427. One modern reader suggests this was a dungheap, but perhaps he was too mindful of the similar landing place for persecuted officials in the “defenestration of Prague” of 1618.428. Ep. 105.2.3–4.429. Frend 269–74.430. Augustine and Possidius mention the event repeatedly: S. Guelf. 28.7–8, Ench. 17, Possidius Vita 12.2; recently discovered: S. Dolbeau 26.45. Usually dated to about 410, with the new Dolbeau sermon it may more likely be placed in 403 (see Lancel 407).431. Coll. Carth. 1.142.432. S. 359.433. Ep. 173.1–4.434. S. Guelf. 28.435. Ep. 185.3.12.436. Ibid.437. Brown 420, Frend 296; Ep. 204 to Dulcitius.438. Ep. 204.5–6, instancing 2 Maccabees 14.37–46.439. Augustine makes a point of bringing up the same biblical story to refute in C. Gaud.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Without the Confessions, a work so preternaturally designed to survive the decay and rebirth of several cycles of western cultural imagination since his lifetime, perhaps he would not be so elusive. Other writers of Christian late antiquity can be found who have in their works as much poetry and imagination and passion as Augustine does. John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, and the fathers of the Greek Philocalia all have their followers and devout readers today, and even the impassioned John Cassian has pages that inspire. Gregory Nazianzen’s poem “On His Own Life” is nearly contemporaneous with Augustine and tells a story outwardly similar to the Confessions and is barely known. But all those writers impose themselves in the first instance on readers who have already chosen to make themselves open to Christian claims. Augustine reaches a broader readership. Readers will persist with him for their own reasons and choose the links they please to spin together a web between him, his books, and their own concerns. But reading him is far from a simple business. Here are a few words of guidance for Augustine hunters. The translations that bring us Augustine come out of an artless tradition, which assumes the conventional is accurate. Augustine today too often reads like an old-fashioned preacher man, and he can still be found full of thees and thous, reminding us of a long tradition of establishment religion. Nobody in his own time heard or read him that way. When he wanted to sound like a traditionalist, he made himself sound like a classical writer, so imagine him writing sonatas after the style of Brahms. And when he wanted to depart from that mode and when he sought to infuse his style with the Christian vocabulary and scriptural resonance, he sounded to many of his contemporaries dissonant and “modern,” so imagine him producing short pieces of uncertain genre in the manner of Schoenberg or Shostakovich. Finding translations of Augustine that give him the directness of his voice, the modernity and freshness of his style, is hard. Garry Wills’s Saint Augustine and his translations of individual books of the Confessions626 have some fresh and vivid versions of the passages he quotes. In what I quote in this book, I have tried to capture freshness of voice and accuracy of tone (often sacrificing the elegance of long, balanced periodic sentences in the process), but I cannot conceal how extraordinarily difficult it is to translate an author who is separated from us by such a long period of respectability, familiarity, and drearification. If every banker and every politician of the last century had written in painfully unimaginative imitation of Emily Dickinson’s verse, her own work would be far harder to hear fairly and carefully and far less likely to knock us off our chairs. You have not heard Augustine properly if he has not made you hang on to the armrests of your chair for dear life now and then.