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 Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Rowling got more experience, the books became…I mean, they’re biblical. Holy crap, they’re biblical. I’m going to argue right here that I think the Harry Potter books and the movies combined are more important in American culture than any other book or any other TV show, any other cultural phenomenon. I think they have more spiritual power, I think they have more political power, more everything . The first one came out in 1998, which is incredible when you think about Harry Potter . But my career and my thoughts about young adult were right in the middle of all that and so when young adult literature exploded— The Hunger Games ; John Green; Thirteen Reasons Why , which is like the massive thing on Netflix right now—I accidentally became part of this amazing new phenomenon, the young adult book being a universally praised and admired genre. It remains the bestselling genre. If you want to sell books as a writer, write young adult. JW: And it seems like another boundary or border was crossed, because adult readers, of course, came along, but it also said kids can handle six hundred pages, they can handle dialogue about masturbation. It also stopped underestimating the fifteen-year-old reader, the thirteen-year-old reader. SA: It stopped being condescending. It really is a form of political rebellion. Young readers becoming political rebels by insisting on their own genre. When The Outsiders was published, nobody thought about it as being young adult. When The Catcher in the Rye was published, nobody thought about it as being young adult. Lord the Flies , Tom Sawyer , Huckleberry Finn …when we talk about so many of the great books of our past, they would be classified as young adult now. And that would be a great thing. We all became writers because of something we read when we were twelve. And I get to be that guy. It’s awesome.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Cruise then took a break to promote his movie Vanilla Sky. The following February through April 2002, Cruise and Rathbun were once again working together full-time, mostly at Gold Base. Cruise was preparing for his role in The Last Samurai, directed by Ed Zwick, and between sessions with Rathbun he would go into the courtyard to practice his swordplay. Cruise had begun dating the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, and in the fall of 2001 Rathbun began auditing her as well. At the same time, he was still acting as Nicole Kidman’s Ethics Officer in the church, even though she and Cruise were engaged in a bitter divorce proceeding. One of the issues was whether the children would be educated in schools using the Hubbard method, which Kidman opposed. That was another battle she lost. Although Tom and Nicole split custody of their children, both Isabella and Connor soon chose to live exclusively with their father. Rathbun says this was because the Scientology staff, especially Tommy Davis, quietly worked to turn the children against Kidman. “Tommy told them over and over again their mother was a sociopath and after a while they believed him,” he recalled. “They had daily sessions with Tommy. I was there. I saw it.” According to several former Sea Org members, Rathbun’s auditing sessions with Cruise were videotaped. Tom De Vocht, a former church official, said Miscavige would watch them and then regale his inner circle, over his nightly whiskey, with stories of Cruise’s confessions, dwelling especially on his sex life. 1 Rathbun was opposed to the endless courtship of Cruise. In his opinion, there was no need for it once Cruise was securely back on the Bridge. Rathbun told Miscavige, “I think I’m done with this guy.” Miscavige responded, “He’ll be done when he calls me.” The leader was galled by the fact that Cruise had never contacted him when he came back for counseling. Rathbun continually urged Cruise to call “COB,” as Miscavige is known in the church—Chairman of the Board. At one point Cruise asked for Miscavige’s number, but then failed to call. His tentativeness was worrisome. Whatever restraint Cruise felt about Miscavige eventually fell away, however, and Miscavige was once again folded into the star’s inner circle. There were movie nights in Cruise’s mansion. Miscavige flew with Cruise in the Warner Bros. jet to a test screening of The Last Samurai in Arizona. The two men became closer than ever. Cruise later said of Miscavige, “I have never met a more competent, a more intelligent, a more compassionate being outside of what I have experienced from LRH. And I’ve met the leaders of leaders. I’ve met them all.” Cruise’s renewed dedication to Scientology permanently changed the relationship between the church and the Hollywood celebrity community. Cruise poured millions of dollars into the church—$3 million in 2004 alone. He was not simply a figurehead; he was an activist with an international following. He could take the church into places it had never been before.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Lawrence, Christopher Isherwood, and Aldous Huxley passed through the city, all drawn by its reputation as a center for spiritual innovation. One of the most famous preachers in American history, Aimee Semple McPherson, built the Angelus Temple near Echo Park in 1923, where she married Pentecostalism with Hollywood theatricality. She created sets for her sermons on a stage designed for her by Charlie Chaplin, who may have been one of her secret Hollywood paramours ( Milton Berle claimed to be another). Anticipating the garb of Hubbard and the Sea Org, McPherson liked to dress in an admiral’s uniform, while her disciples wore nautical outfits. As a teenager, Anthony Quinn played the saxophone in the church and translated for Sister Aimee when she preached in Mexican neighborhoods. After he became a movie star, Quinn would compare her to the great actresses he worked with, including Ingrid Bergman and Katharine Hepburn. “ They all fell short of that first electric shock Aimee Semple McPherson produced in me.” And so when the Church of Scientology was officially founded in Los Angeles, in February 1954, by several of Hubbard’s devoted followers, there was already a history of religious celebrities and celebrity religions. The cultivation of famous people—or people who aspired to be famous—was a feature of Hubbard’s grand design. He foresaw that the best way of promoting Scientology as a ladder to enlightenment was to court celebrities, whom he defined as “ any person important enough in his field or an opinion leader or his entourage, business associates, family or friends with particular attention to the arts, sports and management and government.” It was not surprising that Hubbard would hire as his personal assistant Richard de Mille, son of the legendary producer and director Cecil B. DeMille, who had started Paramount Pictures and was in some ways responsible for the creation of Hollywood itself. In 1955, a year after the church’s founding, an editorial in Ability , a publication affiliated with the church, urged Scientologists to recruit celebrities. A long list of desirable prospects followed, including Marlene Dietrich, Walt Disney, Jackie Gleason, John Ford, Bob Hope, and Howard Hughes. “ If you want one of these celebrities as your game, write us at once so the notable will be yours to hunt without interference,” the editorial promised. “If you bring one of them home you will get a small plaque as your reward.” Author William Burroughs and actor Stephen Boyd were drawn into the church in its early days. Scientology was a religion rather perfectly calibrated for its time and place, since American culture, and soon the rest of the world, was bending increasingly toward the worship of celebrity, with Hollywood as its chief shrine. At the end of the sixties, the church established its first Celebrity Centre, in Hollywood.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  When Katselas heard him play, he found him a teacher and paid for his piano lessons. Barton eventually arranged a recital on a Sunday evening. Katselas showed up at the theater at eight that morning, just as the piano was being delivered. He noticed that the stage was scratched, there were piled-up boxes spilling out of the wings, and a large spiral staircase—a prop from an old production—was left on the stage, because it was simply too big to move. Barton explained that he was going to cover up as much as possible with black drapes. Katselas called his office and within an hour ten people arrived. He sent Barton off to relax and prepare himself for the performance. When Barton returned that afternoon, the staircase was gone, the boxes had disappeared, the stage had been sanded and painted, and four trees surrounded the piano. Even the pots the trees were planted in had been painted to match the backdrop. The overall effect was stunning. “Have a good show,” Katselas said, and walked away. Overwhelmed, Barton ran after him. “How can I ever thank you?” he asked. As he drove off, Katselas said, “Learn to expect it of yourself.” Such stories became a part of the Katselas legend. He was an OT V and a very public Scientologist, but he had stopped moving up the Bridge, in part because he refused to travel to Flag, where the upper-level courses were offered. Moreover, he had gotten into Ethics trouble because of his behavior with some of his female students. Jenna Elfman was a leader of the revolt against Katselas. She had been one of his prize students, winning a Golden Globe Award in 1999 for her free-spirited performance in the sitcom Dharma & Greg. Allen Barton, who had become a teacher at the Playhouse, wrote Elfman a letter in June 2004, begging her to relent. He called the movement against Katselas “Scientological McCarthyism,” harking back to the blacklisting of Hollywood celebrities in the 1950s because of their supposed Communist sympathies. “As Scientologists, are we now a group that blacklists, that casts aside friendships and alliances on the basis of how fast someone is moving up the Bridge?” he wrote. “If we as a group are going to take on the billions of wogs out in the world, how can we disconnect from each other?” Elfman never responded. After Cruise rallied the Scientology celebrities, a group of students demanded that Katselas make the Playhouse a “WISE” business. The acronym stands for World Institute of Scientology Enterprises. Katselas refused, even though he lost a hundred students in a mass Scientology walkout. Many of them went to another school, the Acting Center, which was founded in 2006, based in part on Scientology techniques.

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

  Milman (Book V. ch. 1): "Karl, according to his German appellation, was the model of a Teutonic chieftain, in his gigantic stature, enormous strength, and indefatigable activity; temperate in diet, and superior to the barbarous vice of drunkenness. Hunting and war were his chief occupations; and his wars were carried on with all the ferocity of encountering savage tribes. But he was likewise a Roman Emperor, not only in his vast and organizing policy, he had that one vice of the old Roman civilization which the Merovingian kings had indulged, though not perhaps with more unbounded lawlessness. The religious emperor, in one respect, troubled not himself with the restraints of religion. The humble or grateful church beheld meekly, and almost without remonstrance, the irregularity of domestic life, which not merely indulged in free license, but treated the sacred rite of marriage as a covenant dissoluble at his pleasure. Once we have heard, and but once, the church raise its authoritative, its comminatory voice, and that not to forbid the King of the Franks from wedding a second wife while his first was alive, but from marrying a Lombard princess. One pious ecclesiastic alone in his dominion, he a relative, ventured to protest aloud.’) Guizot (Histoire de la civilisation en France, leçon XX.): "Charlemagne marque la limite à laquelle est enfin consommée la dissolution de l’ancien monde romain et barbare, et où commence la formation du monde nouveau." Vétault (Charlemagne, 455, 458): "Charlemagne fut, en effet, le père du monde moderne et de la societé européenne .... Si Ch. ne peut être légitemement honoré comme un saint, il a droit du moins à la première place, parmis tous les héros, dans l’admiration des hommes; car on ne trouverait pas un autre souverain qui ait autant aimé l’humanité et lui ait fait plus de bien. Il est le plus glorieux, parce que ... il a mérite d’ être proclamé le plus honnête des grands hommes." Giesebrecht, the historian of the German emperors, gives a glowing description of Charlemagne (I. 140): "Many high-minded rulers arose in the ten centuries after Charles, but none had a higher aim. To be ranked with him, satisfied the boldest conquerors, the wisest princes of peace. French chivalry of later times glorified Charlemagne as the first cavalier; the German burgeoisie as the fatherly friend of the people and the most righteous judge; the Catholic Church raised him to the number of her saints; the poetry of all nations derived ever new inspiration and strength from his mighty person. Never perhaps has richer life proceeded from the activity of a mortal man (Nie vielleicht ist reicheres Leben von der Wirksamkeit eines sterblichen Menschen ausgegangen)."

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

  This alone explains the great readiness with which heathens embraced the gospel, to the shame of the Jews.64 There was a spiritual Israel scattered throughout the heathen world, that never received the circumcision of the flesh, but the unseen circumcision of the heart by the hand of that Spirit which bloweth where it listeth, and is not bound to any human laws and to ordinary means. The Old Testament furnishes several examples of true piety outside of the visible communion with the Jewish church, in the persons of Melchisedec, the friend of Abraham, the royal priest, the type of Christ; Jethro, the priest of Midian; Rahab, the Canaanite woman and hostess of Joshua and Caleb; Ruth, the Moabitess and ancestress of our Saviour; King Hiram, the friend of David; the queen of Sheba, who came to admire the wisdom of Solomon; Naaman the Syrian; and especially Job, the sublime sufferer, who rejoiced in the hope of his Redeemer.65 The elements of truth, morality, and piety scattered throughout ancient heathenism, may be ascribed to three sources. In the first place, man, even in his fallen state, retains some traces of the divine image, a knowledge of God,66 however weak, a moral sense or conscience,67 and a longing for union with the Godhead, for truth and for righteousness.68 In this view we may, with Tertullian, call the beautiful and true sentences of a Socrates, a Plato, an Aristotle, of Pindar, Sophocles, Cicero, Virgil, Seneca, Plutarch, "the testimonies of a soul constitutionally Christian,"69 of a nature predestined to Christianity. Secondly, some account must be made of traditions and recollections, however faint, coming down from the general primal revelations to Adam and Noah. But the third and most important source of the heathen anticipations of truth is the all-ruling providence of God, who has never left himself without a witness. Particularly must we consider, with the ancient Greek fathers, the influence of the divine Logos before his incarnation,70 who was the tutor of mankind, the original light of reason, shining in the darkness and lighting every man, the sower scattering in the soil of heathendom the seeds of truth, beauty, and virtue.71 The flower of paganism, with which we are concerned here, appears in the two great nations of classic antiquity, Greece and Rome. With the language, morality, literature, and religion of these nations, the apostles came directly into contact, and through the whole first age the church moves on the basis of these nationalities. These, together with the Jews, were the chosen nations of the ancient world, and shared the earth among them. The Jews were chosen for things eternal, to keep the sanctuary of the true religion. The Greeks prepared the elements of natural culture, of science and art, for the use of the church. The Romans developed the idea of law, and organized the civilized world in a universal empire, ready to serve the spiritual universality of the gospel.

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

  No amount of detached words of wisdom constitute an organic system of ethics any, more than a heap of marble blocks constitute a palace or temple; and the best system of ethics is unable to produce a holy life, and is worthless without it. We may admit without hesitation that Hillel was "the greatest and best of all Pharisees" (Ewald), but he was far inferior to John the Baptist; and to compare him with Christ is sheer blindness or folly. Ewald calls such comparison "utterly perverse" (grundverkehrt, v. 48). Farrar remarks that the distance between Hillel and Jesus is "a distance absolutely immeasurable, and the resemblance of his teaching to that of Jesus is the resemblance of a glow-worm to the sun" (II. 455). "The fundamental tendencies of both," says Delitzsch (p. 23), "are as widely apart as he and earth. That of Hillel is legalistic, casuistic, and nationally contracted; that of Jesus is universally religious, moral and human. Hillel lives and moves in the externals, Jesus in the spirit of the law." He was not even a reformer, as Geiger and Friedlander would make him, for what they adduce as proofs are mere trifles of interpretation, and involve no new principle or idea. Viewed as a mere human teacher, the absolute originality of Jesus consists in this, "that his words have touched the hearts of all men in all ages, and have regenerated the moral life of the world" (Farrar, II. 454). But Jesus is far more than a Rabbi, more than a sage and saint more than a reformer, more than a benefactor; he is the author of the true religion, the prophet, priest and king, the renovator, the Saviour of men, the founder of a spiritual kingdom as vast as the race and as long as eternity. § 18. Apocryphal Traditions. We add some notes of minor interest connected with the history of Christ outside of the only authentic record in the Gospel. I. The Apocryphal Sayings of our Lord.—The canonical Gospels contain all that is necessary for us to know about the words and deeds of our Lord, although many more might have been recorded (John 20:30; 21:25). Their early composition and reception in the church precluded the possibility of a successful rivalry of oral tradition. The extra-biblical sayings of our Lord are mere fragments, few in number, and with one exception rather unimportant, or simply variations of genuine words. They have been collected by Fabricius, in Codex Apocr. N. T., I pp. 321–335; Grabe: Spicilegium SS. Patrum, ed. alt. I. 12 sqq., 326 sq.; Koerner: De sermonibus Christi ajgravfoi" (Lips. 1776); Routh, in Reliq. Sacrae, vol. I. 9–12, etc.; Rud. Hofmann, in Das Leben Jesu nach den Apokryphen (Leipz. 1851, § 75, pp. 317–334); Bunsen, in Anal. ante-Nic. I. 29 sqq.; Anger, in Synops. Evang. (1852); Westcott: Introd. to the Study of the Gospels, Append. C. (pp. 446 sqq. of the Boston ed. by Hackett); Plumptre, in Ellicott’s Com. for English Readers, I. p.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  The sensual experience of being in a great cathedral or mosque may have nothing to do with “belief,” but it does draw people to the religion and rewards them emotionally. Scientology has built many impressive churches, but they are not redolent palaces of art. The aesthetic element in Scientology is Hubbard’s arresting voice as a writer. His authoritative but folksy tone and his impressionistic grasp of human nature have cast a spell over millions of readers. More important, however, is the nature of his project: the self-portrait of the inside of his mind. It is perhaps impossible to reduce his mentality to a psychiatric diagnosis, in part because his own rendering of it is so complex, intricate, and comprehensive that one can only stand back and appreciate the qualities that drove him, hour after hour, year after year, to try to get it all on the page—his insight, his daring, his narcissism, his defiance, his relentlessness, his imagination—these are the traits of an artist. It is one reason that Hubbard identified with the creative community and many of them with him. Scientology orients itself toward celebrity, and by doing so, the church awards famousness a spiritual value. People who seek fame—especially in the entertainment industry—naturally gravitate to Hollywood, where Scientology is waiting for them, validating their ambition and promising recruits a way in. The church has pursued a marketing strategy that relies heavily on endorsements by celebrities, who actively promote the religion. They speak of the positive role that Scientology has played in their lives. When David Miscavige awarded Tom Cruise the Freedom Medal of Valor in 2004, he praised his effectiveness as a spokesperson, saying, “Across ninety nations, five thousand people hear his word of Scientology every hour.” It is difficult to know how such a figure was derived, but according to Miscavige, “Every minute of every hour someone reaches for LRH technology, simply because they know Tom Cruise is a Scientologist.” Probably no other member of the church derives as much material benefit from his religion as Cruise does, and consequently none bears a greater moral responsibility for the indignities inflicted on members of the Sea Org, sometimes directly because of his membership. Excepting Paul Haggis, no prominent Hollywood Scientologist has spoken out publicly against the widespread allegations of physical abuse, involuntary confinement, and forced servitude within the church’s clergy, although many such figures have quietly walked away. Since leaving Scientology, Haggis has been in therapy, which he has found helpful. He’s learned how much he blames others for his problems, especially those closest to him. “I really wish I had found a good therapist when I was twenty-one,” he said. In Scientology, he always felt a subtle pressure to impress his auditor and then write up a glowing success story. Now, he said, “I’m not fooling myself that I’m a better man than I am.” The same month that Haggis’s resignation from the church had become public, United Artists, Tom Cruise’s studio, terminated Haggis’s development deal.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Richard Behar covered the subject in Forbes and most notably in his 1991 exposé for Time , “The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power.” Janet Reitman had unparalleled access to the church for her 2006 Rolling Stone article, “Inside Scientology,” which became a book of the same title in 2011. Chris Owen, an independent researcher, has written extensively about the church online and has revealed much of the information available about Hubbard’s wartime experiences. Tom Smith has conducted a number of knowledgeable interviews on his radio show, The Edge , broadcast by Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida. Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin of the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times ) have written groundbreaking stories, especially about the abuse inside the church hierarchy. Tony Ortega has been writing about Scientology since 1995, for the Phoenix New Times , and he continued as a valuable resource in the pages and the blog of the Village Voice until his recent resignation. Several of these journalists have been harassed, investigated, sued, or threatened in various ways. I am the beneficiary of their skill and persistence. In the last decade, defectors from the Sea Org have provided a rich trove of personal accounts. These have taken the form of memoirs and blog postings, and they have accumulated into an immense indictment of the inner workings of the church. Among the memoirs I should single out are Marc Headley’s Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (2009); Nancy Many’s My Billion Year Contract (2009); Amy Scobee’s Abuse at the Top (2010); and Jefferson Hawkins’s Counterfeit Dreams (2010). Kate Bornstein’s A Queer and Pleasant Danger (2012) provides an especially interesting account of the Apollo days. Websites devoted to challenging the church have proliferated, beginning with alt.religion.scientology [inactive] in 1991. Some of the most active are Andreas Heldal-Lund’s Operation Clambake at xenu.net ; Steve Hall’s scientology-cult.com ; Arnaldo Lerma’s lermanet.com ; and the Ex Scientology Message Board, which is an online community for former members of the church, founded by “Emma” and now run by “Mick Wenlock and Ethercat.” Exscientologykids.org , started by Jenna Miscavige Hill, David Miscavige’s niece, among others, played an important role in Paul Haggis’s decision to leave the church. Although many of the postings on these websites are anonymous, they provide rich texture to a subculture that few outsiders can appreciate. One blog has become a rallying point for “independent” Scientologists who have renounced the official church: Marty Rathbun’s Moving on Up a Little Higher , which began in 2009. It has been the source of many telling personal stories, as well as documents leaked by church insiders. Rathbun and his wife, Monique Carle, have suffered constant harassment, along with surveillance by private investigators, because of his open challenge to Miscavige’s authority. In researching this book, I conducted hundreds of interviews, the preponderance of them on the record.

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

  Nicolas I. is the greatest pope, we may say the only great pope between Gregory I. and Gregory VII. He stands between them as one of three peaks of a lofty mountain, separated from the lower peak by a plane, and from the higher peak by a deep valley. He appeared to his younger contemporaries as a "new Elijah," who ruled the world like a sovereign of divine appointment, terrible to the evil-doer whether prince or priest, yet mild to the good and obedient. He was elected less by the influence of the clergy than of the emperor Louis II., and consecrated in his presence; he lived with him on terms of friendship, and was treated in turn with great deference to his papal dignity. He anticipated Hildebrand in the lofty conception of his office; and his energy and boldness of character corresponded with it. The pope was in his view the divinely appointed superintendent of the whole church for the maintenance of order, discipline and righteousness, and the punishment of wrong and vice, with the aid of the bishops as his executive organs. He assumed an imperious tone towards the Carolingians. He regarded the imperial crown a grant of the vicar of St. Peter for the protection of Christians against infidels. The empire descended to Louis by hereditary right, but was confirmed by the authority of the apostolic see. The pontificate of Nicolas was marked by three important events: the controversy with Photius, the prohibition of the divorce of King Lothair, and the humiliation of archbishop Hincmar. In the first he failed, in the second and third he achieved a moral triumph. Nicolas and Photius. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, of imperial descent and of austere ascetic virtue, was unjustly deposed and banished by the emperor Michael III. for rebuking the immorality of Caesar Bardas, but he refused to resign. Photius, the greatest scholar of his age, at home in almost every branch of knowledge and letters, was elected his successor, though merely a layman, and in six days passed through the inferior orders to the patriarchal dignity (858). The two parties engaged in an unrelenting warfare, and excommunicated each other. Photius was the first to appeal to the Roman pontiff. Nicolas, instead of acting as mediator, assumed the air of judge, and sent delegates to Constantinople to investigate the case on the spot. They were imprisoned and bribed to declare for Photius; but the pope annulled their action at a synod in Rome, and decided in favor of Ignatius (863). Photius in turn pronounced sentence of condemnation on the pope and, in his Encyclical Letter, gave classical expression to the objections of the Greek church against the Latin (867). The controversy resulted in the permanent alienation of the two churches. It was the last instance of an official interference of a pope in the affairs of the Eastern church. Nicolas and Lothair.

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

  The chief excellence of this invaluable and indispensable work is in its very carefully selected and critically elucidated extracts from the original authorities down to the year 1648 (as far as he edited the work himself). The skeleton-like text presents, indeed, the leading facts clearly and concisely, but does not reach the inward life and spiritual marrow of the church of Christ. The theological views of Gieseler hardly rise above the jejune rationalism of Wegscheider, to whom he dedicated a portion of his history; and with all his attempt at impartiality he cannot altogether conceal the negative effect of a rationalistic conception of Christianity, which acts like a chill upon the narrative of its history, and substitutes a skeleton of dry bones for a living organism. Neander and Gieseler matured their works in respectful and friendly rivalry, during the same period of thirty years of slow, but solid and steady growth. The former is perfectly subjective, and reproduces the original sources in a continuous warm and sympathetic composition, which reflects at the same time the author’s own mind and heart; the latter is purely objective, and speaks with the indifference of an outside spectator, through the ipsissima verba of the same sources, arranged as notes, and strung together simply by a slender thread of narrative. The one gives the history ready-made, and full of life and instruction; the other furnishes the material and leaves the reader to animate and improve it for himself. With the one, the text is everything; with the other, the notes. But both admirably complete each other, and exhibit together the ripest fruit of German scholarship in general church history in the first half of the nineteenth century. Ferdinand Christian Baur (Prof. of Church History in Tübingen, d. 1860) must be named alongside with Neander and Gieseler in the front rank of German church historians. He was equal to both in independent and thorough scholarship, superior in constructive criticism and philosophical generalization, but inferior in well-balanced judgment and solid merit. He over-estimated theories and tendencies, and undervalued persons and facts. He was an indefatigable investigator and bold innovator. He completely revolutionized the history of apostolic and post-apostolic Christianity, and resolved its rich spiritual life of faith and love into a purely speculative process of conflicting tendencies, which started from an antagonism of Petrinism and Paulinism, and were ultimately reconciled in the compromise of ancient Catholicism. He fully brought to light, by a keen critical analysis, the profound intellectual fermentation of the primitive church, but eliminated from it the supernatural and miraculous element; yet as an honest and serious sceptic he had to confess at last a psychological miracle in the conversion of St. Paul, and to bow before the greater miracle of the resurrection of Christ, without which the former is an inexplicable enigma. His critical researches and speculations gave a powerful stimulus to a reconsideration and modification of the traditional views on early Christianity.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Her lover, for such he was, sat her down at the foot of the couch, and passing his arm round her neck, preluded with a kiss fervently applied to her lips, that visibly gave her life and spirit to go through with the scene; and as he kissed, he gently inclined her head, till it fell back on a pillow disposed to receive it, and leaning himself down all the way with her, at once countenanced and endeared her fall to her. There, as if he had guessed our wishes, or meant to gratify at once his pleasure and his pride, in being the master, by the title of present possession, of beauties delicate beyond imagination, he discovered her breast to his own touch, and our common view; but oh! what delicious manual of love devotion; how inimitable fine moulded! small, round, firm, and excellently white; then the grain of their skin, so soothing, so flattering to the touch! and of beauty. When he had feasted his eyes with the their nipples, that crowned them, the sweetest buds touch and perusal, feasted his lips with kisses of the highest relish, imprinted on those all delicious twin-orbs, he proceeded downwards. Her legs still kept the ground; and now, with the tenderest attention not to shock or alarm her too suddenly, he, by degrees, rather stole than rolled up her petticoats; at which, as if a signal had been given, Louisa and Emily took hold of her legs, in pure wantonness, and, in ease to her, kept them stretched wide abroad. Then lay exposed, or, to speak more properly, displayed the greatest parade in nature of female charms. The whole company, who, except myself, had often seen them, seemed as much dazzled, surprised and delighted, as any one could be who had now beheld them for the first time. Beauties so excessive could not but enjoy the privileges of eternal novelty. Her thighs were so exquisitely fashioned, that either more in, or more out of flesh than they were, they would have declined from that point of perfection they presented.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Like most Americans, he shares the view of the first Henry Ford that history is bunk. He cannot forgive his “Nordic” ancestors for the doctrines of righteousness and cleanliness. His people, he says, were painfully clean: “Never once had they opened the door which leads to the soul; never once did they dream of taking a blind leap into the dark. After dinner the dishes were promptly washed and put in the closet; after the paper was read it was neatly folded and laid on a shelf; after the clothes were washed they were ironed and folded and then tucked away in the drawers. Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.” As everyone knows, Cleanliness is the chief American industry. Miller is the most formidable anti cleanliness poet since Walt Whitman, and his hatred of righteousness is also American, with the Americanism of Thoreau, Whitman, and Emma Goldman. Miller writes a good deal about cooking and wine drinking. Americans are the worst cooks in the world, outside of the British; and Americans are also great drunkards who know nothing about wine. The Germanic-American Miller reintroduces good food and decent wine into our literature. One of his funniest essays is about the American loaf of bread, the poisonous loaf of cleanliness wrapped in cellophane, the manufacture of which is a heavy industry like steel. Orwell and other critics tend to regard Miller as a kind of hedonist and professional do-nothing. And morally, they tend to regard him as one of that illustrious line of Americans who undermine the foundations of traditional morals. Miller quotes Thoreau’s statement, which might almost be the motto of the cosmic writer: “Most of what my neighbors call good, I am profoundly convinced is evil, and if I repent anything, it is my good conduct that I repent.” One could hardly call Thoreau a criminal, yet he had his run-ins with the law, just as Miller has, and for the same reasons. The strain of anarchism and amorality is growing stronger in American literature, or that branch of it that I am talking about, and Miller is one of its chief carriers. It is not only Emma Goldman, Thoreau, Mark Twain, Whitman, and perhaps Salinger and Mailer, but that whole literature of Detachment from political hysteria and over- organization. I am influenced enough by these people and by Miller to tell my students, the poets at least, to cultivate an ignorance of contemporary political and military events because they do not matter. I tell them not to vote, to join nothing.

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

  We now proceed to the conversion of the Continental Teutons, especially those of France and Germany. The first wholesale conversions of the Germanic or Teutonic race to the Christian religion took place among the Goths in the time when Arianism was at the height of power in the East Roman empire. The chief agents were clerical and other captives of war whom the Goths in their raids carried with them from the provinces of the Roman empire and whom they learned to admire and love for their virtue and supposed miraculous power. Constantine the Great entered into friendly relations with them, and is reported by Eusebius and Socrates to have subjected them to the cross of Christ. It is certain that some ecclesiastical organization was effected at that time. Theophilus, a bishop of the Goths, is mentioned among the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, 325. The real apostle of the Goths is Ulifilas,96 who was consecrated bishop in 348 at Constantinople, and died there in 381, aged seventy years. He invented the Gothic alphabet, and translated the Bible into Gothic, but was an Arian, or rather a semi-Arian, who regarded Christ as a secondary God and the Holy Spirit merely as a sanctifying power.97 Arianism spread with great rapidity among the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Burgundians, and Vandals. This heretical form of Christianity, however, was more a matter of accident than preference and conviction among the Germans, and soon gave way to orthodoxy when they became acquainted with it. When Alaric, the famous king of the Visigoths, captured Rome (410), he treated the city with marked leniency, which Augustin justly traced to the influence of the Christian faith even in heretical form. The Vandals, the rudest among the Teutonic tribes, made an exception; they fiercely persecuted the orthodox Christians in North Africa (since 430) and desolated this once flourishing field of the Catholic Church, the scene of the immortal labors of St. Augustin. Their kingdom was destroyed under Justinian (534), but the Catholic Church never rose from its ruins, and the weak remnant was conquered by the sword of Islâm (670). Chrysostom made a noble effort to convert the Eastern Goths from Arianism to Catholicity, but his mission ceased after his death (407). The conversion of the Franks to Catholic christianity and various political circumstances led to the abandonment of Arianism among the other Germanic tribes. The Burgundians who spread from the Rhine to the Rhone and Saone, embraced Catholic Christianity in 517, and were incorporated into the French kingdom in 534. The Suevi who spread from Eastern Germany into France and Spain, embraced the Catholic faith in 550. The Visigoths in Spain, through their king, Reccared the Catholic, subscribed an orthodox creed at the third Council of Toledo, A.D. 589, but the last of the Gothic kings, Roderic, was conquered by the Saracens, breaking into Spain from Africa, in the bloody battle of Xeres de la Frontera, A.D. 711.

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

  Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, was born at Antioch about 390, of an honorable and pious mother; educated in the cloister of St. Euprepius (perhaps with Nestorius); formed upon the writings of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia; made bishop of Cyros, or Cyrrhos, in Syria, after 420; and died in 457. He is known to us from the Christological controversies as the most scholarly advocate of the Antiochian dyophysitism or moderate Nestorianism; condemned at Ephesus in 431, deposed by the council of Robbers in 449, acquitted in 451 by the fourth ecumenical council on condition of his condemning Nestorius and all deniers of the theotokos, but again partially condemned at the fifth long after his death. He was, therefore, like Eusebius, an actor as well as an author of church history. As bishop, he led an exemplary life, his enemies themselves being judges, and was especially benevolent to the poor. He owned nothing valuable but books, and applied the revenues of his bishopric to the public good. He shared the superstitions and weaknesses of his age. His Ecclesiastical History, in five books, composed about 450, reaches from 325 to 429. It is the most valuable continuation of Eusebius, and, though shorter, it furnishes an essential supplement to the works of Socrates and Sozomen. His "Historia religiosa" consists of biographies of hermits and monks, written with great enthusiasm for ascetic holiness, and with many fabulous accessories, according to the taste of the day. His "Heretical Fables,"1916 though superficial and marred by many errors, is of some importance for the history of Christian doctrine. It contains a severe condemnation of Nestorius, which we should hardly expect from Theodoret.1917 Theodoret was a very fruitful author. Besides these histories, he wrote valuable commentaries on most of the books of the Old Testament and on all the Epistles of Paul; dogmatic and polemic works against Cyril and the Alexandrian Christology, and against the heretics; an apology of Christianity against the Greek philosophy; and sermons and letters.1918 Evagrius (born about 536 in Syria, died after 594) was a lawyer in Antioch, and rendered the patriarch Gregory great service, particularly in an action for incest in 588. He was twice married, and the Antiochians celebrated his second wedding (592) with public plays. He is the last continuator of Eusebius and Theodoret, properly so called. He begins his Ecclesiastical History of six books with the council of Ephesus, 431, and closes it with the twelfth year of the reign of the emperor Maurice, 594. He is of special importance on the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies; gives accounts of bishops and monks, churches and public buildings, earthquakes and other calamities; and interweaves political history, such as the wars of Chosroes and the assaults of the barbarians.1919 He was strictly orthodox, and a superstitious venerator of monks, saints, and relics.1920

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

  2. Augustine is also the principal theological creator of the Latin-Catholic system as distinct from the Greek Catholicism on the one hand, and from evangelical Protestantism on the other. He ruled the entire theology of the middle age, and became the father of scholasticism in virtue of his dialectic mind, and the father of mysticism in virtue of his devout heart, without being responsible for the excesses of either system. For scholasticism thought to comprehend the divine with the understanding, and lost itself at last in empty dialectics; and mysticism endeavored to grasp the divine with feeling, and easily strayed into misty sentimentalism; Augustine sought to apprehend the divine with the united power of mind and heart, of bold thought and humble faith.2198 Anselm, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventura, are his nearest of kin in this respect. Even now, since the Catholic church has become a Roman church, he enjoys greater consideration in it than Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, or Gregory the Great. All this cannot possibly be explained without an interior affinity.2199 His very conversion, in which, besides the Scriptures, the personal intercourse of the hierarchical Ambrose and the life of the ascetic Anthony had great influence, was a transition not from heathenism to Christianity (for he was already a Manichaean Christian), but from heresy to the historical, episcopally organized church, as, for the time, the sole authorized vehicle of the apostolic Christianity in conflict with those sects and parties which more or less assailed the foundations of the gospel.2200 It was, indeed, a full and unconditional surrender of his mind and heart to God, but it was at the same time a submission of his private judgment to the authority of the church which led him to the faith of the gospel.2201 In the same spirit he embraced the ascetic life, without which, according to the Catholic principle, no high religion is possible. He did not indeed enter a cloister, like Luther, whose conversion in Erfurt was likewise essentially catholic, but he lived in his house in the simplicity of a monk, and made and kept the vow of voluntary poverty and celibacy.2202

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

  Calvin is one of those characters that command respect and admiration rather than affection, and forbid familiar approach, but gain upon closer acquaintance. The better he is known, the more he is admired and esteemed. Those who judge of his character from his conduct in the case of Servetus, and of his theology from the "decretum horribile," see the spots on the sun, but not the sun itself. Taking into account all his failings, he must be reckoned as one of the greatest and best of men whom God raised up in the history of Christianity. He has been called by competent judges of different creeds and schools, "the theologian" par excellence, "the Aristotle of the Reformation," "the Thomas Aquinas of the Reformed Church," "the Lycurgus of a Christian democracy," "the Pope of Geneva." He has been compared, as a church ruler, to Gregory VII. and to Innocent III. The sceptical Renan even, who entirely dissents from his theology, calls him the most Christian man of his age." Such a combination of theoretic and practical pre-eminence is without a parallel in history. But he was also an intolerant inquisitor and persecutor, and his hands are stained with the blood of a heretic.1265 Take these characteristics together, and you have the whole Calvin; omit one or the other of them, and you do him injustice. He will ever command admiration and even reverence, but can never be popular among the masses. No pilgrimages will be made to his grave. The fourth centennial of his birth, in 1909, is not likely to be celebrated with such enthusiasm as Luther’s was in 1883, and Zwingli’s in 1884. But the impression he made on the Swiss, French, Dutch, and especially on the Anglo-Saxon race in Great Britain and America, can never be erased.1266 Calvin’s bodily presence, like that of St. Paul, was weak. His earthly tent scarcely covered his mighty spirit. He was of middle stature, dark complexion, thin, pale, emaciated, and in feeble health; but he had a finely chiseled face, a well-formed mouth, pointed beard, black hair, a prominent nose, a lofty forehead, and flaming eyes which kept their lustre to the last. He seemed to be all bone and nerve. He looked in death, Beza says, like one who was asleep. A commanding intellect and will shone through the frail body. There are several portraits of him; the best is the oil painting in the University Library of Geneva, which presents him in academic dress and in the attitude of teaching, with the mouth open, one hand laid upon the Bible, the other raised.1267

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

  Comp. Jaffé, Neander, Milman (Book III., ch. 7, vol. II., 39 sqq.); Greenwood (Book III., chs. 6 and 7); Montalembert (Les moines d’Occident, bk. V., Engl. transl., vol. II., 69 sqq.); Baxmann (Politik der Päpste, I. 44 sqq.); Zöpffel (art. Gregor I. in the, new ed. of Herzog). Whatever may be thought of the popes of earlier times," says Ranke,213 "they always had great interests in view: the care of oppressed religion, the conflict with heathenism, the spread of Christianity among the northern nations, the founding of an independent hierarchy. It belongs to the dignity of human existence to aim at and to execute something great; this tendency the popes kept in upward motion." This commendation of the earlier popes, though by no means applicable to all, is eminently true of the one who stands at the beginning of our period. Gregory the First, or the Great, the last of the Latin fathers and the first of the popes, connects the ancient with the mediaeval church, the Graeco-Roman with the Romano-Germanic type of Christianity. He is one of the best representatives of mediaeval Catholicism: monastic, ascetic, devout and superstitious; hierarchical, haughty, and ambitious, yet humble before God; indifferent, if not hostile, to classical and secular culture, but friendly to sacred and ecclesiastical learning; just, humane, and liberal to ostentation; full of missionary zeal in the interest of Christianity, and the Roman see, which to his mind were inseparably connected. He combined great executive ability with untiring industry, and amid all his official cares he never forgot the claims of personal piety. In genius he was surpassed by Leo I., Gregory VII., Innocent III.; but as a man and as a Christian, he ranks with the purest and most useful of the popes. Goodness is the highest kind of greatness, and the church has done right in according the title of the Great to him rather than to other popes of superior intellectual power.

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

  As Pelagius, the father of the famous heresy, which bears his name, was a Briton, so Coelestius, his chief ally and champion, was a Hibernian; but we do not know whether he was a Christian before be left Ireland. Mansuetus, first bishop of Toul, was an Irish Scot (A.D. 350). Pope Caelestine, in 431, ordained and sent Palladius, a Roman deacon, and probably a native Briton, "to the Scots believing in Christ," as their first bishop.46 This notice by Prosper of France implies the previous existence of Christianity in Ireland. But Palladius was so discouraged that he soon abandoned the field, with his assistants for North Britain, where he died among the Picts.47 For nearly two centuries after this date, we have no authentic record of papal intercourse with Ireland; and yet during that period it took its place among the Christian countries. It was converted by two humble individuals, who probably never saw Rome, St. Patrick, once a slave, and St. Bridget, the daughter of a slave-mother.48 The Roman tradition that St. Patrick was sent by Pope Caelestine is too late to have any claim upon our acceptance, and is set aside by the entire silence of St. Patrick himself in his genuine works. It arose from confounding Patrick with Palladius. The Roman mission of Palladius failed; the independent mission of Patrick succeeded. He is the true Apostle of Ireland, and has impressed his memory in indelible characters upon the Irish race at home and abroad. St. Patrick or Patricius (died March 17, 465 or 493) was the son of a deacon, and grandson of a priest, as he confesses himself without an intimation of the unlawfulness of clerical marriages.49 He was in his youth carried captive into Ireland, with many others, and served his master six years as a shepherd. While tending his flock in the lonesome fields, the teachings of his childhood awakened to new life in his heart without any particular external agency. He escaped to France or Britain, was again enslaved for a short period, and had a remarkable dream, which decided his calling. He saw a man, Victoricius, who handed him innumerable letters from Ireland, begging him to come over and help them. He obeyed the divine monition, and devoted the remainder of his life to the conversion of Ireland (from A.D. 440 to 493).50

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  While he was a lecturer at Abd al-Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, one of his pupils was the young Bin Laden. “The life of the Muslim ummah,” Azzam declared, “is solely dependent on the ink of its scholars and the blood of its martyrs.” 6 Scholarship was essential to deepen the ummah’s spirituality, but so was the self-sacrifice of its warriors, since no nation had ever achieved distinction without a strong military. “History does not write its lines, except in blood,” Azzam insisted. “Honor and respect cannot be established except on a foundation of cripples and corpses.” Empires, distinguished peoples, states, and societies cannot be established except with examples. Indeed, those who think that they can change reality or change societies without blood, sacrifices and invalids—without pure innocent souls—do not understand the essence of this din [Islam] and they do not know the method of the best of Messengers. 7 Other Muslim leaders had praised the glory of martyrdom, but none had dwelled so graphically on its violent reality. A community that cannot defend itself, Azzam insisted, will inevitably be dominated by military power. His goal was to create a cadre of scholar-warriors, whose sacrifice would inspire the rest of the ummah. 8 Jihad, he believed, was the Sixth Pillar, on a par with the shehadah, prayer, almsgiving, the Ramadan fast, and hajj. A Muslim who neglected jihad would have to answer to God on the Day of Judgment. 9 Azzam did not make up this theory out of whole cloth. He followed al-Shafii, the eighth-century scholar who had ruled that when the Dar al-Islam was invaded by a foreign power, jihad could become fard ayn, the responsibility of every fit Muslim who lived near the frontier. Modern transport now made it possible for all Muslims to reach the border of Afghanistan, so jihad, Azzam reasoned, was “compulsory upon each and every Muslim on earth.” Once they had liberated Afghanistan, the Arab-Afghans should go on to recover all the other lands wrested from the ummah by non-Muslims—Palestine, Lebanon, Bokhara, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, the Philippines, Burma, South Yemen, Tashkent, and Spain. 10 In his lectures and writings, Azzam depicted the Afghans somewhat idealistically as untouched by the brutal mechanization of modern jahiliyyah; they represented pristine humanity. Fighting the Soviet Goliath, they reminded him of David when he was but a shepherd boy. His tales of the Afghans and Arabs who died as martyrs in this war inspired Muslim audiences worldwide. But Azzam’s martyrs were not suicide bombers or terrorists of any kind. They did not cause their own deaths or kill civilians: they were regular soldiers killed in battle by Soviet troops. Azzam was in fact adamantly opposed to terrorism, and on this point he would eventually part company with Bin Laden and the Egyptian radical Ayman al-Zawahiri. Azzam insistently maintained the orthodox view that killing noncombatants or fellow Muslims like Sadat violated fundamental Islamic teaching.