Anger

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 Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  The rest of the country, he thundered, had no right to require the residents of Deseret to abandon one of their most sacred religious doctrines: “If we introduce the practice of polygamy it is not their prerogative to meddle with it.” The fact that polygamy was a felony everywhere else in the Union did not impress Brigham. In his view the laws of God took precedence over the laws of men—particularly the laws of Gentile men. To this end, in Deseret the Saints installed a legal system of their own singular design, which very cleverly ensured that whenever the two bodies of law clashed, God’s laws would prevail. Because Utah remained a territory rather than a state, legal power was supposed to reside in the federal courts. The Utah Territorial Legislature, dominated by Mormons, got around this insufferable insult by radically expanding the powers of the local probate courts, which Brigham controlled, thereby usurping the jurisdiction of the federal government. Most probate judges were Mormon bishops, and the juries who assembled in their courtrooms were made up almost entirely of good Mormons who obediently based their verdicts on instructions received from church leaders. Federal officials dispatched to Utah to ride herd over the Saints were aghast by what they witnessed, and complained to their superiors in Washington that Brigham had transformed the territory into a theocratic dictatorship. But the majority of these Gentile officials (many of whom were corrupt to the core and had come to Utah intending to enrich themselves on graft) faced such unrelenting harassment that all but two of them eventually fled Utah altogether, fearing that if they stayed they would receive an unannounced visit from Porter Rockwell and turn up dead—which, in fact, happened to an undocumented number of federal agents. A rising chorus of non-Mormon voices declared Brigham to be a dangerous tyrant who wielded absolute power over his followers. One Gentile visitor warned that “on the face of the whole earth there is not another people to be found, so completely under the control of one man.” Brigham was unmoved. As far back as 1851 he had blustered that “any President of the United States who lifts his finger against this people shall die an untimely death and go to hell!” Five years later he was no less ornery, declaring that he intended to make Utah “a sovereign State in the Union, or an independent nation by ourselves, and let them drive us from this place if they can; they cannot do it.” Such rhetoric, on top of ever more numerous reports of Mormon belligerence, alarmed the rest of the nation. The more Washington tried to rein Brigham in, however, the more brazen his insubordination became.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She had caught a particularly gross blasphemy, gross even for this age of stupid blaspheming. ‘Le salaud!’ she shouted, then, inflamed by drink, an epithet even less complimentary. ‘Hush up, do!’ exclaimed the scandalized Pat, hastily gripping Wanda’s shoulder. But Wanda was out to defend her faith, and she did it in somewhat peculiar language. People had begun to turn round and stare; Wanda was causing quite a diversion. Dickie grinned and skilfully egged her on, not perceiving the tragedy that was Wanda. For in spite of her tender and generous heart, Dickie was still but a crude young creature, one who had not yet learnt how to shiver and shake, and had thus remained but a crude young creature. Stephen glanced anxiously at Mary, half deciding to break up this turbulent party; but Mary was sitting with her chin on her hand, quite unruffled, it seemed, by Wanda’s outburst. When her eyes met Stephen’s she actually smiled, then took the cigarette that Jeanne Maurel was offering; and something in this placid, self-assured indifference went so ill with her youth that it startled Stephen. She in her turn must quickly light a cigarette, while Pat still endeavoured to silence Wanda. Valérie said with her enigmatic smile: ‘Shall we now go on to our next entertainment?’ They paid the bill and persuaded Wanda to postpone her abuse of the ingratiating Pujol. Stephen took one arm, Dickie West the other, and between them they coaxed her into the motor; after which they all managed to squeeze themselves in—that is, all except Dickie, who sat by the driver in order to guide the innocent Burton. 3 At le Narcisse they surprised what at first appeared to be the most prosaic of family parties. It was late, yet the mean room was empty of clients, for Le Narcisse seldom opened its eyes until midnight had chimed from the church clocks of Paris. Seated at a table with a red and white cloth were the Patron and a lady with a courtesy title. ‘Madame,’ she was called. And with them was a girl, and a handsome young man with severely plucked eyebrows. Their relationship to each other was . . . well . . . all the same, they suggested a family party. As Stephen pushed open the shabby swing door, they were placidly engaged upon playing belotte. The walls of the room were hung with mirrors thickly painted with cupids, thickly sullied by flies. A faint blend of odours was wafted from the kitchen which stood in proximity to the toilet. The host rose at once and shook hands with his guests.

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

  The Landgrave said to Luther, "You should not take offense at such common expressions." But the agitation was so great that the meeting adjourned to the banqueting hall. The discussion was resumed in the afternoon, and turned on the christological question. I believe, said Luther, that Christ is in heaven, but also in the sacrament, as substantially as he was in the Virgin’s womb. I care not whether it be against nature and reason, provided it be not against faith. Oecolampadius: You deny the metaphor in the words of institution, but you must admit a synecdoche. For Christ does not say, This is bread and my body (as you hold), but simply, This is my body. Luther: A metaphor admits the existence of a sign only; but a synecdoche admits the thing itself, as when I say, the sword is in the scabbard, or the beer in the bottle. Zwingli reasoned: Christ ascended to heaven, therefore he cannot be on earth with his body. A body is circumscribed, and cannot be in several places at once. Luther: I care little about mathematics. The contest grew hotter, without advancing, and was broken up by a call to the repast. The next day, Sunday, Oct. 3, it was renewed. Zwingli maintained that a body could not be in different places at once. Luther quoted the Sophists (the Schoolmen) to the effect that there are different kinds of presence. The universe is a body, and yet not in a particular place. Zwingli: Ah, you speak of the Sophists, doctor! Are you really obliged to return to the onions and fleshpots of Egypt? He then cited from Augustin, who says, "Christ is everywhere present as God; but as to his body, he is in heaven." Luther: You have Augustin and Fulgentius on your side, but we have all the other fathers. Augustin was young when he wrote the passage you quote, and he is obscure. We must believe the old teachers only so far as they agree with the Word of God. Oecolampadius: We, too, build on the Word of God, not on the fathers; but we appeal to them to show that we teach no novelties.874 Luther, pointing again his finger to the words on the table: This is our text: you have not yet driven us from it. We care for no other proof. Oecolampadius: If this is the case, we had better close the discussion. The chancellor exhorted them to come to an understanding. Luther: There is only one way to that. Let our adversaries believe as we do. The Swiss: We cannot. Luther: Well, then, I abandon you to God’s judgment, and pray that he will enlighten you. Oecolampadius: We will do the same. You need it as much as we.

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

  Not satisfied with this, he applied to the secular arm for help, and procured from the weak Western emperor, Valentinian III., an edict to Aetius, the magister militum of Gaul, in which it is asserted, almost in the words of Leo, that the whole world (universitas; in Greek, oijkoumevnh) acknowledges the Roman see as director and governor; that neither Hilary nor any bishop might oppose its commands; that neither Gallican nor other bishops should, contrary to the ancient custom, do anything without the authority of the venerable pope of the eternal city; and that all decrees of the pope have the force of law. The letter of Leo to the Gallican churches, and the edict of the emperor, give us the first example of a defensive and offensive alliance of the central spiritual and temporal powers in the pursuit of an unlimited sovereignty. The edict, however, could of course have power, at most, only in the West, to which the authority of Valentinian was limited. In fact, even Hilary and his successors maintained, in spite of Leo, the prerogatives they had formerly received from Pope Zosimus, and were confirmed in them by later popes.546 Beyond this the issue of the contest is unknown. Hilary of Arles died in 449, universally esteemed and loved, without, so far as we know, having become formally reconciled with Rome;547 though, notwithstanding this, he figures in a remarkable manner in the Roman calendar, by the side of his papal antagonist Leo, as a canonical saint. Undoubtedly Leo proceeded in this controversy far too rigorously and intemperately against Hilary; yet it was important that he should hold fast the right of appeal as a guarantee of the freedom of bishops against the encroachments of metropolitans. The papal despotism often proved itself a wholesome check upon the despotism of subordinate prelates. With Northern Gaul the Roman bishops came into less frequent contact; yet in this region also there occur, in the fourth and fifth centuries, examples of the successful assertion of their jurisdiction. The early British church held from the first a very isolated position, and was driven back, by the invasion of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, about the middle of

• From Trash (1988)

  I had been grown and out of the house before one of the Greenwood cousins had told it so I understood, and as much as I’d hated him then, I’d raged at them more. “You let him live?” I’d screamed at them. “He did that to her and you did nothing! You did nothing to him, nothing for her.” “What’d you want us to do?” My Aunt Grace had laughed at me. “You want us to cut him up and feed him to the river? What good would that have done her or her children?” She’d shaken her head, and they had all stared at me as if I were still a child and didn’t understand the way the world was. The cold had gone through me then, as if the river were running up from my bowels. I’d felt my hands curl up and reach, but there was nothing to reach for. I’d taken hold of myself, my insides, and tried desperately to voice the terror that was tearing at me. “But to leave her with him after he did that, to just let it stand, to let him get away with it.” I’d reached and reached, trying to get to them, to make them feel the wave moving up and through me. “It’s like all of it, all you let them get away with.” “Them?” My mama had watched my face as if afraid of what she might find there. “Who do you mean? And what do you think we could do?” I couldn’t say it. I’d stared into Mama’s face, and looked from her to all of them, to those wide, sturdy cheekbones, those high, proud eyebrows, those set and terrible mouths. I had always thought of them as mountains, mountains that everything conspired to grind but never actually broke. The women of my family were all I had ever believed in. What was I if they were not what I had shaped them in my own mind? All I had known was that I had to get away from them—all of them—the men who could do those terrible things and the women who would let it happen to you. I’d never forgiven any of them. It might have been more than three months since I had talked to Mama on the telephone. It had been far longer than that since I had been able to really talk to any of them. The deepest part of me didn’t believe that I would ever be able to do so. I dropped my eyes and pulled myself away from Aunt Alma’s steady gaze. I wanted to reach for her, touch her, maybe cry with her, if she’d let me. “People will hurt you more with pity than with hate,” she’d always told me. “I can hate back, or laugh at them, but goddamn the son of a bitch that hands me pity.”

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  this, she says, “I went wild. I’d seen him take so many women’s children away from them, and I wasn’t going to let him take Sharon. I went straight down to Winston’s house and confronted him. He was in bed. I stormed into his bedroom and started screaming that there was no way he was going to get Sharon.” Debbie vividly remembers the reaction this provoked in Winston, who was unaccustomed to having a woman disobey him. “He issued a clear, unmistakable threat,” she says. “This cold look came into Winston’s eyes and he told me, ‘You might want to be careful. . . . I’ve got at least six boys who will rearrange your face if I just give them the word.’” Debbie stood her ground. “Sharon will come here and live with you,” she vowed, “only over my dead body.” And then she walked out and went home. By this point Winston had moved Michelle and Marlene out of Michael’s house and was haranguing Debbie to vacate the premises as well, so that he could take possession of it. “Every single day Winston would come to the door and yell at me,” Debbie remembers. “He’d shout, ‘You have to leave! You have to leave NOW!’ But I didn’t have anywhere to go. Except my dad’s house. And I couldn’t go back there. Not after what had happened with him.” Mustering her mulish resolve, each time Winston showed up Debbie would let him rant, then silently wait for him to leave. She refused to move out. Her obstinacy enraged him. Alone in Michael’s big house with her kids, Debbie thought about women who had summoned the courage to leave Bountiful. On many occasions over the years, Winston, Uncle Roy, and Uncle Rulon had warned that those foolish enough to forsake the religion would be “cast into outer darkness and ground into native element.” They would end up walking the streets as whores, selling their bodies to dirty Gentiles, damned until the end of time. Debbie had never doubted that this was exactly what happened to all those who left Bountiful and abandoned the faith. More and more, however, the behavior of some of her brethren within the religion struck her as anything but righteous. Debbie was finding it increasingly difficult to believe that God made his will known through the commandments of self-proclaimed prophets like the leaders of the UEP. She discovered herself trying to “unravel where God stops and men begin.” The prospect of abandoning everything she believed to be true about the world and her place in it was a terrifying intellectual leap to make, she says, “but I knew I must take

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

  diocese it was located, to assert supervisory authority. The bull of Innocent IV., issued 1254, was the nearest approach to a papal charter and confirmed the university in its "immunities and ancient customs." In 1201 a chancellor is mentioned for the first time. From the beginning this official seems to have been elected by the university. He originally held his office for a term of two years. At the present time the chancellor is an honorary dignitary who does not pretend to reside in Oxford. In 1395, the university was exempted by papal bull from all control of bishops or legati nati. This decree was revoked in 1411 in consequence of the disturbances with Wyclif and his followers, but, in 1490, Sixtus IV. again renewed the exemption from ecclesiastical authority. The university was constantly having conflicts with the town and its authorities. The most notable one occurred in 1354. As usual, it originated in a tavern brawl, the keeper of the place being supported not only by his fellow-townsmen but by thousands from the neighboring country.1308 The chancellor fled. The friars brought out the host and placed it between the combatants, but it was crushed to the earth and a scholar put to death while he was clinging to the friar who held it. Much blood was shed. The townsmen, bent upon paying off old scores, broke into twenty college inns and halls and pillaged them. Even the sanctity of the churches was not respected, and the scholars were hunted down who sought shelter in them. The students left the city. The chancellor appealed the case to the king, and through his authority and the spiritual authority of the bishop the town corporation was forced to make reparation. The place was put under interdict for a year. Officials were punished and restitution of goods to the students was made. The interdict was withdrawn only on condition that the mayor, bailiffs, and sixty burghers should appear in St. Mary’s church on the anniversary of the breaking out of the riot, St. Scholastica’s day, and do penance for the slaughtered students, each burgher laying down a penny on the high altar, the sum to be divided equally between poor students and the curate. It was not till 1825, that the university agreed to forego the spectacle of this annual penance which had been kept up for nearly five centuries. Not for several years did the university assume its former aspect.1309 Among the students themselves peace did not always reign. The Irish contingent was banished, 1413, by act of parliament for turbulence.1310 The arrival of the Dominicans and Franciscans, as has been said in other places, was an event of very great interest at Oxford, but they never attained to the independent power they reached in Paris. They were followed by the Carmelites, the Augustinians, and other orders.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Certes, I confess that they jumble a wench's furbelows more briskly; but those more in years, being men of experience, know better where the fleas stick, and little meat and savoury is far and away rather to be chosen than much and insipid, more by token that hard trotting undoth and wearieth folk, how young soever they be, whereas easy going, though belike it bring one somewhat later to the inn, at the least carrieth him thither unfatigued. You women perceive not, animals without understanding that you are, how much ill lieth hid under this scantling of fair seeming. Young fellows are not content with one woman; nay, as many as they see, so many do they covet and of so many themseemeth they are worthy; wherefore their love cannot be stable, and of this thou mayst presently of thine own experience bear very true witness. Themseemeth they are worthy to be worshipped and caressed of their mistresses and they have no greater glory than to vaunt them of those whom they have had; the which default of theirs hath aforetime cast many a woman into the arms of the monks, who tell no tales. Albeit thou sayst that never did any know of thine amours, save thy maid and myself, thou knowest it ill and believest awry, an thou think thus. His[389] quarter talketh well nigh of nothing else, and thine likewise; but most times the last to whose ears such things come is he to whom they pertain. Young men, to boot, despoil you, whereas it is given you[390] of men of riper years. Since, then, thou hast ill chosen, be thou his to whom thou gavest thyself and leave me, of whom thou madest mock, to others, for that I have found a mistress of much more account than thou, who hath been wise enough to know me better than thou didst. And that thou mayst carry into the other world greater assurance of the desire of mine eyes than meseemeth thou gatherest from my words, do but cast thyself down forthright and thy soul, being, as I doubt not it will be, straightway received into the arms of the devil, will be able to see if mine eyes be troubled or not at seeing thee fall headlong. But, as medoubteth thou wilt not consent to do me so much pleasure, I counsel thee, if the sun begin to scorch thee, remember thee of the cold thou madest me suffer, which an thou mingle with the heat aforesaid, thou wilt without fail feel the sun attempered.'

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  return to Jackson County. Joseph deplored violence, and for the better part of five years he forbade the Mormons to retaliate, even though the attacks against them continued. But by the summer and fall of 1838, the tension between Gentiles and the ten thousand Saints who were by then in Missouri reached critical mass. In 1836 the Missouri legislature, hoping to relocate the Saints in an out-of-the- way place that would forestall bloodshed, had designated sparsely populated Caldwell County as a zone of Mormon settlement, prompting most of the Saints in Missouri to move there from adjacent, less-welcoming counties. By 1838 the Mormons had purchased some 250,000 acres in Caldwell County from the federal government and built a thriving town they christened Far West. At first the exodus to Caldwell County seemed to defuse the tension between Mormons and Gentiles. But in the summer of 1838 trouble erupted in neighboring Daviess County, where Mormons had spilled over the county line and begun establishing large new settlements. August 6 was Election Day in Missouri. That morning after the polls opened in Gallatin, the Daviess county seat, a Whig candidate for the state legislature, William Peniston, climbed on top of a barrel and bellowed to the rabble that Mormons were “horse thieves, liars, counterfeiters, and dupes.” Hoping to prevent the thirty or so Mormons present from casting their ballots, another Missourian then loudly opined that Mormons should no more have the right to vote “than the niggers.” The incendiary rhetoric provoked a drunk Missourian to beat up a diminutive Mormon shoemaker named Samuel Brown. When other Mormons came to Brown’s aid, a vicious brawl broke out. Wielding clubs, rocks, whips, and knives, the badly outnumbered Saints managed to overcome the Missourians and drive them off, leaving dozens of their foes severely wounded. But it was a Pyrrhic victory. The enraged citizens of Gallatin vowed to pay the Mormons back in kind. Over the next two months, Missourians launched a campaign of harassment and violence against the Mormon residents of Daviess County, forcing most of them from their homes. Finally, on October 14 in Far West, Joseph assembled several hundred of his followers in the town square and urged them to fight back. Seething, the prophet declared:

• From Trash (1988)

  The phrase had been applied to me and to my family in crude and hateful ways. I took it on deliberately, as I had “dyke”—though I have to acknowledge that what I heard as a child was more often the phrase “white trash.” As an adult I saw all too clearly the look that would cross the face of any black woman in the room when that particular term was spoken. It was like a splash of cold water, and I saw the other side of the hatefulness in the words. It took me right back to being a girl and hearing the uncles I so admired spew racist bile and callous homophobic insults. Some phrases cannot be reclaimed. I gave that one up and took up the simpler honorific. By my twenties, that was what I heard most often anyway. Even rednecks get sensitized to insults, abandon some and cultivate others. I have not been called white trash in two decades, but only a couple years ago, I heard myself referred to as “that trash” in a motel corridor in the central valley in California. In 1988, I titled this short story collection Trash to confront the term and to claim it honorific. In 2002, Trash still suits me, even though I live over here in California among people who are almost postconscious. In Sonoma County it makes more sense to call myself a Zen redneck, or just a dyke mama. What it comes down to is that I use “trash” to raise the issue of who the term glorifies as well as who it disdains. There are not simple or direct answers on any of these questions, and it is far harder to be sure your audience understands the textured lay of what you are doing—specially if you are in Northern California rather than Louisiana, and in 2002 rather than 1988. And of course these days I feel like there is a nation of us—displaced southerners and children of the working class. We listen to Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, and k.d. lang. We devour paperback novels and tell evil mean stories, value stubbornness above patience and a sense of humor more than a college education. We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained. And let me promise you, you do not want to make us angry. Dorothy Allison Guerneville, California, 2002 River of Names A t a picnic at my aunt’s farm, the only time the whole family ever gathered, my sister Billie and I chased chickens into the barn. Billie ran right through the open doors and out again, but I stopped, caught by a shadow moving over me. My Cousin Tommy, eight years old as I was, swung in the sunlight with his face as black as his shoes—the rope around his neck pulled up into the sunlit heights of the barn, fascinating, horrible.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But in spite of this resentment Stephen must go, for now an insistent urge was upon her, the urge to unburden her weary mind of the many problems surrounding inversion. Like most inverts she found a passing relief in discussing the intolerable situation; in dissecting it ruthlessly bit by bit, even though she arrived at no solution; but since Jamie’s death it did not seem wise to dwell too much on this subject with Mary. On the other hand, Valérie was now quite free, having suddenly tired of Jeanne Maurel, and moreover she was always ready to listen. Thus it was that between them a real friendship sprang up—a friendship founded on mutual respect, if not always on mutual understanding. Stephen would again and again go over those last heart-rending days with Barbara and Jamie, railing against the outrageous injustice that had led to their tragic and miserable ending. She would clench her hands in a kind of fury. How long was this persecution to continue? How long would God sit still and endure this insult offered to His creation? How long tolerate the preposterous statement that inversion was not a part of nature? For since it existed what else could it be? All things that existed were a part of nature! But with equal bitterness she would speak of the wasted lives of such creatures as Wanda, who beaten down into the depths of the world, gave the world the very excuse it was seeking for pointing at them an accusing finger. Pretty bad examples they were, many of them, and yet —but for an unforeseen accident of birth, Wanda might even now have been a great painter. And then she would discuss very different people whom she had been led to believe existed; hard-working, honourable men and women, but a few of them possessed of fine brains, yet lacking the courage to admit their inversion. Honourable, it seemed, in all things save this that the world had forced on them—this dishonourable lie whereby alone they could hope to find peace, could hope to stake out a claim on existence. And always these people must carry that lie like a poisonous asp pressed against their bosoms; must unworthily hide and deny their love, which might well be the finest thing about them. And what of the women who had worked in the war—those quiet, gaunt women she had seen about London? England had called them and they had come; for once, unabashed, they had faced the daylight. And now because they were not prepared to slink back and hide in their holes and corners, the very public whom they had served was the first to turn round and spit upon them; to cry: ‘Away with this canker in our midst, this nest of unrighteousness and corruption!’ That was the gratitude they had received for the work they had done out of love for England!

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘ He needn’t apologize,’ Stephen smiled, ‘ he’s all right, he’s an Irish water-spaniel, though what he’s doing out here the Lord knows; I’ve never seen one before in Paris.’ They fed him, and later that afternoon they gave him a bath in Stephen’s bathroom. The result of that bath, which was dis- concerting as far as the room went, they left to Adéle. The room was a bog, but Mary’s rescue had emerged a mass of chocolate ringlets, all save his charming plush-covered face, and his curious tail, which was curved like a sickle. Then they bound the sore pad and took him downstairs; after which Mary wanted to know all about him, so Stephen unearthed an illustrated dog book from a cupboard under the study bookcase. ‘Oh, look!’ exclaimed Mary, reading over her shoulder, ‘ He’s not Irish at all, he’s really a Welshman: “ We find in the Welsh laws of Howell Dda the first reference to this intelligent spaniel. The Iberians brought the breed to Ireland. . . .” Of course, that’s why he followed me home; he knew I was Welsh the moment he saw me!’ Stephen laughed: ‘ Yes, his hair grows up from a peak like yours — it must be a national failing. Well, what shall we call him? His name’s important; it ought to be quite short.’ ‘ David,’ said Mary. The dog looked gravely from one to the other for a moment, 382 THE WELL OF LONELINESS then he lay down at Mary’s feet, dropping his chin on his bandaged paw, and closing his eyes with a grunt of contentment. And so it had suddenly come to pass that they who had lately been two, were now three. There were Stephen and Mary — there was also David. CHAPTER 42 I T October there arose the first dark cloud. It drifted over to Paris from England, for Anna wrote asking Stephen to Mor- ton but with never a mention of Mary Llewellyn. Not that she ever did mention their friendship in her letters, indeed she com- pletely ignored it; yet this invitation which excluded the girl seemed to Stephen an intentional slight upon Mary. A hot flush of anger spread up to her brow as she read and re-read her mother’s brief letter: ‘I want to discuss some important points regarding the man- agement of the estate. As the place will eventually come to you, I think we should try to keep more in touch. . . . Then a list of the points Anna wished to discuss; they seemed very trifling indeed to Stephen. She put the letter away in a drawer and sat staring darkly out of the window. In the garden Mary was talking to David, per- suading him not to retrieve the pigeons. ‘If my mother had invited her ten times over I’d never have taken her to Morton,’ Stephen muttered.

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

  Take the opening sentence: "To Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli wishes grace and peace from God through Jesus Christ the living Son of God, who, for our salvation, suffered death, and then left this world in his body and ascended to heaven, where he sits until he shall return on the last day, according to his own word, so that you may know that he dwells in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17), and not by bodily eating through the mouth, as thou wouldest teach without God’s Word." Towards the end he says, with reference to Luther’s attack upon Bucer: "Christ teaches us to return good for evil. Antichrist reverses the maxim, and you have followed him by abusing the pious and learned Bucer for translating and spreading your books .... Dear Luther, I humbly beseech you not to be so furious in this matter as heretofore. If you are Christ’s, so are we. It behooves us to contend only with the Word of God, and to observe Christian self- control. We must not fight against God, nor cloak our errors by his Word. God grant unto you the knowledge of truth, and of thyself, that you may remain Luther, and not become louvtrion.853 The truth will prevail. Amen." Oecolampadius wrote likewise a book in self-defense.854 Luther now came out, in March, 1528, with his Great "Confession on the Lord’s Supper," which he intended to be his last word in this controversy.855 It is his most elaborate treatise on the eucharist, full of force and depth, but also full of wrath. He begins again with the Devil, and rejoices that he had provoked his fury by the defense of the holy sacrament. He compares the writings of his opponents to venomous adders. I shall waste, he says, no more paper on their mad lies and nonsense, lest the Devil might be made still more furious. May the merciful God convert them, and deliver them from the bonds of Satan! I can do no more. A heretic we must reject, after the first and second admonition (Tit. 3:10). Nevertheless, he proceeds to an elaborate assault on the Devil and his fanatical crew. The "Confession" is divided into three parts. The first is a refutation of the arguments of Zwingli and Oecolampadius; the second, an explanation of the passages which treat of the Lord’s Supper; the third, a statement of all the articles of his faith, against old and new heresies. He devotes much space to a defense of the ubiquity of Christ’s body, which he derives from the unity of the two natures. He calls to aid the scholastic distinction between three modes of presence,—local, definitive, and repletive.856 He calls Zwingli’s alloeosis "a mask of the Devil." He concludes with these words: "This is my faith, the faith of all true Christians, as taught in the Holy Scriptures.

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

  instruction of Melanchthon for the visitation of the churches of Saxony (1528). A third disputation, of a more private character, was held Jan. 20, 1524. The advocates of the mass were refuted and ordered not to resist any longer the decisions of the magistracy, though they might adhere to their faith. During the last disputation, Zwingli preached a sermon on the corrupt state of the clergy, which he published by request in March, 1524, under the title "The Shepherd."101 He represents Christ as the good Shepherd in contrast with the selfish hirelings, according to the parable in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John. Among the false shepherds he counts the bishops who do not preach at all; those priests who teach their own dreams instead of the Word of God; those who preach the Word but for the glorification of popery; those who deny their preaching by their conduct; those who preach for filthy lucre; and, finally, all who mislead men away from the Creator to the creature. Zwingli treats the papists as refined idolaters, and repeatedly denounces idolatry as the root of the errors and abuses of the Church. During the summer of 1524 the answers of the bishops and the Diet appeared, both in opposition to any innovations. The bishop of Constance, in a letter to Zurich, said that he had consulted several universities; that the mass and the images were sufficiently warranted by the Scriptures, and had always been in use. The canton appointed a commission of clergymen and laymen to answer the episcopal document.102 The Swiss Diet, by a deputation, March 21, 1524, expressed regret that Zurich sympathized with the new, unchristian Lutheran religion, and prayed the canton to remain faithful to old treaties and customs, in which case the confederates would cheerfully aid in rooting out real abuses, such as the shameful trade in benefices, the selling of indulgences, and the scandalous lives of the clergy. Thus forsaken by the highest ecclesiastical and civil authorities, the canton of Zurich acted on its own responsibility, and carried out the contemplated reforms. The three disputations mark an advance beyond the usual academic disputations in the Latin language. They were held before laymen as well as clergymen, and in the vernacular. They brought religious questions before the tribunal of the people according to the genius of republican institutions. They had, therefore, more practical effect than the disputation at Leipzig. The German Reformation was decided by the will of the princes; the Swiss Reformation, by the will of the people: but in both cases there was a sympathy between the rulers and the majority of the population. § 19. The Abolition of the Roman Worship. 1524. Bullinger, I. 173 sqq. Füssli, I. 142 sqq. Egli, 234 sqq. By these preparatory measures, public opinion was prepared for the practical application of the new ideas. The old order of worship had to be abolished before the new order could be introduced. The destruction was radical, but orderly.

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  The five Forest Cantons—Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Luzern, and Zug—formed a defensive and offensive league (November, 1528; the preparations began in 1527), and even entered, first secretly, then openly, into an alliance with Ferdinand Duke of Austria and King of Bohemia and Hungary (April, 1529). This alliance with the old hereditary enemy of Switzerland, whom their ancestors had defeated in glorious battles, was treasonable and a step towards the split of the confederacy in two hostile camps (which was repeated in 1846). King Ferdinand had a political and religious interest in the division of Switzerland and fostered it. Freiburg, Wallis, and Solothurn sided with the Catholic Cantons, and promised aid in case of war. The Protestant Cantons, led by Zürich (which made the first step in this direction) formed a Protestant league under the name of the Christian co-burghery (Burgrecht) with the cities of Constance (Dec. 25, 1527), Biel and Mühlhausen (1529), and Strassburg (Jan. 9, 1530).258 Zwingli, provoked by the burning of Kaiser, and seeing the war clouds gathering all around, favored prompt action, which usually secures a great advantage in critical moments. He believed in the necessity of war; while Luther put his sole trust in the Word of God, although he stirred up the passions of war by his writings, and had himself the martyr’s courage to go to the stake. Zwingli was a free republican; while Luther was a loyal monarchist. He belonged to the Cromwellian type of men who "trust in God and keep their powder dry." In him the reformer, the statesman, and the patriot were one. He appealed to the examples of Joshua and Gideon, forgetting the difference between the Old and the New dispensation. "Let us be firm," he wrote to his peace-loving friends in Bern (May 30, 1529), "and fear not to take up arms. This peace, which some desire so much, is not peace, but war; while the war that we call for, is not war, but peace. We thirst for no man’s blood, but we will cut the nerves of the oligarchy. If we shun it, the truth of the gospel and the ministers’ lives will never be secure among us."259 Zürich was first ready for the conflict and sent four thousand well-equipped soldiers to Cappel, a village with a Cistercian convent, in the territory of Zürich on the frontier of the Canton Zug.260 Smaller detachments were located at Bremgarten, and on the frontier of Schwyz, Basel, St. Gall. Mühlhausen furnished auxiliary troops. Bern sent five thousand men, but with orders to act only in self-defence. Zwingli accompanied the main force to Cappel. "When my brethren expose their lives," he said to the burgomaster, who wished to keep him back, "I will not remain quiet at home.

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  far. You are aware that the Papists have corrupted the worship of God in a thousand ways. Several of those things which you consider indifferent are obviously repugnant to the Word of God .... You ought not to have made such large concessions to the Papists .... At the time when circumcision was yet lawful, do you not see that Paul, because crafty and malicious fowlers were laying snares for the liberty of believers, pertinaciously refused to concede to them a ceremony at the first instituted by God? He boasts that he did not yield to them,—no, not for an hour,—that the truth of God might remain intact among the Gentiles (Gal. 2:5) .... I remind you of what I once said to you, that we consider our ink too precious if we hesitate to bear testimony in writing to those things which so many of the flock are daily sealing with their blood .... The trepidation of a general is more dishonorable than the flight of a whole herd of private soldiers .... You alone, by only giving way a little, will cause more complaints and sighs than would a hundred ordinary individuals by open desertion. And, although I am fully persuaded that the fear of death never compelled you in the very least to swerve from the right path, yet I am apprehensive that it is just possible that another species of fear may have proved too much for your courage. For I know how much you are horrified at the charge of rude severity. But we should remember that reputation must not be accounted by the servants of Christ as of more value than life. We are no better than Paul was, who remained fearlessly on his way through ’evil and good report.’ ... You know why I am so vehement. I had rather die with you a hundred times than see you survive the doctrines surrendered by you .... "Pardon me for loading your breast with these miserable though ineffectual groans. Adieu, most illustrious sir, and ever worthy of my hearty regard. May the Lord continue to guide you by his Spirit, and sustain you by his might. May his protection guard you. Amen." We have here a repetition of the scene between Paul and Peter at Antioch, concerning the rite of circumcision; and while we admire the frankness and boldness of Paul and Calvin in rebuking an elder brother, and standing up for principle, we must also admire the meekness and humility of Peter and Melanchthon in bearing the censure. Melanchthon himself, after a brief interruption, reopened the correspondence in the old friendly spirit, during the disturbances of war between Elector Maurice and the Emperor Charles, which made an end of the controversy about the Adiaphora. "How often," wrote Melanchthon, Oct. 1, 1552,572 "would I have written to you, reverend sir and dearest brother, if I could find more trustworthy letter- carriers.

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  He showed that the first Christian emperors claimed for themselves the cognizance and trial of heresies, and that their laws and constitutions condemned antitrinitarian heretics and blasphemers to death. He charged him with falsehood in declaring that he had written against the Anabaptists, and that he had not communicated his doctrine to any person during the last thirty years. The counsel asked for was refused because it was forbidden by the criminal statutes (1543), and because there was "not one jot of apparent innocence which requires an attorney." The very thing to be proved! A new examination followed which elicited some points of interest. Servetus stated his belief that the Reformation would progress much further than Luther and Calvin intended, and that new things were always first rejected, but afterwards received. To the absurd charge of making use of the Koran, he replied that he had quoted it for the glory of Christ, that the Koran abounds in what is good, and that even in a wicked book one may find some good things. On the last day of August the Little Council received answer from Vienne. The commandant of the royal palace in that city arrived in Geneva, communicated to them a copy of the sentence of death pronounced against Villeneuve, and begged them to send him back to France that the sentence might be executed on the living man as it had been already executed on his effigy and books. The Council refused to surrender Servetus, in accordance with analogous cases, but promised to do full justice. The prisoner himself, who could see only a burning funeral pile for him in Vienne, preferred to be tried in Geneva, where he had some chance of acquittal or lighter punishment. He incidentally justified his habit of attending mass at Vienne by the example of Paul, who went to the temple, like the Jews; yet he confessed that in doing so he had sinned through fear of death.1181 The communication from Vienne had probably the influence of stimulating the zeal of the Council for orthodoxy. They wished not to be behind the Roman Church in that respect. But the issue was still uncertain. The Council again confronted Servetus with Calvin on the first day of September. On the same day it granted, in spite of the strong protest of Calvin, permission to Philibert Berthelier to approach the communion table. It thus annulled the act of excommunication by the Consistory, and arrogated to itself the power of ecclesiastical discipline. A few hours afterwards the investigation was resumed in the prison. Perrin and Berthelier were present as judges, and came to the aid of Servetus in the oral debate with Calvin, but, it seems, without success; for they resorted to a written discussion in which Servetus could better defend himself, and in which Calvin might complicate his already critical position.

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  11:29, 30, and urged the Lutherans to resist the progress of the Zwinglian or, as it was now called, Calvinistic heresy.962 The style and taste of his polemic may be inferred from his calling Bullinger "the bull of Zürich," Calvin "the calf of Geneva," and à Lasco "the Polish bear." About the same time, in the autumn and winter of 1553, John à Lasco, a Polish nobleman, a friend of Calvin, and minister of a foreign Reformed congregation in London, fled with one hundred and seventy-five Protestants from persecution under the bloody Mary, and sought shelter on Danish and German shores; but was refused even a temporary refuge in cold winter at Helsingör, Copenhagen, Rostock, Lübeck, and Hamburg (though they found it at last in East Friesland). Westphal denounced these noble men as martyrs of the devil, enraged the people against them, and gloried in the inhuman cruelty as an act of faith.963 This conduct roused the Swiss to self-defence. Bullinger vindicated the orthodoxy of the Zürich ministry with his usual moderation. Calvin heard of the treatment of the refugees through a letter of Peter Martyr, then at Strassburg, in May, 1554, and took up his sharp and racy pen in three successive pamphlets. He at first wished to issue a joint remonstrance of the Swiss Churches, and sent a hasty draft to Bullinger. But Zürich, Basel, and Bern found it too severe, and refused to sign it. He corrected the draft, and published it in his own name under the title "Defence of the Sound and Orthodox Doctrine on the Sacraments," as laid down in the Consensus Tigurinus (Geneva, 1555). He treated Westphal with sovereign contempt, without naming him. Westphal replied in a tract thrice as large, complaining of the unworthy treatment, denying the intention of disturbing the peace of the Church, but repeating his charges against the Sacramentarians.964 Calvin, after some hesitation, prepared a "Second Defence," now openly directed "contra Westphali calumnias," and published it, with a preface to the Churches of Germany, in January, 1556. Westphal replied in two writings, one against Calvin and one against à Lasco, and sent letters to the leading cities of North Germany, urging them to unite in an orthodox Lutheran Confession against the Zürich Consensus. He received twenty-five responses, and issued them at Magdeburg, 1557. He also reprinted Melanchthon’s former opinions on the real presence (Hamburg, 1557). To meet these different assaults Calvin issued his "Last Admonition to Westphal" (1557). Westphal continued the controversy, but Calvin kept silent and handed him over to Beza. Besides these main contestants several others took part in the fight: on the Lutheran side, Timan, Schnepf, Alberus, Gallus, Judex, Brenz, Andreae, etc.; on the Reformed side, à Lasco, Ochino, Polanus, Bibliander, and Beza. Calvin indignantly rebuked the "rude and barbarous insults" to persecuted members of Christ, and characterized the ultra-Lutherans as men who would rather have peace with the Turks and Papists than with Swiss Christians. He called them "apes of Luther." He triumphantly vindicated against

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  At last Servetus himself broke off his correspondence with Calvin, who, it seems, had long ceased to answer them, but he now addressed his colleagues. He wrote three letters to Abel Poupin, who was minister at Geneva from 1543 to 1556, when he died. The last is preserved, and was used in evidence at the trial.1083 It is not dated, but must have been written in 1548 or later. Servetus charges the Reformed Christians of Geneva that they had a gospel without a God, without true faith, without good works; and that instead of the true God they worshipped a three-headed Cerberus. "Your faith in Christ," he continues, "is a mere pretence and without effect; your man is an inert trunk, and your God a fabulous monster of the enslaved will. You reject baptismal regeneration and shut the kingdom of heaven against men. Woe unto you, woe, woe!"1084 He concludes this remarkable letter with the prediction that he would die for this cause and become like unto his Master.1085

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  Interim Adultero-Germanum: Cui adjecta est vera Christianae pacificationis et ecclesiae reformandae ratio, per Joannem Calvinum. Cavete a fermento Pharisaeorum, 1549. Opera, VII. 541–674.—It was reprinted in Germany, and translated into French (1549) and Italian (1561). See Henry, II. 369 sqq.; III. Beilage, 211 sq.; Dyer, 232 sq. On the Interim, comp. the German Histories of Ranke, (V. 25 sqq.) and Janssen (III. 625 sqq.), and the monograph of Ludwig Pastor (Rom. Cath.): Die kirchlichen Reunionsbestrebungen während der Regierung Karls V. Freiburg, 1879, pp. 357 sqq. Calvin’s tract on the false German Interim is closely connected with his criticism of the Council of Trent. After defeating the Smalkaldian League, the Emperor imposed on the Protestants in Germany a compromise confession of faith to be used till the final decision of the General Council. It was drawn up by two Roman Catholic bishops, Pflug (an Erasmian) and Helding, with the aid of John Agricola, the chaplain of Elector Joachim II. of Brandenburg. Agricola was a vain, ambitious, and unreliable man, who had once been a secretary and table companion of Luther, but fell out with him and Melanchthon in the Antinomian controversy. He was suspected of having been bribed by the Catholics.884 The agreement was laid before the Diet of Augsburg, and is called the Augsburg Interim. It was proclaimed, with an earnest exhortation, by the Emperor, May 15, 1548. It comprehended the whole Roman Catholic system of doctrine and discipline, but in a mild and conciliatory form, and without an express condemnation of the Protestant views. The doctrine of justification was stated in substantial agreement with that of the Council of Trent. The seven sacraments, transubstantiation, the mass, the invocation of the saints, the authority of the pope, and all the important ceremonies, were to be retained. The only concession made to the Protestants was the use of the cup by the laity in the holy communion, and the permission for married priests to retain their wives. The arrangement suited the views of the Emperor, who, as Ranke remarks, wished to uphold the Catholic hierarchy as the basis of his power, and yet to make it possible for Protestants to be reconciled to him. It is very evident that the adoption of such a confession was a virtual surrender of the cause of the Reformation and would have ended in a triumph of the papacy. The Interim was received with great indignation by the Protestants, and was rejected in Hesse, ducal Saxony, and the Northern cities, especially in