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.

Page 141 of 447 · 20 per page

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  steely resolution and certitude, the fanaticism they themselves displayed, and the willingness to use violence in a spiritual cause. To internationalize Africa, he employed African methods – plus, of course, imperial military technology. When Augustine became a bishop in the mid-390s, the Donatist church was huge, flourishing, wealthy and deeply rooted. Even after a long bout of imperial persecution, inspired by Augustine, the Donatists were still able to produce nearly 300 bishops for the final attempt at compromise at Carthage in 411, Thereafter, in the course of the two decades before Vandals overran the littoral, the back of the Donatist church was broken by force. Its upper-class supporters joined the establishment. Many of its rank and file were driven into outlawry and brigandage. There were many cases of mass suicide. Augustine watched the process dry-eyed. Of course the times were horrific. The late empire was a totalitarian state, in some ways an oriental despotism. Antinomial elements were punished with massive force. State torture, supposedly used only in serious cases such as treason, was in fact employed whenever the State willed. Jerome describes horrible tortures inflicted on a woman accused of adultery. A vestal virgin who broke her vows might be flogged, then buried alive. The state prisons were equipped with the eculeus, or rack; and a variety of devices including unci, for laceration, red-hot plates and whips loaded with lead. Ammianus gives many instances. And the State, to enforce uniformity, employed a large and venal force of secret policemen dressed as civilians, and informers, or delators. Much of the terminology of the late-imperial police system passed into the language of European enforcement, through the Latin phrases of the Inquisition. Augustine was the conduit from the ancient world. Why not? he would ask. If the State used such methods for its own miserable purposes, was not the Church entitled to do the same and more for its own far greater ones? He not only accepted, he became the theorist of, persecution; and his defences were later to be those on which all defences of the Inquisition rested. We must not imagine that Augustine was necessarily a cruel man. Like many later inquisitors, he disliked unnecessary violence and refinements of torture. He thought heretics should be examined ‘not by stretching them on the rack, not by scorching them with flames or furrowing their flesh with iron claws, but by beating them with rods’. He deplored, too, the dishonesty of using paid informers and agents provocateurs. But he insisted that the use of force in the pursuit of Christian unity,

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Collins picked up the hand and stared at it. ‘Oh, my!’ she exclaimed, ‘what very dirty nails!’ Whereupon their owner flushed painfully crimson and dashed upstairs to repair them . ‘Put them scissors down this minute, Miss Stephen!’ came the nurse’s peremptory voice, while her charge was still busily engaged on her toilet. But Stephen said firmly: ‘I’m cleaning my nails ’cause Collins doesn’t like them—she says they’re dirty!’ ‘What impudence!’ snapped the nurse, thoroughly annoyed. ‘I’ll thank her to mind her own business!’ Having finally secured the large cutting-out scissors, Mrs. Bingham went forth in search of the offender; she was not one to tolerate any interference with the dignity of her status. She found Collins still on the top flight of stairs, and forthwith she started to upbraid her: ‘putting her back in her place,’ the nurse called it; and she did it so thoroughly that in less than five minutes the ‘second-of-three’ had been told of every fault that was likely to preclude promotion. Stephen stood still in the nursery doorway. She could feel her heart thumping against her side, thumping with anger and pity for Collins who was answering never a word. There she knelt mute, with her brush suspended, with her mouth slightly open and her eyes rather scared; and when at long last she did manage to speak, her voice sounded humble and frightened. She was timid by nature, and the nurse’s sharp tongue was a byword throughout the household. Collins was saying: ‘Interfere with your child? Oh, no, Mrs. Bingham, never! I hope I knows my place better than that—Miss Stephen herself showed me them dirty nails; she said: “Collins, just look, aren’t my nails awful dirty!” And I said: “You must ask Nanny about that, Miss Stephen.” Is it likely that I’d interfere with your work? I’m not that sort, Mrs. Bingham.’ Oh, Collins, Collins, with those pretty blue eyes and that funny alluring smile! Stephen’s own eyes grew wide with amazement, then they clouded with sudden and disillusioned tears, for far worse than Collins’ poorness of spirit was the dreadful injustice of those lies—yet this very injustice seemed to draw her to Collins, since despising, she could still love her.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Yes, I know, it’s too awful. I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it. She was our neighbour too, which made it more awkward, and not only that—her position in the county—oh, Ralph, you must help me, I’m completely bewildered. How on earth does one answer this sort of thing? It’s quite mad—I believe the girl’s half mad herself.’ And she handed him Stephen’s letter. He read it slowly, and as he did so his weak little eyes grew literally scarlet—puffy and scarlet all over their lids, and when he had finished reading that letter he turned and spat on the ground. Then Ralph’s language became a thing to forget; every filthy invective learnt in the slums of his youth and later on in the workshops, he hurled against Stephen and all her kind. He called down the wrath of the Lord upon them. He deplored the non-existence of the stake, and racked his brains for indecent tortures. And finally: ‘I’ll answer this letter, yes, by God I will! You leave her to me, I know how I’m going to answer this letter!’ Angela asked him, and now her voice shook: ‘Ralph, what will you do to her—to Stephen?’ He laughed loudly: ‘I’ll hound her out of the county before I’ve done—and with luck out of England; the same as I’d hound you out if I thought that there’d ever been anything between you two women. It’s damned lucky for you that she wrote this letter, damned lucky, otherwise I might have my suspicions. You’ve got off this time, but don’t try your reforming again—you’re not cut out to be a reformer. If there’s any of that Lamb of God stuff wanted I’ll see to it myself and don’t you forget it!’ He slipped the letter into his pocket, ‘I’ll see to it myself next time—with an axe!’ Angela turned and went out of the study with bowed head. She was saved through this great betrayal, yet most strangely bitter she found her salvation, and most shameful the price she had paid for her safety. So, greatly daring, she went to her desk and with trembling fingers took a sheet of paper. Then she wrote in her large, rather childish handwriting: ‘Stephen—when you know what I’ve done, forgive me.’ CHAPTER 271T

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

  According to his statement (in the ninth book of his Philosophumena), evidently made from fact, the pope Callistus, whom a later age stamped a saint because it knew little of him, admitted bigami and trigami to ordination, maintained that a bishop could not be deposed, even though he had committed a mortal sin, and appealed for his view to Rom. 14:4, to the parable of the tares and the wheat, Matt. 13:30, and, above all, to the ark of Noah, which was a symbol of the church, and which contained both clean and unclean animals, even dogs and wolves. In short, he considered no sin too great to be loosed by the power of the keys in the church. And this continued to be the view of his successors. But here we perceive, also, how the looser practice in regard to penance was connected with the interest of the hierarchy. It favored the power of the priesthood, which claimed for itself the right of absolution; it was at the same time matter of worldly policy; it promoted the external spread of the church, though at the expense of the moral integrity of her membership, and facilitated both her subsequent union with the state and her hopeless confusion with the world. No wonder the church of Rome, in this point, as in others, triumphed at last over all opposition. § 58. Church Schisms. I. On the Schism of Hippolytus-. The Philosophumena of Hippol. lib. IX. (ed. Miller, Oxf. 1851, better by Duncker and Schneidewin, Gött. 1859), and the monographs on Hippolytus, by Bunsen, Döllinger, Wordsworth, Jacobi, and others (which will be noticed in chapter XIII. § 183). II. On the Schism of Felicissimus: Cyprian: Epist. 38–40, 42, 55. III. On the Novatian Schism: Hippol.: Philosoph. 1 IX. Cypr.: Epist. 41–52; and the Epistles of Cornelius of Rome, and Dionys. of Alex., in Euseb. H. E., VI. 43–45; VII. 8. Comp. Lit. in § 200. IV. On the Meletian Schism: Documents in Latin translation in Maffei: Osservationi Letterarie, Verona, 1738, tom. III p. 11 sqq., and the Greek fragments from the Liber de poenitentia of Peter of Alexandria in Routh: Reliquicae Sacr. vol. II. pp. 21–51. Epiphan.: Haer. 68 (favorable to Meletius); Athanas.: Apol. contra Arianos, § 59; and after him, Socr, Sozom., and Theod. (very unfavorable to Meletius). Out of this controversy on the restoration of the lapsed, proceeded four schisms during the third century; two in Rome, one in North Africa, and one in Egypt. Montanism, too, was in a measure connected with the question of penitential discipline, but extended also to several other points of Christian life, and will be discussed in a separate chapter. I. The Roman schism of Hippolytus. This has recently been brought to the light by the discovery of his Philosophumena (1851). Hippolytus was a worthy disciple of Irenaeus, and the most learned and zealous divine in Rome, during the pontificates of Zephyrinus (202–217), and Callistus (217–222). He died a martyr in 235 or 236.

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

  The pope compared246 the emperor to the beast in the Book of Revelation which "rose out of the sea full of words of blasphemy and had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion, and like a leopard in its other parts, opens its mouth in blasphemies against God’s name, his dwelling place, and the saints in heaven. This beast strives to grind everything to pieces with his claws and teeth of iron and to trample with his feet on the universal world." He accused Frederick of lies and perjuries, and called him "the son of lies, heaping falsehood on falsehood, robber, blasphemer, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the dragon emitting waters of persecution from his mouth like a river." He made the famous declaration that "as the king of pestilence, Frederick had openly asserted that the world had been deceived by three impostors,247 — Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed, two of these having died in glory and Jesus having been suspended on the cross. Moreover, he had denied the possibility of God’s becoming incarnate of a virgin."248 This extensive document is, no doubt, one of the most vehement personal fulminations which has ever proceeded from Rome. Epithets could go no further. It is a proof of the great influence of Frederick’s personality and the growing spirit of democracy in the Italian cities that the emperor was not wholly shunned by all men and crushed under the dead weight of such fearful condemnations. In his retort,249 not to be behind his antagonist in Scripture quotations, Frederick compared Gregory to the rider on the red horse who destroyed peace on the earth. As the pope had called him a beast, bestia, so he would call him a wild beast, belua, antichrist, a second Balaam, who used the prerogative of blessing and cursing for money. He declared that, as God had placed the greater and lesser lights in the heavens, so he had placed the priesthood, sacerdotium, and the empire, imperium, on the earth. But the pope had sought to put the second light into eclipse by denying the purity of Frederick’s faith and comparing him to the beast rising out of the sea. Indignantly denying the accusation of the three impostors, he declared his faith in the "only Son of God as coequal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, begotten from the beginning of all worlds. Mohammed’s body is suspended in the air, but his soul is given over to the torments of hell." Gregory went further than words and offered to the count of Artois the imperial crown, which at the instance of his brother, Louis IX. of France, the count declined. The German bishops espoused Frederick’s cause. On the other hand, the mendicant friars proved true allies of the pope. The emperor drove the papal army behind the walls of Rome.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  the Justinian Code, which was still in use even in Protestant cities as the basis for the persecution of heretics. Against Calvin’s advice, he was burned – Calvin wanted a simple execution. This judicial murder of a distinguished scholar aroused protests from some reformers, especially in Italy. 2 Camillo Renato denounced it in a long poem: ‘A fiery stake has been erected where we sought to discover a heaven.’ But the burning was approved in advance by most of the Swiss Protestant cantons and later defended by many Protestant intellectuals, such as the Professor of Greek at Lausanne, Theodore Beza: ‘What greater, more abominable crime could one find among men [than heresy]?... it would seem impossible to find a torture big enough to fit the enormity of such a misdeed.’ Four months after Servetus died, Calvin published his own Declaratio orthodoxae fidei : ‘One should forget all mankind when His glory is in question. . . . God does not even allow whole towns and populations to be spared, but will have the walls razed and the memory of the inhabitants destroyed and all things ruined as a sign of His utter detestation, lest the contagion spread.’ If both Lutherans and Calvinists (as well as Catholics) actively persecuted antinomian extremists, they also opposed and hated each other. Calvinists thought of Lutherans as virtually unreformed, Romanists masquerading in godly garments. The Lutherans would never admit that Calvinism was a ‘legal’ religion. They classified Calvinists as anabaptists, and thought their denial of the real presence a scandalous breach of the Catholic faith. Some Lutherans, like Polycarp Leyser, thought Calvinist errors worse than Roman. Lutherans would not provide military assistance to protect Calvinism from Rome and its allies – one factor which limited the Reformation’s gains. All three parties, Calvinists, Lutherans and Catholics, accused the others of having double standards – demanding tolerance when weak, persecuting when strong. The Catholic George Eder wrote in 1579: ‘In districts dominated by Protestants, Catholics are never tolerated; they are publicly humiliated, driven from their homes and lands, and forced into exile with their wives and children.... But as soon as a Catholic member-state of the empire proceeds in the same way . . . everyone gets worked up, is indignant, and the Catholic prince is accused of breaking the peace of religion.’ The Lutheran Daniel Jaconi (1615): ‘As long as the Calvinists are not in power . . . they are pleasant and patient; they accept life in common with us. But as soon as they are masters of the situation they will not tolerate a single syllable of Lutheran doctrine.’ George Stobaeus, prince-bishop of Lavant, to the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (1598): ‘Entrust the administration of a town or province to

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  forbidden to vote Nazi because of the party’s racial policy. The Bavarian bishops also attack Nazism, and a statement by the Cologne bishops drew attention to the parallel with Action Française, officially condemned by the Holy Office three years before. But this comparison was a foolish one to make, since Rome’s long hesitation about Action Française was notorious – evidently it was by no means in the same category as communism, or even socialism. (In fact, Pius XII revoked the ban on Action Française, without any retraction on their part, as soon as he became pope in 1939.) In any case, some of the bishops flatly refused to take a stand against the Nazis, and especially against Hitler, who was becoming increasingly popular. Cardinal Faulhaber drew a clear distinction between ‘the Führer’ whom he thought was well-intentioned and basically a good Christian, and certain of his ‘evil associates’. (This was a common illusion, based entirely on wishful-thinking, among German clergy of all sects.) Some bishops went further: Shreiber of Berlin dissociated himself from the Mainz condemnation, and when an attempt was made at Fulda in August 1931 to get a unanimous condemnation of Nazism by all the Catholic bishops, the resolution was voted down. The fact is that most of the bishops were monarchists. They hated liberalism and democracy much more than they hated Hitler. So an ambiguous statement went through instead; worse, on this as on other occasions, it was accompanied by fervent balancing assertions of German patriotism, and by rabid complaints at Germany’s unfair treatment and sufferings, so that the net effect of the declaration was to help the Nazis, and incline Catholic voters to support them. By trying to trump Hitler’s patriotic ace, the Catholic bishops played straight into his hands, and thus encouraged the faithful to give him their votes. Moreover, once Hitler attained power, German Catholicism dropped its ‘negative’ attitude and assumed a posture of active support. This was carried through by the bishops as early as 28 March 1933, on a firm indication from Rome (advised by Pacelli) that there would be no Vatican support for a policy of opposition. In the summer, Rome signed a concordat with Hitler, which in effect unilaterally disarmed German Catholicism as a political and social force, and signalled to rank-and-file Catholic priests and laymen that they should accept the new regime to the full. The Church accepted that only avowedly non-political Catholic societies and clubs had the right to exist in Hitler’s Germany; the rest – trades unions, political parties, discussion groups, pressure-groups of every kind – were promptly disbanded. The surrender was amazing; a century of German Catholic social activity was scrapped

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Fearing she would be killed, the girl broke her promise to Pietro and made a clean breast of everything that had passed between them, whereupon the knight raved and stormed like a madman, and barely managed to restrain himself from putting her to death. However, after speaking his mind in no uncertain terms, he remounted his horse and rode off to Trapani, where he lodged a complaint with the Viceroy,7 a certain Messer Currado, about the injury Pietro had done him. Since he was unprepared for this turn of events, Pietro was promptly taken into custody, and on being put to the torture, he made a full confession. A few days later the Viceroy sentenced him to be whipped through the town and then hanged by the neck. And in order to ensure that the two lovers and their child should all perish at the same time, Messer Amerigo, whose anger was by no means appeased by the destruction of Pietro, mixed some poison with wine in a goblet and handed it to one of his servants together with an unsheathed dagger, saying: ‘Go with this goblet and this dagger to Violante, and tell her in my name that she is to die forthwith by whichever of the two means she prefers, the poison or the steel. Tell her she is to do it at once, otherwise I shall see that she is burnt alive, as she deserves, in the presence of every man and woman in the town. This done, you are to take the child which was born to her the other day, dash its head against a wall, and cast it away to be devoured by the dogs.’ As soon as the cruel father had passed this savage sentence on his daughter and grandchild, the servant, who was more disposed to evil than to good, took his leave. Meanwhile Pietro, having been condemned to die, was being whipped along to the gallows by a troop of soldiers, when the leaders of the procession took it into their heads to pass in front of an inn where three Armenian noblemen were staying. These latter were ambassadors from the King of Armenia,8 on their way to Rome in order to negotiate with the Pope on very important matters connected with a crusade that was about to be launched. Having broken their journey at Trapani for a few days’ rest and relaxation, they had been lavishly entertained by the noblemen of the town, and by Messer Amerigo in particular. And on hearing Pietro’s escort passing the inn, they came to a window and peered out.

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

  Hutten published the bull with biting glosses: Bulla Decimi Leonis contra errores Lutheri et sequacium, or Die glossirte Bulle (in Hutten’s Opera, ed. Böcking, V. 301–333; in the Erl. ed. of Luther’s Op. Lat., IV. 261–304; also in German in Walch, XV. 1691 sqq.; comp. Strauss: U. v. Hutten, p. 338 sqq.). The glosses in smaller type interrupt the text, or are put on the margin. Luther: Von den neuen Eckischen Bullen und Lügen (Sept. 1520); Adv. execrabilem Antichristi bullam (Nov. 1520); Wider die Bullen des Endchrists (Nov. 1520; the same book as the preceding Latin work, but sharper and stronger); Warum des Papsts und seiner Jünger Bücher verbrannt sind (Lat. and Germ., Dec. 1520); all in Walch, XV. fol. 1674–1917; Erl. ed., XXIV. 14–164, and Op. Lat. V. 132–238; 251–271. Luther’s letters to Spalatin and others on the bull of excommunication, in De Wette, I. 518–532. Ranke: I. 294–301. Merle D’Aubigné, bk. VI. ch. III. sqq. Hagenbach, III. 100–102. Kahnis: I. 306–341. Köstlin: I. 379–382. Kolde: I. 280 sqq. Janssen: II. 108 sqq. After the Leipzig disputation, Dr. Eck went to Rome, and strained every nerve to secure the condemnation of Luther and his followers.256 Cardinals Campeggi and Cajetan, Prierias and Aleander, aided him. Cajetan was sick, but had himself carried on his couch into the sessions of the consistory. With considerable difficulty the bull of excommunication was drawn up in May, and after several amendments completed June 15, 1520.257 Nearly three years had elapsed since the publication of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses. In the mean time he had attacked with increasing violence the very foundations of the Roman Church, had denounced popery as an antichristian tyranny, and had dared to appeal from the Pope to a general council, contrary to the decisions of Pius II. and Julius II., who declared such an appeal to be heresy. Between the completion and the promulgation of the bull, he went still further in his, "Address to the German Nobility," and the book on the "Babylonian Captivity," and made a reconciliation impossible except by an absolute surrender, which was a moral impossibility for him. Rome could not tolerate Lutheranism any longer without ceasing to be Rome. She delayed final action only for political and prudential considerations, especially in view of the election of a new German Emperor, and the influential voice of the Elector Frederick, who was offered, but declined, the imperial crown. The bull of excommunication is the papal counter-manifesto to Luther’s Theses, and condemns in him the whole cause of the Protestant Reformation. Therein lies its historical significance. It was the last bull addressed to Latin Christendom as an undivided whole, and the first which was disobeyed by a large part of it. Instead of causing Luther and his friends to be burnt, it was burnt by Luther. It is an elaborate document, prepared with great care in the usual heavy, turgid, and tedious style of the curia.

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

  many physical infirmities, an astounding power of work. He could express the deepest thought in the clearest and strongest language, and had an abundant supply of juicy and forcible epithets.402 His very opponents had to imitate his German speech if they wished to reach the masses, and to hit the nail on the head. He had a genial heart, but also a most violent temper, and used it as a weapon for popular effect. He felt himself called to the rough work of "removing stumps and stones, cutting away thistles and thorns, and clearing the wild forests." He found aid and comfort in the severe language of the prophets. He had, as he says, the threefold spirit of Elijah,—the storm, the earthquake, and the fire, which subverts mountains and tears the rocks in pieces. He thoroughly understood the wants and tastes of his countrymen who preferred force to elegance, and the club to the dagger. Foreigners, who knew him only from his Latin writings, could not account for his influence. Roman historians, in denouncing his polemics, are apt to forget the fearful severity of the papal bull, the edict of Worms, and the condemnatory decisions of the universities.403 His pen was powerfully aided by the pencil of his friend Lucas Cranach, the court-painter of Frederick the Wise. Melanchthon had no popular talent, but he employed his scholarly pen in a Latin apology for Luther, against the furious decree of the Parisian theologasters."404 The Sorbonne, hitherto the most famous theological faculty, which in the days of the reformatory Councils had stood up for the cause of reform, followed the example of the universities of Louvain and Cologne, and denounced Luther during the sessions of the Diet of Worms, April 15, 1521, as an arch-heretic who had renewed and intensified the blasphemous errors of the Manichaeans, Hussites, Beghards, Cathari, Waldenses, Ebionites, Arians, etc., and who should be destroyed by fire rather than refuted by arguments.405 Eck translated the decision at once into German. Melanchthon dared to charge the faculty of Paris with apostasy from Christ to Aristotle, and from biblical theology to scholastic sophistry. Luther translated the Apology into German at the Wartburg, and, finding it too mild, he added to it some strokes of his "peasant’s axe."406 Ulrich von Hutten was almost equal to Luther in literary power, eloquence, wit, and sarcasm, as well as in courage, and aided him with all his might from the Ebernburg during his trial at Worms; but he weakened his cause by want of principle. He had previously republished and ridiculed the Pope’s bull of excommunication.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  When he spoke his high-pitched voice sounded fretful. ‘What on earth have you been doing? It’s past two o’clock. I’ve been waiting since one, the lunch must be ruined; I do wish you’d try and be punctual, Angela!’ He appeared not to notice Stephen’s existence, for he went on nagging as though no one were present. ‘Oh, I see, that damn dog of yours has been fighting again, I’ve a good mind to give him a thrashing; and what in God’s name’s the matter with your hand—you don’t mean to say that you’ve got yourself bitten? Really, Angela, this is a bit too bad!’ His whole manner suggested a personal grievance. ‘Well,’ drawled Angela, extending the bandaged hand for inspection, ‘I’ve not been getting manicured, Ralph.’ And her voice was distinctly if gently provoking, so that he winced with quick irritation. Then she seemed quite suddenly to remember Stephen: ‘Miss Gordon, let me introduce my husband.’ He bowed, and pulling himself together: ‘Thank you for driving my wife home, Miss Gordon, it was most kind, I’m sure.’ But he did not seem friendly, he kept glaring at Angela’s dog-bitten hand, and his tone, Stephen thought, was distinctly ungracious. Getting out of the car she started her engine. ‘Good-bye,’ smiled Angela, holding out her hand, the left one, which Stephen grasped much too firmly. ‘Good-bye—perhaps one day you’ll come to tea. We’re on the telephone, Upton 25; ring up and suggest yourself some day quite soon.’ ‘Thanks awfully, I will,’ said Stephen. 4‘Had a breakdown or something?’ inquired Puddle brightly, as at three o’clock Stephen slouched into the schoolroom. ‘No—but Mrs. Crossby’s dog had a fight. She got bitten, so I drove her back to The Grange.’ Puddle pricked up her ears: ‘What’s she like? I’ve heard rumours—’ ‘Well, she’s not at all like them,’ snapped Stephen. There ensued a long silence while Puddle considered, but consideration does not always bring wise counsel, and now Puddle made a really bad break: ‘She’s pretty impossible, isn’t she, Stephen? They say he unearthed her somewhere in New York; Mrs. Antrim says she was a music-hall actress. I suppose you were obliged to give her a lift, but be careful, I believe she’s fearfully pushing.’ Stephen flared up like an emotional schoolgirl: ‘I’m not going to discuss her if that’s your opinion; Mrs. Crossby is quite as much a lady as you are, or any of the others round here, for that matter. I’m sick unto death of your beastly gossip.’ And turning abruptly she strode from the room. ‘Oh, Lord!’ murmured Puddle, frowning. 5That evening Stephen rang up The Grange. ‘Is that Upton 25? It’s Miss Gordon speaking—no, no, Miss Gordon, speaking from Morton. How is Mrs. Crossby and how is the dog? I hope Mrs. Crossby’s hand isn’t very painful? Yes, of course I’ll hold on while you go and inquire.’ She felt shy, yet unusually daring.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  We see the workings of Ambrose’s mind and method in his attitude to the Jews. They were now a ‘problem’ within the Christian empire, as they had been a problem in the pagan one – a large and conspicuous element which would not accept the Christian norms. And they were increasingly unpopular among Christians. Jews had assisted the authorities during the period of imperial persecution of Christians; they had collaborated with Julian in his pagan revival. Under Theodosius, when Christian uniformity became the official policy of the empire, Christian mob-attacks on synagogues became common. Any such unlicensed violence was contrary to public policy; moreover the Jews were regarded as a valuable and respectable element in society, notable for their general support of authority. In 388 the Jewish synagogue at Callinicum on the Euphrates was burnt down at the instigation of the local bishop. Theodosius decided to make this a test-case, and ordered it rebuilt at Christian expense. Ambrose hotly opposed the decision. His dictum was: ‘The palace concerns the emperor, the churches the bishop.’ Was this not a matter of Christian principle? No such depredations had hitherto been punished. To humiliate the bishop and the Christian community would damage the Church’s prestige. He wrote to Theodosius: ‘Which is more important, the parade of discipline or the cause of religion? The maintenance of civil law is secondary to religious interest.’ He preached a sermon on these lines in the emperor’s presence, and Theodosius lamely withdrew his orders. The incident was a prelude to the emperor’s humiliation over the Thessalonica massacre. Indeed, it marked an important stage in the construction of a society in which only orthodox Christianity exercised full civil rights. Ambrose, however, was well aware that those rights could only be secured and maintained by the exploitation of the potentialities of Christianity. He brought to his task as bishop the skills of a great administrator, evolving by trial and error a pastoral theology and canon law which supplied the answers to all the questions the Christian life raised. Perhaps no man played a greater part, in practice, in constructing the apparatus of practical belief which surrounded the European during the millenium when Christianity was the environment of society. At Milan, in the great new basilica he completed in 386, the prototype of the medieval cathedral came into existence, with daily mass, prayers at morning and evening and sometimes at other times in the day, and special ceremonies to commemorate the saints, according to a strict calendar. To combat the Arians in the city. Ambrose deliberately dramatized the cathedral services, introducing splendid vestments and antiphonal singing of psalms and

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  of Christ?’ Every event was charged with a precise meaning as a deliberate act of God, of mercy for the elect, or judgment for the damned. A ‘divine decree’ had established ‘an unshakeable number of the elect’ who were ‘permanently inscribed in the archive of the father’. What role had man’s own efforts to play in this process? Very little. Deuteronomy warned, did it not: ‘Say not in thy heart, My strength and the power of my hand has wrought this great wonder – but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for He it is who gives the strength to do great deeds.’ Augustine was powerfully struck by a case he heard of – a man of eighty-four, of exemplary piety, who had lived a life of religious observance with his wife for a quarter of a century, and then had suddenly bought a dancing-girl for his pleasure, and so lost eternity. Was not this the hand of God, the fatal absence of grace, without which the human will was impotent? Augustine’s attention was first drawn to Pelagius by Jerome, who was still engaged in stamping out Origen’s belief in the perfectibility of the soul, and who instantly recognized in Palagius a modern Origenist. Augustine saw in Pelagius a form of arrogance, a rebellion against an inscrutable Deity by an undue stress on man’s powers. To Augustine, the duty of man was to obey God’s will, as expressed through his Church. He wrote: ‘Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.’ He noted, significantly, that Pelagius ‘could not endure these words of mine’. And then, Jerome prompted him – a characteristic touch this – had not Pelagius, ‘that corpulent dog, weighed down with Scotch porridge’, denied original sin? To Augustine, original sin was important not so much for its own sake but because it influenced the theory of baptism, which to any African, involved in the Donatist affair, was a crucial test of orthodoxy. As a matter of fact it is hard to discover when, before Augustine, the Church had accepted original sin as a matter of faith. Tertullian had used the phrase (it was, indeed, a very African concept) but had specifically denied that children were born in sin. Since then, the practice of infant baptism had become common, and was tending to be general. Once Augustine concentrated on the baptismal point, he seems to have become determined to drive Pelagius and his followers out of the Church, or enforce from them an abject submission. It is not even clear that Pelagius opposed infant baptism; as always with men branded as heretics, only snatches of his works survive, embedded in refutations of them. It was his disciple Caelestius who first appears to have raised the baptismal point, and he insisted, under pressure, that the issue was a matter

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The first big exodus from Christianity came in the 1830s; thereafter there was a steady drift away, especially in the 1850s and early 1860s, under the impact of Darwin. Some Protestants welcomed the challenge. The Reverend Charles Kingsley wrote of evolution: ‘Men find that now they have got rid of an interfering God – a master-magician as I call it – they have to choose between the absolute empire of accident, and a living, immanent, ever-working God.’ But the majority resisted theological change with varying degrees of anger. This raised special disciplinary difficulties for the Anglican Church. It was an Establishment, subject to Parliament. In fact, in the cause of institutional reform, Parliament was becoming more active in the affairs of the Church. Measures passed included the Established Church Act and the Tithes Act (1836), the Church Pluralities Act (1838), the Church Discipline Act and the Sinecures Act (1840), and a measure which transferred church appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (1833). In fact the Church did not have charge of its own discipline and doctrine, except in so far as statute allowed; and Anglican theologians who offended against majority opinion could look for protection to the State. In 1832, the Reverend Reed Dickson Hampden gave the Bampton Lectures at Oxford, in which he took the German position that theology varies from age to age, and reflects contemporary philosophy, that doctrines are built on inspired facts by uninspired men, and that church pronouncements had been repeatedly inconsistent and could not be infallible. His Observations on Religious Dissent (1834) declared that dogma was unimportant compared to religion itself, and it pleaded for toleration, since on the essence of religion few Christians differed. In short, the line was again Erasmian. There were violent Anglican protests when Hampden was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1836; and when, in 1847, he was promoted to be Bishop of Hereford, an attempt to prevent his formal election was abandoned only after the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, threatened to invoke statutory sanctions against the protestors. There was, moreover, the further problem within the Anglican Church of reconciling a huge spectrum of theological opinion, which tended to widen in the light of the new scholarship. In 1847, the Bishop of Exeter refused to institute the Reverend G. C. Gorham to a living on the grounds that his Calvinistic views on baptismal regeneration were inconsistent with the Thirty-Nine Articles. Gorham fought the case, was defeated in the Anglican Court of Arches in 1849, but was upheld when he appealed to the secular Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in

• From The Decameron (1353)

  hair and dragging him round the floor of the barn, saying: ‘You filthy, despicable dog, so you’d do this to me, would you? A curse on all the love I ever bore you, demented old fool that you are. Don’t you think you have enough to do, keeping the home fires burning, without going off to stoke up other people’s? A fine lover you would make for anyone! Don’t you know yourself, villain? Don’t you realize, scoundrel, that if they were to squeeze you from head to toe, there wouldn’t be enough juice to make a sauce? God’s faith, it wasn’t your wife who was getting you with child 7 this time. May the Lord make her suffer, whoever she is, for she must surely be a depraved little hussy to take a fancy to a precious jewel like you.’ When he first saw his wife coming in, Calandrino was unsure whether he was dead or alive, and hadn’t the courage to defend himself against her furious onslaught. But in the end, all torn and bleeding and dishevelled, he picked up his cape, staggered to his feet, and humbly entreated Monna Tessa not to shout unless she wanted him to be torn to pieces, for the woman who was with him was none other than the wife of the master of the house. ’I don’t care who she is,’ bawled Monna Tessa. ‘May God punish her as she deserves.’ Pretending to have been attracted by all the noise, Bruno and Buffalmacco now appeared on the scene, having laughed themselves silly along with Filippo and Niccolosa as they watched this spectacle; and after much heated discussion, they pacified Monna Tessa and advised Calandrino to return to Florence and never show his face there again in case Filippo came to hear of what had happened and did him some serious mischief. And so, scratched and torn to ribbons, Calandrino made his way back to Florence feeling all forlorn and dejected; and not having the courage to return to Camerata, he resigned himself to the torrent of strictures and abuse to which he was subjected day and night by Monna Tessa, and made an end to his love for Niccolosa, having supplied a feast of entertainment, not only for his companions, but for Filippo and Niccolosa as well.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  FOURTH DAY Here begins the Fourth Day, wherein, under the rule of Filo-strato, the discussion turns upon those whose love ended unhappily. Dearest ladies, both from what I have heard on the lips of the wise, and from what I have frequently read and observed for myself, I always assumed that only lofty towers and the highest summits of trees could be assailed by Envy’s fiery and impetuous blast; 1 but I find that I was mistaken. In the course of my lifelong efforts to escape the fierce onslaught of those turbulent winds, I have always made a point of going quietly and unseen about my affairs, not only keeping to the lowlands but occasionally directing my steps through the deepest of deep valleys. This can very easily be confirmed by anyone casting an eye over these little stories of mine, which bear no title 2 and which I have written, not only in the Florentine vernacular and in prose, but in the most homely and unassuming style 3 it is possible to imagine. Yet in spite of all this, I have been unable to avoid being violently shaken and almost uprooted by those very winds, and was nearly torn to pieces by envy. And thus I can most readily appreciate the truth of the wise men’s saying, that in the affairs of this world, poverty alone is without envy. 4 Judicious ladies, there are those who have said, after reading these tales, that I am altogether too fond of you, that it is unseemly for me to take so much delight in entertaining and consoling you, and, what is apparently worse, in singing your praises as I do. Others, laying claim to greater profundity, have said that it is not good for a man of my age to engage in such pursuits as discussing the ways of women and providing for their pleasure. And others, showing deep concern for my renown, say that I would be better advised to remain with the Muses in Parnassus, than to fritter away my time in your company. Moreover, there are those who, prompted more by spitefulness than common sense, have said that I would be better employed in earning myself a good meal than in going hungry for the sake of producing nonsense of this sort. And finally there are those who, in order to belittle my efforts, endeavour to prove that my versions of the stories I have told are not consistent with the facts. By gusts of such a kind as these, then, by teeth thus sharp and cruel, distinguished ladies, am I buffeted, battered, and pierced to the very quick whilst I soldier on in your service. As God is my witness, I take it all calmly and coolly; and though I need no one but you to defend me, I do not intend, all the same, to spare my own energies.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  picked up in Sardinia, set it on fire, and manoeuvred it into a position alongside the ship with the aid of both of his galleys. Perceiving this, and knowing they were faced with the alternative of being roasted alive or surrendering, the Saracens brought the King’s daughter up on deck from her cabin, where she had been giving vent to copious tears, and led her to the ship’s prow. And having called upon Gerbino to witness the deed, they slaughtered her before his very eyes, whilst all the time she was screaming for help and pleading for mercy. They then cast her body into the sea with the words: ‘Take her thus, for we are left with no choice but to let you have her in the form your treachery deserves.’ Upon seeing this act of cruelty, Gerbino seemed to abandon every instinct of self-preservation and edged right alongside the ship, oblivious to stones or arrows. Clambering aboard in defiance of impossible odds, he started laying about him with his sword, cutting down Saracens without mercy on all sides, as though he were a starving lion falling upon a herd of young bullocks and tearing and ripping them apart one after another, intent on appeasing its anger rather than its hunger. By now the fire was spreading rapidly through the ship, and having dispatched a large number of his opponents, Gerbino got his seamen to salvage all they could in return for their services and then abandoned ship, having gained a victory that was anything but rewarding. He then saw to the recovery from the sea of the fair lady’s body, which he mourned over at length, shedding a great many tears. And on returning to Sicily he had it honourably buried on the tiny island of Ustica, which is almost opposite Trapani, whence he returned home sadder than any other man on earth. When the King of Tunis learned what had happened, he sent ambassadors to King William, dressed in black robes, to protest against his failure to observe his pledge. They explained precisely how it had been broken, to the no small consternation of the King, who, seeing no way of denying them the justice they were demanding, ordered Gerbino to be arrested. And with his own lips, whilst every one of his barons endeavoured to dissuade him, he sentenced Gerbino to death and had him beheaded in his presence, preferring to lose his only grandson rather than gain the reputation of being a monarch whose word was not to be trusted. Thus, therefore, in the tragic manner I have described and within the space of a few days, the two young lovers met a violent end without ever having tasted the fruits of their love.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  So the chaplain came, and when she told him that she wanted to be confessed, he said he was too busy, but would send her one of his fellow priests. He then went away, and sent the jealous husband, unfortunately for him, to hear her confession. The husband walked solemnly up to her, and although the light was not very good and he had pulled the hood well down over his eyes, she knew immediately who it was, and said to herself: ‘God be praised, the fellow’s turned from a jealous husband into a priest; but never mind, I’ll see that he gets what he’s looking for.’ And pretending not to recognize him, she seated herself at his feet. 1 Master Jealous had stuffed a few bits of gravel in his mouth so as to impede his speech and prevent his wife from recognizing his voice, and he thought that his disguise was so perfect in all other respects that she was bound to be taken in by it. But to come now to the confession, among the things which the lady told him, having first of all pointed out that she was married, was that she had fallen in love with a priest, who came to her every night and slept with her. When he heard this, the jealous husband felt as though a knife had been driven into his heart; and but for the fact that he was eager to know more about it, he would have abandoned the confession there and then, and taken himself off. However, he stood his ground, and said to her: ‘What’s this I hear? Doesn’t your husband sleep with you?’ ‘Oh yes, Father,’ she replied. ‘In that case,’ said the husband, ‘how can the priest sleep with you as well?’ ‘Father,’ said the lady, ‘it’s a mystery to me how the priest manages to do it, but there isn’t a door in the house that is so securely locked that it doesn’t spring open the moment he touches it. He tells me that before opening the door of my bedroom, he recites a certain formula that sends my husband straight off to sleep, and as soon as he hears him snoring, he opens the door, comes into the bedroom, and lies down at my side. And the system never fails.’ ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘this is an evil business, and you must put a stop to it at all costs.’ ‘Father,’ said the lady, ‘I don’t think I could ever do that, for I love him too dearly.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘And since the meal is now ready, let us go and eat.’ So they all sat down at table, and after a first course of tunny and chick-peas they had some fried fish from the Arno, after which the meal came abruptly to an end. On discovering that Biondello had deceived him, Ciacco was boiling with indignation, and resolved to pay him back in his own coin. A few days later he came across Biondello, who had meanwhile amused a number of people with the tale of his little hoax. No sooner did Biondello catch sight of Ciacco than he greeted him and asked, with a broad grin, what he had thought of Messer Corso’s lampreys. ‘That is a question,’ replied Ciacco, ‘which you will be far better able to answer yourself, before another week has passed.’ After leaving Biondello, Ciacco went to work without further ado, and having agreed upon terms with a crafty intermediary, he handed him an enormous wine-bottle, led him to a spot near the Loggia de’ Cavicciuli, 4 and pointing out to him a gentleman there called Messer Filippo Argenti 5 – a huge, powerful, muscular-looking fellow, who was as haughty, hot-tempered, and quarrelsome a man as ever drew breath – he said: ‘You are to go up to that man over there with this flask in your hand, and say to him: “Sir, I have been sent to you by Biondello, who asks if you will be so kind as to rubify this flask for him with some of your excellent red wine, as he wants to wet his whistle with his comrades.” But be very careful not to let him lay his hands on you, otherwise you’ll have a thin time of it and my plans will be ruined.’ ‘Do I have to say anything else?’ said the intermediary. ‘No,’ said Ciacco. ‘Now off you go, and when you’ve said your piece, return here to me with the flask and I shall pay you your fee.’ So the intermediary made his way across to Messer Filippo and delivered the message, which Messer Filippo no sooner heard than he concluded that Biondello, who was no stranger to him, was having a joke at his expense. Not being slow to take offence, he went all red in the face and said: ‘Rubify? Wet his whistle? God curse the fellow, and you too!’ Whereupon he leapt to his feet and shot out an arm at the intermediary, intending to take him by the scruff of the neck. But the latter, being on his guard, was too quick for him and took to his heels. He then returned by a roundabout route to Ciacco, who had witnessed the whole scene, and told him what Messer Filippo had said. Ciacco was delighted, and having paid the man his fee, went off in search of Biondello, never resting for a moment till he found him. ‘Have you been to the Loggia de’ Cavicciuli lately?’ he asked him.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Rather than face the dishonour which in spite of my innocence you threaten me with, I shall hurl myself into this well, and when they find me dead inside it, they will all think that it was you who threw me into it when you were drunk; and so either you will have to run away, lose everything you possess, and live in exile, or you will have your head chopped off for murdering your wife, which in effect is what you will have done.’ Having made up his stupid mind, Tofano was not affected in the slightest by these words, and so his wife said: ‘Now look here, I won’t let you torment me any longer: may God forgive you, I’ll leave my distaff here, and you can put it back where it belongs.’ The night was so dark that you could scarcely see your hand in front of your face, and having uttered these words, the woman groped her way towards the well, picked up an enormous stone that was lying beside it, and with a cry of ‘God forgive me!’ she dropped it into the depths. The stone struck the water with a tremendous thump, and when Tofano heard this he was firmly convinced that she had thrown herself in. So he seized the pail and its rope, rushed headlong from the house, and ran to the well to assist her. His wife was lying in wait near the front door, and as soon as she saw him running to the well, she stepped inside the house, bolted the door, and went to the window, where she stood and shouted: ‘You should water down your wine when you’re drinking it, and not in the middle of the night.’ When he heard her voice, Tofano saw that he had been outwitted and made his way back to the house. And on finding that he couldn’t open the door, he ordered her to let him in. Whereas previously she had addressed him in little more than a whisper, his wife now began to shout almost at the top of her voice, saying: ‘By the cross of God, you loathsome sot, you’re not going to come in here tonight. I will not tolerate this conduct of yours any longer. It’s time I showed people the sort of man you are and the hours you keep.’ Being very angry, Tofano too began to shout, pouring out a stream of abuse, so that the neighbours, men and women alike, hearing all this racket, got up out of bed and appeared at their windows, demanding to know what was going on.