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

  elected by God to salvation, but he denied predestination to destruction; and, on closer examination, he extended election to all mankind, maintaining that grace efficacious to salvation is equally offered to all, and that the cause, why some receive and others reject it, lies in the free-will, with which all men were endowed. At the same time he abhorred the name of merits. This, in the eyes of Calvin, was a logical contradiction and an absurdity; for, he says, "if some were elected, it surely follows that others are not elected and left to perish. Unless we confess that those who come to Christ are drawn by the Father through the peculiar operation of the Holy Spirit on the elect, it follows either that all must be promiscuously elected, or that the cause of election lies in each man’s merit." On the 16th of October, 1551, Bolsec attended the religious conference, which was held every Friday at St. Peter’s. John de St. André preached from John 8:47 on predestination, and inferred from the text that those who are not of God, oppose him to the last, because God grants the grace of obedience only to the elect. Bolsec suddenly interrupted the speaker, and argued that men are not saved because they are elected, but that they are elected because they have faith. He denounced, as false and godless, the notion that God decides the fate of man before his birth, consigning some to sin and punishment, others to virtue and eternal happiness. He loaded the clergy with abuse, and warned the congregation not to be led astray. After he had finished this harangue, Calvin, who had entered the church unobserved, stepped up to him and so overwhelmed him, as Beza says, with arguments and with quotations from Scripture and Augustin, that "all felt exceedingly ashamed for the brazen-faced monk, except the monk himself." Farel also, who happened to be present, addressed the assembly. The lieutenant of police apprehended Bolsec for abusing the ministers and disturbing the public peace. On the same afternoon the ministers drew up seventeen articles against Bolsec and presented them to the Council, with the request to call him to account. Bolsec, in his turn, proposed several questions to Calvin and asked a categorical answer (October 25). He asserted that Melanchthon, Bullinger, and Brenz shared his opinion. The Consistory asked the Council to consult the Swiss Churches before passing judgment. Accordingly, the Council sent a list of Bolsec’s errors to Zürich, Bern, and Basel. They were five, as follows: — 1. That faith depends not on election, but election on faith. 2. That it is an insult to God to say that he abandons some to blindness, because it is his pleasure to do so. 3. That God leads to himself all rational creatures, and abandons only those who have often resisted him. 4. That God’s grace is universal, and some are not more predestinated to salvation than others. 5. That when St. Paul says (Eph.

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

  misrepresentations and objections his doctrine of the spiritual real presence of Christ, and the sealing communication of the life-giving virtue of his body in heaven to the believer through the power of the Holy Spirit. He might have defended his doctrine even more effectually if he had restrained his wrath and followed the brotherly advice of Bullinger, and even Farel, who exhorted him not to imitate the violence of his opponent, to confine himself to the thing, and to spare the person. But he wrote to Farel (August, 1557): "With regard to Westphal and the rest it was difficult for me to control my temper and to follow your advice. You call those ’brethren’ who, if that name be offered to them by us, do not only reject, but execrate it. And how ridiculous should we appear in bandying the name of brother with those who look upon us as the worst of heretics."965 § 133. Calvin and the Augsburg Confession. Melanchthon’s Position in the Second Eucharistic Controversy. Comp. Henry, III. 335–339 and Beilage, pp. 102–110; the works on the Augsburg Confession, and the biographies of Melanchthon. During the progress of this controversy both parties frequently appealed to the Augsburg Confession and to Melanchthon. They were both right and both wrong; for there are two editions of the Confession, representing the earlier and the later theories of its author on the Lord’s Supper. The original Augsburg Confession of 1530, in the tenth article, teaches Luther’s doctrine of the real presence so clearly and strongly that even the Roman opponents did not object to it.966 But from the time of the Wittenberg Concordia in 1536, or even earlier,967 Melanchthon began to change his view on the real presence as well as his view on predestination and free-will; in the former he approached Calvin, in the latter he departed from him. He embodied the former change in the Altered Confession of 1540, without official authority, yet in good faith, as the author of the document, and in the conviction that he represented public sentiment, since Luther himself had moderated his opposition to the Swiss by assenting to the Wittenberg Concordia.968 The altered edition was made the basis of negotiations with the Romanists at the Colloquies of Worms and Ratisbon in 1541, and at the later Colloquies in 1546 and 1557. It was printed (with the title and preface of the Invariata) in the first collection of the symbolical books of the Lutheran Church (Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum) in 1559; it was expressly approved by the Lutheran princes at the Convention of Naumburg in 1561, after Melanchthon’s death, as an improved modification and authentic interpretation of the Confession, and was adhered to by the Melanchthonians and the Reformed even after the adoption of the Book of Concord (1580). The text in the two editions is as follows:— Ed. 1530.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  The message of Amos is summed up concisely in 8:1-2. The vision involves a wordplay in Hebrew. He sees “a basket of summer fruit” (Hebrew qaytz ) and is told that “the end” (Hebrew qetz ) is coming on Israel (the Hebrew root, qatzatz , means “to cut off”). The expectation of “the end” later comes to be associated especially with apocalyptic literature, such as the book of Daniel. (The word eschatology , the doctrine of the last things, is derived from the Greek word for “end,” eschaton. ) Eventually it comes to mean the end of the world. In Amos it means simply the end of Israel. In fact, a few decades after Amos spoke, the kingdom of northern Israel was brought to an end by the Assyrians and was never reconstituted. The reasons for this judgment on Israel are familiar by now. The leaders of Israel trample on the needy and bring the poor to ruin. To a great degree, Israel was defined by its ruling class. These were the people who identified themselves as Israel and celebrated the special status of Israel in the cult. Amos does not charge them with cultic irregularities. They observe new moon and Sabbath even if they do so impatiently. Their crimes are committed in the marketplace, where they cheat and in their dealings with the poor. For Amos the marketplace rather than the temple is the place where the service of God is tested. The idea that the land itself is affected by the sin of its inhabitants is one that we shall meet again in the later prophets. The final vision concerns the destruction of the temple at Bethel. According to Amos, the Lord would strike his people precisely where they gathered to worship him in their mistaken way. The most striking passage in this chapter, however, is found in 9:7-8: “Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?” The cult at Bethel clearly involved the celebration of the exodus as the defining experience of Israel. The people who celebrated it either did not think it entailed covenantal obligations or paid no heed to them. The significance of the exodus was that it marked Israel as the special people of YHWH, who would guarantee their well-being. Amos does not question the tradition that God brought Israel out of Egypt, but he radically questions its significance. It was the same God who brought the Philistines from Caphtor (Crete) and the Arameans from Kir (location unknown, but cf. Amos 1:5; 2 Kgs 16:9, each of which refers

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  NAHUM It was only natural that the fall of Assyria should be celebrated in Jerusalem. The occasion is marked in a short collection of oracles attributed to the prophet Nahum, who is said to come from an otherwise unknown place called Elkosh. Nahum begins with an oracle of assurance for Judah that draws on much of the traditional imagery of the divine warrior (1:2-15). Nonetheless, it comes as something of a shock to read that “a jealous and avenging God is the L ORD , the L ORD is avenging and wrathful; the L ORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies.” No less than Hosea, Nahum projects human emotions onto God. Unlike Hosea, however, he makes no attempt to discriminate which emotions are worthy of God. Nahum certainly had tradition on his side. YHWH is portrayed as a jealous God in Exod 20:5. The violence attributed to YHWH here is often directed against his own people. Nahum may be forgiven a certain glee in seeing it directed against the long-time enemy of Judah. Nahum 1:15 refers to the messenger who brings good tidings, an image that we shall meet again in Second Isaiah in the context of the end of the Babylonian exile. Here the “good tidings” is not the liberation of Jewish exiles, but simply the destruction of the oppressor. Nahum 2 is addressed to Nineveh itself. Nahum paints a vivid picture of the terror of warfare: “Hearts faint and knees tremble, all loins quake, all faces grow pale” (2:10). The most distinctive aspect of this oracle, however, is the prophet’s assumption that YHWH is responsible for the destruction of Nineveh, even though it is carried out by Babylonians and Medes. As Amos might have said, can disaster befall a city if YHWH did not cause it? The third chapter is a taunt song pronounced over Babylon as a mock lament. Here again we get a vivid poetic description of the sack of a city. Remarkably, he refers to Nineveh as a prostitute. Hosea had used this image with reference to Israel because of the worship of other gods, especially Baal. Later, in the New Testament, the book of Revelation refers to Rome as a harlot, primarily because of her trade (Revelation 17–18). The metaphor is surprising in the case of Assyria, which had relied on force to acquire its wealth. The punishment of Nineveh is like the punishment of Israel in Hosea 2: “I will let the nations look on your nakedness.” Nahum goes on to remind the Assyrians of what they had done to the Egyptian capital, Thebes, which they had sacked in 663 B.C.E. Nineveh’s fate is well deserved, “for who has ever escaped your endless cruelty”? (Nah 3:19).

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Kings 17 because of a drought, which Elijah interprets as a punishment on Ahab because of the worship of Baal. Baal was a storm-god, the “rider of the clouds,” and as such he was supposed to provide rain, which made fertility and life possible. In the Baal cycle of myths from Ugarit, when Baal is swallowed up by death the earth dries up and the gods lament, “Baal is dead, what will happen to the peoples?” When he comes back to life, “the heavens rain down oil, the wadis run with honey.” In the words of the prophet Hosea, the dispute in Israel concerned which god provided “the grain, the wine, and the oil,” YHWH or Baal (cf. Hos 2:8). This is also the issue in the Elijah stories. In 1 Kings 17 Elijah performs two miracles that show that it is YHWH rather than Baal who gives life. One concerns the multiplication of oil and meal. The second involves the raising of a dead child. In each case, Elijah emphasizes that he acts by the power of YHWH. The roots of the conflict are further clarified in chapter 18. Here we are told that Jezebel had been killing off the prophets of YHWH. Many people in ancient Israel probably saw no conflict between the worship of YHWH and Baal. Elijah appears as a zealot, who refuses to tolerate the worship of any god except YHWH. The story suggests, however, that Jezebel may also have been intolerant in her promotion of Baal. Such conflicts between rival cults were relatively rare in antiquity. The best-known example before the time of Elijah was the attempt of Pharaoh Akhenaten to promote the worship of the sun-god Aten to the exclusion of all others. The conflict had clear political implications. We are told that four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of Asherah ate at Jezebel’s table (that is, were supported by Jezebel; 18:19). The picture of a huge retinue of prophets at the royal court conforms to what we have seen in the story of Micaiah ben Imlah. If the worship of Baal and Asherah required such a retinue, there was a practical reason for excluding the equally numerous prophets of YHWH. From the king’s perspective, Elijah is a “troubler of Israel” because he is interfering with royal policy. From the prophet’s perspective, it is Ahab who troubles Israel by religious policies that lead to drought and disaster. The contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal is dramatic. The challenge posed by Elijah is that “the god who answers with fire is indeed God.”

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  story of Micaiah ben Imlah in 1 Kings 22). He is a freelancer, so to speak, and therefore he is not beholden to the king and does not care whether Bethel is a royal temple. He was also probably a person of independent means. We do not know how extensive his flocks or trees were, but he is evidently not in the service of anyone else, and he seems to be well informed on the affairs of Israel, and to some extent on international events. The translation “I am not a prophet” is somewhat misleading. Amos certainly claims to be a spokesman for YHWH. The issue is what kind of prophet he is. The style of Amos’s prophecy is in the tradition of Elijah rather than that of Nathan. He is confrontational and abrasive. There is no attempt to win over the people he condemns. The prophecy that Amaziah’s wife would become a prostitute could only enrage the priest. It may also have functioned as a curse that was intended not only to predict but to bring about what was predicted. We do not know what happened to Amaziah. It is unlikely that he lived long enough to be taken into exile. Jeroboam certainly did not die by the sword. That this prophecy was not fulfilled argues strongly for its authenticity. Why would a later editor have ascribed to Amos a prophecy that was manifestly incorrect? The editors may have felt, however, that Amos’s prophecies were substantially fulfilled by the Assyrian conquest, and may have added the references to the exile of Israel to clarify the point, or interpreted them in this light. The Oracles of Amos The book of Amos can be divided into three parts. After the introductory verses, the book begins with a series of oracles against various nations, concluding with Israel (1:3—2:16). The middle part of the book (chaps. 3–6) contains a collection of short oracles. The last part (chaps. 7–9) consists of a series of vision reports, with the account of the confrontation with Amaziah. The Oracles against the Nations Oracles against foreign nations were the stock in trade of ancient Israelite

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  The prophets of Baal use various techniques to whip themselves into ecstasy. (The practice of gashing oneself was evidently practiced by some prophets in Israel also. One of the latest passages in the prophetic corpus, Zech 13:5-6, envisions a time when people will be ashamed to admit that they are prophets and will deny it. “And if anyone asks them, ‘What are these wounds on your chest?’ the answer will be, ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’ ” Such wounds were evidently a trademark of prophecy.) Elijah mocks the prophets of Baal and suggests that their god is asleep. No one’s prayers are answered all the time. Devotees of Baal presumably felt that their prayers were answered some of the time, or they would not have persisted in worshiping him. The biblical story, however, is polemical and is not concerned with fair representation of the opponents. The manner in which Elijah produces fire, by pouring water on the offering and in a trench, makes one suspect that some trickery (involving a flammable liquid) is involved. Magicians all the world over have seemed to perform miraculous deeds by sleight of hand. But in truth we do not know whether there is any historical basis for this story. The narrator wished to give the impression that a decisive test was carried out, which proved beyond doubt that YHWH was God. Elijah seizes his advantage by having all the prophets of Baal slaughtered. Elijah is impelled by the hand of the Lord, which imbues him with strength and enables him to outrun the king’s chariots. He manifests a kind of charismatic religion, such as we saw in some instances in the book of Judges. The massacre of the prophets is in the spirit of the herem, the total slaughter that was commanded on some occasions in the books of Joshua and 1 Samuel, and of which the Moabite king Mesha boasted in his inscription. (Compare the judgment on King Ahab for sparing Ben-hadad of Damascus in 1 Kgs 20:42.) In later tradition, Elijah was remembered as a figure of zeal and was even identified with Phinehas, the paradigmatic zealot of Numbers 25. This readiness to slaughter one’s opponents in the name of God is quite credible in the context of the ninth century B.C.E. (and indeed all too credible even in our own times). It is hardly, however, a religious ideal that we should wish to emulate in the modern world.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  prophets. We have seen an illustration of the situation in which such oracles might be uttered in the story of Micaiah ben Imlah in 1 Kings 22, where the prophets conduct a virtual pep rally before the start of a military campaign. There are long sections of such oracles in other prophetic books (e.g., Isaiah 13– 19; Jeremiah 46–51). The nations mentioned here are Israel’s immediate neighbors. The list has been expanded in the course of transmission. The most obvious addition is the oracle against Judah. The focus on “the law of the L ORD ” is Deuteronomic and stands in sharp contrast with the highly specific charges in the other oracles (e.g., “They sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals”). The oracles against Tyre and Edom are also suspect (both have shortened endings, and the oracle against Tyre repeats language from the previous oracles). Regardless of the number of nations included, the structure of this section is clear enough. Israelite prophets were expected to denounce foreign nations. The shock comes when Amos denounces Israel just like all the others. The oracles are formulaic (“For three transgressions and for four” is an idiom meaning “for the numerous transgressions”). The grounds for the denunciations are generally humanistic. Damascus threshed Gilead (in Transjordan) with sledges of iron. Gaza sold entire communities as slaves to Edom. The Ammonites ripped open pregnant women in Gilead. Each of these cases could be read as instances of aggression against Israel, but Amos’s concerns are not nationalistic. So he condemns Moab “because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom” (2:1). This is a crime of one Gentile against another and can only be viewed as a crime against humanity. Amos operates with a concept of universal justice, such as we often find in the wisdom literature. His horizon is broader than the specific revelation to Israel. The accusations against Israel are likewise humanistic in nature: they trample the poor into the dust of the earth (2:7). To be sure, they also evoke the laws of the Pentateuch; specifically, the reference to garments taken in pledge (2:8) recalls Exod 22:25 and Deut 24:17. The condemnation of father and son who sleep with the same girl (2:7) is at least in accordance with the spirit of the laws in Leviticus 20. The entire condemnation of Israel has been read as an example of a “covenant lawsuit” or ribh (the Hebrew word for disputation). YHWH

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Persian manner. It is apparent from Esther 3:4 that prostration was not in accordance with Jewish custom, although the religious basis for the refusal is not made explicit. Again, the honor of both characters is at stake. Haman attributes the slight to the fact that Mordecai is a Jew, and resolves to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom. The excessive character of this reaction is typical of the hyperbolic style of Esther. Haman appeals to the king, but does not mention the Jews by name. Instead, he characterizes them as “a certain people . . . whose laws are different from those of every other people, and who do not keep the king’s laws” (2:8). These people are evidently not assimilated, but retain their distinct identity within the empire. As typically happens in stories of this sort, the king is entirely gullible and gives his assent without question. Thus the crisis of the story develops: a decree is issued for the destruction of all the Jews of the kingdom. The fasting of the Jews at the beginning of chapter 4 is in pointed contrast to the constant feasting of the royal court. The crisis facing the Jewish people presents a special dilemma for Queen Esther. Mordecai asks her to go to the king to intercede. She responds that no one may enter the presence of the king without being summoned. This is another folkloric motif, analogous to the irrevocable laws of the Medes and Persians, that heightens the drama of the story. Mordecai’s reply goes to the heart of the predicament: “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” (4:14). Esther resolves to risk her life and calls on all the Jews of Susa to join her in a fast. The danger to Esther’s life is quickly dispelled in chapter 5. The king receives her warmly and offers to grant anything she might ask. At first she requests only that the king and Haman join her in a banquet. Haman is elated, but he is still galled by the insubordination of Mordecai, so he gives orders that a gallows be prepared for him. From this point forward, however, the story is marked by the repeated reversal of expectations. In chapter 6 the king has a sleepless night and

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nahum is exceptional among the preexilic prophets in that he utters no criticism of his own people. It has been surmised that he was a professional prophet, a nabi’. His oracles conform to the type of “oracles against the nations,” which were parodied by Amos in Amos 1–2. Such oracles were compatible with a naïve nationalism, devoid of self-criticism. It may be unfair, however, to judge Nahum on the basis of such a small corpus of oracles. The most troubling aspect of his oracles is undoubtedly their vengeful tone. The same tone, and some of the same imagery, can be found in the New Testament, in Revelation 17–18, which fantasizes the destruction of Rome. Vengefulness is certainly not to be proposed as a virtue, but we should at least bear in mind what Assyria had done to provoke it. No regime in the ancient world was more brutal, even granted the pervasive brutality of ancient (and modern!) warfare. It would be hard to deny that justice was served in the destruction of Nineveh. But then the execution of justice, especially in a violent way, often begets more oppression. Isaiah saw this when he called Assyria the rod of YHWH’s anger, which was itself guilty of excess (Isaiah 10). Earlier, Hosea had denounced the bloodshed of Jezreel (Hosea 1), even though it had been sanctioned by Elisha (2 Kings 9). The Babylonians who ravaged Nineveh would not stop there. They would shortly treat Jerusalem as savagely as the Assyrians had treated Samaria. Nahum, however, shows no awareness of that looming disaster. A more forgiving attitude toward Assyria is found in the book of Jonah, which we will consider at the end of the prophetic corpus.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  below under “The Critique of Royal Politics”). In chapter 2, Hosea uses marriage as his guiding metaphor. This quite original way of formulating the relationship between God and Israel would become one of the basic models for understanding that relationship in biblical tradition. The marriage metaphor is developed at length in chapter 2. This long poetic oracle is presented as a legal indictment (Hebrew ribh ). It is sometimes called a “covenant lawsuit,” but the metaphor is one of divorce proceedings rather than of treaty violation. It begins with a formal declaration of divorce: “She is not my wife, and I am not her husband.” The grounds for divorce are the wife’s adultery, which would definitely qualify as “something objectionable” in the terminology of Deut 24:1. In ancient Israel, only the husband could initiate divorce, and the view of adultery was usually one-sided, a point that is noted later by Hosea (4:14). The punishment for adultery here is startling: “I will strip her naked, and expose her as in the day she was born.” This punishment is not attested elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, except in Ezek 16:37-39, which may be influenced by Hosea (cf. also the story of Susanna 1:32). In biblical law the punishment for adultery is death by stoning (Deut 22:23-24; both Ezekiel and Susanna also envision an ultimate death penalty). In Genesis 38 Judah condemns his daughter-in-law Tamar to be burned for fornicating while she was the widow of one of his sons and promised to another. Whether any of these punishments was actually carried out in ancient Israel we do not know. The punishment of stripping allows the prophet in Hosea 2 to speak metaphorically of the stripping of the land, to make her like a wilderness and turn her into parched land, by destroying the trees and crops that were her clothing. In fact, Israel was laid bare by the Assyrians already in the 730s and again more drastically in the final assault on Samaria (722). The adultery of Israel consisted of worshiping Baal, the Canaanite god, who was widely revered in the northern kingdom of Israel. (Compare the Elijah stories in 1 Kings. A high proportion of Israelite names in the ostraca found in Samaria included the name of Baal.) Baal was attractive because he was a fertility deity, the “rider of the clouds” and bringer of rain. People believed that he was the deity who provided “the grain, the wine, and the oil,” the main benefits people expected from the worship of a god or goddess. Hosea insists to the contrary that YHWH is the deity who provides these goods. (Compare the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, where the conflict initially concerned the power to provide rain.)

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  ZECHARIAH 1–8 Zechariah is closely associated with Haggai. The opening verse dates the beginning of his career to “the eighth month, in the second year of Darius.” (It should be noted that this verse confuses Zechariah son of Iddo, as the prophet is called elsewhere, with Zechariah son of Jeberechiah, who is mentioned in Isa 8:2. So also Zech 1:7.) The first vision account is dated to the eleventh month of the same year, two months after the last dated oracle of Haggai. All these dates were added by editors, and their accuracy may be questioned. (The concern for precise dates is reminiscent of Ezekiel and of the priestly tradition in general.) There is no doubt, however, that Zechariah was active about the same time as Haggai, while Zerubbabel was governor and Joshua was high priest. The prophecies that may be attributed to Zechariah are in chapters 1–6, more precisely in 1:7—6:15. Within this block of material are eight visions and one oracle. These prophecies are framed by sermonic material in 1:1-6 and chapters 7 and 8 that resembles the Deuteronomistic writings in language and theme. Chapters 1–8 are often referred to as First Zechariah, and they seem to constitute a coherent book, of which the visions of Zechariah form the core. Zechariah 9– 14 is exceptionally obscure material, and we shall return to it below. The introductory passage in 1:1-6 strikes a typically Deuteronomic theme by asserting that “the L ORD was angry with your ancestors,” and that the Lord would return to Judah if the people returned to him. Moreover, the Lord had given warning through “my servants the prophets,” but the people had failed to heed it. This introduction serves a dual purpose of justifying God’s punishment of Judah and of warning the reader to pay serious attention to the words of the prophet that follow in this book. The Earth at Peace The revelations of Zechariah typically take the form of visions seen in the night. These are not called dreams, perhaps because dreams were often disparaged in

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  The Lord sets prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, and upholds the orphan and the widow (Psalm 146). All creation depends on him for its food in due season (145:15). There is, however, another aspect of the character of God implied in several psalms. In many cases, the psalmists pray not only for deliverance but also for vengeance. So we read in Psalm 94: O L ORD , you God of vengeance, you God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; give to the proud what they deserve. The psalmists’ idea of what the wicked deserve is sometimes expressed quite vividly: O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O L ORD ! . . . Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. (Ps 58:6, 8) Perhaps the most chilling prayer in the Psalter is found in 137:8-9: O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! The sentiment is quite understandable, in view of what the Babylonians had done to Jerusalem, but it is none the more edifying for that. Again in 139:19–22 the psalmist prays: O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and goes on to plead, Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? . . . I hate them with perfect hatred. Perhaps the first thing to be said about these psalms is that they are presented explicitly as expressions of human sentiments. There is no assurance that God shares these sentiments. But it is clear that at least some psalmists see God as a God of vengeance, just as surely as they see him as a God of mercy. The two sides of the divine character were stated explicitly in Exod 34:6-7: the same God

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  flock is damning. We need not doubt that Job is genuinely righteous in his behavior. His concern for his slaves is grounded in their common humanity: “Did not he who made me in the womb make them?” (31:15). He plays by the rules in life. But he also expects life to keep the rules as he understands them. Elihu (32:1—37:24) Despite the length and vehemence of his intervention, Elihu brings nothing new to the discussion. The burden of his speech was already stated by Bildad in chapter 8: “The Almighty will not pervert justice” (34:12). The end of Elihu’s speech (36:24—37:24) extols the God of nature in a way that anticipates, to a degree, the revelation that is to follow. It may be that this speech was meant to fuse together some of the arguments of the friends, which were less than successful, with the appeal to the power of nature, which ultimately prevails. One feature of Elihu’s speech, however, deserves special attention. At the beginning of his speech, he justifies his intervention, despite his youth: “Truly it is the spirit in a mortal, the breath of the Almighty, that makes for understanding. It is not the old that are wise, nor the aged that understand what is right” (32:8-9). This assertion marks a major shift in the Hebrew wisdom tradition. Even though Elihu holds to very traditional positions, he has in principle opened the door to the questioning, or rejection, of tradition. In this much, at least, Elihu resembles Job. He is unwilling to defer to authority. The content of his speech, however, is not so much a repudiation of the arguments of the friends as a restatement of them. The Speeches from the Whirlwind The book reaches its climax in chapters 38–41, with the speeches from the whirlwind. As both Job and his friends had predicted, YHWH is overpowering. The experience of the theophany, however, surpasses any idea of it that mortals might have entertained and overwhelms Job in a way that no speeches could. At no point does YHWH respond to the question raised by Job about his guilt

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  respectful in its address to the deity, and in the end “his bitter weeping was heard by his god.” It is closer to the psalms of individual complaint than to the raging of Job. The Babylonian poem “I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom” ( ANET, 434– 37) is likewise respectful and greatly emphasizes the need to perform proper cultic acts. The analogy to Job lies in the distress of the poet (“I spend the night in my dung, like an ox”) and in the recognition that the god’s ways are inscrutable. The closest parallel to Job is found in the Babylonian Theodicy, from about 1100 B.C.E. ( ANET, 601–4). In this composition the sufferer engages in a dispute with a friend. The sufferer observes that those who do not worship the gods prosper, while those who do become impoverished. His friend grants that “Narru, king of the gods, who created mankind . . . gave twisted speech to the human race, with lies, not truth, they endowed him forever.” But in this case, the dialogue partners are cordial and mutually respectful. Nothing in any of this literature prepares us for the heated exchanges between Job and his friends. The viewpoint of the friends is grounded in traditional wisdom. “Think now,” asks Eliphaz, “who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the righteous cut off?” (4:7). He appeals to his own experience, but one suspects that his belief is based on dogma rather than on observation. To counter Job’s protestations of innocence, Eliphaz recounts a revelation he received at night that no human being is innocent: “Can mortals be righteous before God? Can human beings be pure before their Maker?” (4:17). Job may not be a great sinner, but he cannot be completely innocent. Therefore Eliphaz recommends that Job confess his sin and appeal to God’s mercy. God’s punishment is beneficial in the long run: “Happy is the one whom God reproves” (5:17). Job reacts with unexpected anger: “Those who withhold kindness from a friend forsake the fear of the Almighty. My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed, like freshets that pass away” (6:14-15). The offense of Eliphaz is that he has assumed Job’s guilt without evidence. He is thinking deductively: if Job is suffering, he must be guilty. Job demands an inductive approach: “Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone wrong. How forceful are honest words! but your reproof, what does it reprove? Do you think that you can reprove with words, as if the speech of the desperate were wind?”

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  After dinner, I sneaked glances at his wife, Sister Laura, as she did the dishes in the kitchen. She, too, seemed the same as always. With no further explanation, I became lost in my own nightmare. If Father and Sister Catherine would actually kick out one of the parents, that meant that my parents were no longer safe. For days I was unable to sleep through the night. I couldn’t fathom what a parent might have done to warrant being kicked out by Father and Sister Catherine. I thought back to that terrifying moment a year earlier when I’d overheard my father yelling behind the closed door of Sister Catherine’s office. Will they kick out my parents, too? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, please, please, please don’t let that happen. I will sacrifice anything. Just keep them here. Please. But I braced myself for the day when it would happen. 35 Challenging Authority 1962 O ne afternoon in early autumn the year I entered ninth grade, Sister Maria Crucis turned to me as we were crossing the yard for Benediction. “Anastasia,” she said, “were you in the study hall this afternoon?” “No, Sister,” I replied “Are you sure?” she asked. Her nearly black eyes glared at me through her thick glasses. The tone of her voice was accusatory. I responded in a deferential tone of voice. “Yes, Sister, I’m sure.” She didn’t let up. “Where exactly were you?” “Down at the barn,” I said, irked at this form of inquisition. What I wanted to say was, “And you should know that I go down to the barn every afternoon to do my chores.” But I didn’t dare. I could tell she didn’t believe me. Powerless, I swallowed hard, trying to bury the anger that was boiling up inside me. As we arrived at the chapel, I knelt in my place and spent the half hour of Benediction fuming over her horridness. By the time we sat down for dinner, my rage had only increased. How dare she mistrust me. When it came time for dessert and we were allowed to speak, I laughed and chatted with the four other Little Sisters at my table but refused to make eye contact with Sister Maria Crucis. When she asked me a question, I answered without looking at her. “Look at me when you speak,” she snapped. I did so, glaring straight through her thick eyeglasses into her black eyes and enunciated my words slowly to make a point. “Yes, Sister,” I said, pausing between each word for emphasis. Watch out , a little voice in my head said to me. Ha , I said back to that little voice. And I went on chatting with my tablemates, exaggerating my effusiveness with them to make it evident that I wanted nothing to do with Sister Maria Crucis.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  I was reminded of my childhood reflections: Why did my mother have to be a nun and my father a brother? Now that façade was sundered, and I saw Father and Sister Catherine in a new light—as manipulators, driven by zealotry for a cause they decided was higher than the sacrament of marriage. My mother picked up the conversation and went on to recount how a year or two after the families had been separated and they had agreed to forgo the life of a married couple, the two of them confronted Father. “It was at St. Gabriel’s House,” she said. “Right in the refectory. We told him that we wanted our family life back, that God did not call us to be religious, but to be parents to our five children.” “What was his reaction?” I asked. “He got angry and told us we would lose our faith if we left,” my mother went on, “and so would the five of you. From the day each of us walked into the Center, long before the trouble started, we had looked up to Father as our spiritual advisor. He was telling us to stay for the good of our souls, and so we felt we had no option but to stay.” My father added, “He told us our vows of celibacy were inviolable.” In the silence that followed, I pondered his words. My father, the intellectual, the man of logic, a student of the writings of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, a man of principle—why didn’t he challenge Father about the incongruity of one set of vows superseding another set of vows? But I swallowed my instinct to ask that question. This was not a moment to interrogate my parents. They had just revealed the backstory that led to the life we lived for so many years. It was evident to me that they themselves had misgivings along the way and had suffered on account of it. My mother, almost as though to introduce some comic relief, let spill another anecdote. She laughed as she started to speak. “A couple of days later,” she said, referring to their yielding to a celibate life, “we arrived back at our little apartment at St. John’s House to find that someone had removed our double bed while we were gone and had replaced it with two twin beds, and anchored between them was a piece of plywood the length of the beds and five feet tall.” “You’re not serious?” I said. “Dead serious.” “As though you couldn’t pop into one twin bed together?” I howled with laughter. “Who do you think did it?” “I’m sure Brother Henry ordered it done,” she said. “Of course,” I replied. “Carrying out orders from on high” was the way my mother phrased it. It all seemed so counter-Catholic to me, and I asked my parents why they thought Father and Sister Catherine took such a radical step.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  For nearly forty years after life at the Center, we were once again a complete family, until my father died peacefully during a nap, four months shy of his ninetieth birthday. My mother, for the next eleven years attended daily Mass and was abundantly cheerful—enjoying her five children, ten grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren. She passed away as this memoir was going to print. She read it in its entirety and it had her blessing. F Afterword riends have asked me why I’m not angry, why I don’t hate my parents, and why I seem so “normal.” To be honest, I have spent little time analyzing why I’m happy. That is not to imply that I have been free of any anger; rather that the anger I have felt has been directed, not at my parents, but at Catherine Clarke. From an early age, I had a subliminal conviction that my parents were somehow victims of the powerful Leonard Feeney and Catherine Clarke. It appeared to me that my parents, my siblings and I were thrust together in a world that was foreign to our kinship. With the benefit of adulthood and maturity, I came to realize that my parents were free to have left the Center and thus to have prevented our family from being sundered. They allowed their religious zealotry to supersede their parental obligations and the joys associated with them. When I try to understand why my parents did what they did, I cannot. I could never have made such a sacrifice. Nor do I pretend that I didn’t wish my childhood had been different. Those endless hours consumed craving family life, wondering if we were the only thirty-nine children in the whole world who were being raised in a religious order, forbidden to call our parents “mummy” and “daddy.” This incomprehension is real, as is the pain. What anger I have experienced is aimed fully at Catherine Clarke, the power behind the throne of Leonard Feeney. Tall and powerful, she exuded an Amazonian force. As a mere child, I was her challenge—unmalleable, a free spirit in the claustrophobic world of the Center. She and I engaged in a battle of the wills, and try as she might, she was unable to forge me into a submissive member of the community. And so she banished me. At the time, I felt like a failure, but in truth it was she who had failed. I was David to her Goliath. Despite the pain and the anger, I am most conscious of the many ways in which I have been blessed, not the least of which is that I’m hardwired to tackle

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  Shame is a difficult thing. People certainly try to shame me for being fat. When I am walking down the street, men lean out of their car windows and shout vulgar things at me about my body, how they see it, and how it upsets them that I am not catering to their gaze and their preferences and desires. I try not to take these men seriously because what they are really saying is, “I am not attracted to you. I do not want to fuck you, and this confuses my understanding of my masculinity, entitlement, and place in this world.” It is not my job to please them with my body. It is, however, difficult to hold on to what I know in the face of what I feel when I am reminded so publicly, so violently, of how certain people see me. It is difficult to not feel like I am the problem, and like I should do whatever it takes to make sure I don’t compel such men to taunt me in the future. Fat shaming is real, constant, and rather pointed. There are a shocking number of people who believe they can simply torment fat people into weight loss and disciplining their bodies or disappearing their bodies from the public sphere. They believe they are medical experts, listing a litany of health problems associated with fatness as personal affronts. These tormentors bind themselves in righteousness when they point out the obvious—that our bodies are unruly, defiant, fat. It’s a strange civic-minded cruelty. When people try to shame me for being fat, I feel rage. I get stubborn. I want to make myself fatter to spite the shamers, even though the only person I would really be spiting is myself.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  T 5 Then Came the Decline, and a Fall 1946 and 1949 he first sign of a change in the air came after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Leonard Feeney decried the bombings. They were a moral outrage, he said, a callous disregard for human life and an un-Christian act. He blamed a godless society for such atrocities and channeled his indignation at the faculties of colleges and universities, arguing that liberalism was corrupting the morals of students. Within a couple of years, a number of his adherents—intellectuals like himself —had become convinced by the passion of his arguments. One of those was Dr. Fakhri Maluf, the man who had invited my father to the Center. In September 1947, Fakhri published an article in the Center’s quarterly entitled “Sentimental Theology” that boldly proclaimed, “There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.” In other words, the only way for a person to be saved and reach heaven after this life was to be Roman Catholic. Over the centuries, no less than half a dozen popes had championed that dogma and it was so stated in the Baltimore catechism that was part of every parochial school child’s religious education. But in the aftermath of World War II, the Catholic Church turned its focus to fostering ecumenism between Catholics and non-Catholics. The previous hard-line position was deemed too doctrinaire. Feeney railed against ecumenism, against the professors at Harvard for their liberalism, and against Catholic colleges and universities for compromising their