Awe

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 How God Became King (2012)

  From now on, John is saying, when we think of Jesus in the ancient messianic category of “son of God,” we are to understand that this has been fused together with the idea of Jesus as the father’s incarnate Word. And we are to understand, a deeper mystery still, that this had been the intention from the beginning. The category of messiahship itself was a category established, as it were, for God’s own use. Though this whole passage has, of course, a characteristically Johannine depth and mystery, we should not think of the synoptics’ presentation of Jesus’s baptism as any less theologically profound. In them the baptism scene is dramatic and decisive. The heavenly announcement that Jesus is “my son, my beloved one,” the one with whom God is delighted, indicates for those with biblically attuned ears that Jesus is marked out as the king of Psalm 2 and the servant of Isaiah 42: I will tell of the decree of YHWH: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.... Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. (Ps. 2:7–10) Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.... He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. (Isa. 42:1–4) Jesus was baptized. All at once, as he came up out of the water, suddenly the heavens were opened, and he saw God’s spirit coming down like a dove and landing on him. Then there came a voice out of the heavens. “This is my son, my beloved one,” said the voice. “I am delighted with him.” (Matt. 3:16–17) Teachers and preachers often put these texts together, bringing out two main themes. First, the echo of Psalm 2 says that Jesus is the Messiah; this, frequently, is short-circuited to mean “the incarnate one.” Second, the echo of Isaiah 42, and with it of the whole Isaianic “servant” theme, says that Jesus is the “suffering servant.” The scriptural echoes of the baptism story thus serve the normal creedal points of incarnation and cross. As I have indicated, there is nothing wrong with this. It is fine as far as it goes. But the two passages in question will simply not allow us to ignore the kingdom theme, which is so prominent in each. Psalm 2 opens with the nations raging and fighting—raging, indeed, against the true God; and the enthronement of God’s “son” is the answer.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  For him, the phrase “God’s son” would normally have meant one person and one person only: Tiberius Caesar, son of the “divine” Augustus. That’s what the coins all said—including the coin they showed Jesus a few days before (12:15–17). This points ahead to our fourth sound speaker (Chapter 7). For Mark, all the signs are that he was thinking, as many other early Christians were in his day, of the term “God’s son” as having at least four meanings. First, in the Old Testament Israel itself is “God’s son” (Exod. 4:22; Jer. 31:9). Second—and this seems to be a primary meaning in the baptism story—it is the messiah, Israel’s anointed king, who is “God’s son” (2 Sam. 7:12–14; Pss. 2:7; 89:26–27). Third, as we just noted, “son of God” was a regular and primary title taken by the Roman emperors from Augustus on. But fourth, looming up behind and beyond all of these was the sense we find in the very earliest Christian documents that all of these pointed to a strange new reality: that, in Jesus, Israel’s God had become present, had become human, had come to live in the midst of his people, to set up his kingdom, to take upon himself the full horror of their plight, and to bring about his long-awaited new world. The phrase “son of God” was ready at hand to express that huge, evocative, frightening possibility, without leaving behind any of its other resonances. We can see this already going on in the writings of Paul. It is highly likely that Mark expected his first readers to have the same combination of themes in mind. Matthew and Luke: Seeing Jesus, Thinking God Once we learn, from Mark, how we might read the story of Jesus as the story of Israel’s God returning at last, we may find it easier to recognize the ways in which Matthew and Luke are doing something very similar. (If, as most scholars still think, they both used Mark as a source, this is of course the more natural.) We begin with Matthew . Matthew makes things very clear in the frame he creates for his story. Look first at the opening of the gospel, right after the genealogy, which we noted in the previous chapter. The angel tells Joseph that Mary’s child is to be called “Jesus,” because “he is the one who will save his people from their sins”; the name “Jesus” is here being interpreted as meaning “ YHWH saves.”

• From How God Became King (2012)

  The title “son of God” expresses both halves of this complex and delicately balanced picture. It was a title, as we have seen, both for Israel and for the anointed king. But it also, in John as in Paul, acquires the associations that John has opened up as a fresh possibility through his prologue. The prologue opens with the “Word” who was God, the one through whom all things were made (1:1, 3), but it closes by telling us that the “Word,” becoming flesh, enabled us to gaze upon his glory, “glory like that of the father’s only son” (1:14). The son, intimately close to the father as he is, has made him known, has “brought him to light” (1:18). From now on, John is saying, when we think of Jesus in the ancient messianic category of “son of God,” we are to understand that this has been fused together with the idea of Jesus as the father’s incarnate Word. And we are to understand, a deeper mystery still, that this had been the intention from the beginning. The category of messiahship itself was a category established, as it were, for God’s own use. Though this whole passage has, of course, a characteristically Johannine depth and mystery, we should not think of the synoptics’ presentation of Jesus’s baptism as any less theologically profound. In them the baptism scene is dramatic and decisive. The heavenly announcement that Jesus is “my son, my beloved one,” the one with whom God is delighted, indicates for those with biblically attuned ears that Jesus is marked out as the king of Psalm 2 and the servant of Isaiah 42: I will tell of the decree of YHWH: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession…. Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. (Ps. 2:7–10) Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations…. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. (Isa. 42:1–4) Jesus was baptized. All at once, as he came up out of the water, suddenly the heavens were opened, and he saw God’s spirit coming down like a dove and landing on him. Then there came a voice out of the heavens. “This is my son, my beloved one,” said the voice. “I am delighted with him.” (Matt. 3:16–17)

• From How God Became King (2012)

  The more you tell the story of Jesus and pray for his Spirit, the more you discover what the church should be doing in the present time. Because the gospels are the foundational charter for the church’s life, they must be stories primarily about Jesus; otherwise the church would be rooted in itself. Here we find, in fact, the mirror image of the Bultmannian position: unless the church’s life and mission is rooted in the historical accomplishment of Jesus, all Christian life would be either arrogance or folly, or both. (As I write this paragraph, an e-mail comes in from Christian friends working among refugees and trafficked women in one of the toughest corners of the world. Why do we do this unless it’s the work of Jesus?) But perhaps the most mysterious and powerful thing about the way the gospels are written is the way they end. Or do they? The End Is the Beginning The gospels, in fact, do not really “end” in the way many stories do. Or rather, their ending is framed as, in a sense, a new beginning. Even if we suppose (as I do not) that Mark meant his gospel to end with the women saying “nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (16:8, where our best manuscripts now break off), there are plenty of hints earlier in the story that this would just be the start of a whole new phase of life and work for Jesus’s disciples. Jesus has, after all, already declared that the gospel of the kingdom must be announced to all the nations (13:10) and has repeated the point in relation to the woman who anointed him with ointment in Bethany: Jesus was in Bethany, at the house of Simon (known as “the Leper”). While he was at table, a woman came up with an alabaster pot containing extremely valuable ointment made of pure spikenard. She broke the pot and poured the ointment on Jesus’s head. Some of the people there grumbled to one another. “What’s the point of wasting the ointment?” they asked. “That ointment could have been sold for three hundred dinars, and given to the poor. ” And they were angry with her. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why make trouble for her? She has done a wonderful thing for me. You have the poor with you always; you can help them whenever you want to. But you won’t always have me. “She has played her part. She has anointed my body for its burial, ahead of time. I’m telling you the truth: wherever the message is announced in all the world, the story of what she has just done will be told. That will be her memorial.” (14:3–9) Clearly Mark did not envisage that 16:8 would be the real and final “end” to the story.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  This reinforces the warning we gave earlier, that it is possible to state the doctrine of Jesus’s “divinity” in such a way as to let it float loose from both kingdom and cross, but this is what the New Testament never does. The “God” who has become human in Jesus is the God who, as he had always promised, was returning to claim his sovereignty over the whole world (note the “other sheep” in John 10:16) and would do so by himself sharing the pain and suffering of his people, “laying down his life for the sheep.” It is all too possible to “believe in the divinity of Jesus” and to couple this with an escapist view of salvation (“Jesus is God and came to snatch us away from this world”) in a way that may preserve an outward form of “Christian orthodoxy,” but that has left out the heart of the matter. God is the creator and redeemer of the world, and Jesus’s launch of the kingdom—God’s worldwide sovereignty on earth as in heaven—is the central aim of his mission, the thing for which he lived and died and rose again. How can we even begin to understand this? Perhaps we should say that, with the hindsight the evangelists offer us, God called Israel to be the means of rescuing the world, so that he might himself alone rescue the world by becoming Israel in the person of its representative Messiah. This explains the place of David in the story. He is, in some respects at least, the man after God’s own heart, the man whose Temple-building son would be God’s own son, as God says to David through the prophet Nathan: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” (2 Sam. 7:12–14) This text, highlighted elsewhere in first-century Judaism as well, was very important for the early Christians as they struggled to understand the enormous thing that had just happened in their midst. There is a very tight nexus between God, David, the Temple—and the purposes of establishing the kingdom. The early Christians also saw that in the word “I will raise up” there was a hint of something else: resurrection. This rich, dense combination of themes reappears in a passage we looked at a moment ago, namely, Isaiah 53. In the previous section of the book, the prophet has invoked “the arm of YHWH” as a way of talking about YHWH himself, coming in person to do what he had promised, namely, to defeat the enemy and rescue his people: Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of YHWH!

• From How God Became King (2012)

  In each—and each is decisive as a marker for the writers’ meaning—we see exactly the combination of kingdom and cross that has proved so elusive in the history of interpretation. Baptism and Kingdom John doesn’t mention Jesus’s own baptism, but he does describe, through the mouth of John the Baptist, the Spirit descending and remaining on Jesus. Readers hear of this in the context of discovering, in John 1, that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah and also the Lamb of God who takes away the world’s sin: “Look!” said John. “There’s God’s lamb! He’s the one who takes away the world’s sin! He’s the one I was speaking about when I said, ‘There’s a man coming after me who ranks ahead of me, because he was before me!’ I didn’t know who it would be, but this was the reason I came to baptize with water—so that he could be revealed to Israel.” So John gave this evidence: “I saw the spirit coming down like a dove out of heaven and remaining on him. I didn’t know who it would be; but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘When you see the spirit coming down and resting on someone, that’s the person who will baptize with the holy spirit.’ Well, that’s what I saw, and I’ve given you my evidence: he is the son of God.” (1:29–34 ) All this is part of the larger impact of John’s first chapter, which ends with the first disciples recognizing Jesus as Messiah (1:41, 45, 49). This, as much as anything, is where we need the first speaker (the Messiah as the climax of Israel’s story) not to get drowned out by the second one (Jesus as God incarnate). The two belong together. Jesus has not come simply as a “superman” figure, a “divine hero” parachuted into the world to sort out the mess. He has come—and the gospel story only makes sense if we take this very seriously—as the one who will embody Israel’s ultimate vocation in himself. The title “son of God” expresses both halves of this complex and delicately balanced picture. It was a title, as we have seen, both for Israel and for the anointed king.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Clear a straight path for him!” (1:2–3) This is how it happened. Around that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the river Jordan. That very moment, as he was getting out of the water, he saw the heavens open, and the spirit coming down like a dove onto him. Then there came a voice, out of the heavens: “You are my son! You are the one I love! You make me very glad.” (1:9–11 ) Mark picks up, here and throughout his gospel, a major theme from the ancient Hebrew scriptures: that when Israel’s God acts in fulfillment of his ancient promises, he will do so in dramatic and radically new ways. Here, to be sure, is a paradox we meet throughout the New Testament: God acts completely unexpectedly—as he always said he would. Just because the new events are able to be seen as the fulfillment of ancient prophecy (and Mark, like the other evangelists, is clear that this is the only right way to see them), that doesn’t mean that one can see a smooth, easy line from the ancient texts to the modern fulfillment. On the contrary, what is being fulfilled is precisely the promise of drastic, unexpected, and perhaps even unwelcome judgment and mercy. But our proper emphasis on this radical, new breaking in of God’s action in Jesus ought not to diminish the sense that, in Mark, this new thing that God is doing is the new thing he had always promised. “The time is fulfilled!” says Jesus in Mark 1:15. The bridegroom has arrived at last for the wedding party (2:19). The fresh seed is at last being sown, even though plenty of it will go to waste, because most of the hearers are in no condition to receive it (4:1–20). Mark allows the sequence of dramatic events to build up to the central moment in which Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah (8:29) and witnesses this being dramatically confirmed in the transfiguration (9:2–7). Woven into this story, as we shall see in more detail, is the dark strand that warns of Jesus’s impending death; yet this too is seen as part of the shocking and unexpected fulfillment of scriptural promises (10:45, alluding to Dan. 7 and Isa. 53). Jesus is fulfilling the story of Israel, even though this requires readers to understand Israel’s story in a new way. Luke: The Scriptures Must Be Fulfille d That the scriptures must be fulfilled is precisely the point made by Luke at key points in his gospel.

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

  When Julius came to die, he was not yet 70. No man of his time had been an actor in so many stirring scenes. On his death-bed he called for Paris de Grassis, his master of ceremonies, and reminded him how little respect had been paid to the bodies of deceased popes within his recollection. Some of them had been left indecently nude. He then made him promise to see to it that he should have decent care and burial.840 The cardinals were summoned. The dying pontiff addressed them first in Latin, and implored them to avoid all simony in the coming election, and reminded them that it was for them and not for the council to choose his successor. He pardoned the schismatic cardinals, but excluded them from the conclave to follow his death. And then, as if to emphasize the tie of birth, he changed to Italian and besought them to confirm his nephew, the duke of Urbino, in the possession of Pesaro, and then he bade them farewell. A last remedy, fluid gold, was administered, but in vain. He died Feb. 20, 1513.841 The scenes which ensued were very different from those which followed upon the death of Alexander VI. A sense of awe and reverence filled the city. The dead pontiff was looked upon as a patriot, and his services to civil order in Rome and its glory counterbalanced his deficiencies as a priest of God.842 It was of vast profit that the Vatican had been free from the domestic scandals which had filled it so long. From a worldly standpoint, Julius had exalted the papal throne to the eminence of the national thrones of Europe. In the terrific convulsion which Luther’s onslaughts produced, the institution of the papacy might have fallen in ruins had not Julius re-established it by force of arms. But in vain will the student look for signs that Julius II. had any intimation of the new religious reforms which the times called for and Luther began. What measures this pope, strong in will and bold in execution, might have employed if the movement in the North had begun in his day, no one can surmise. The monk of Erfurt walked the streets of Rome during this pontificate for the first and only time. While Luther was ascending the scala santa on his knees and running about to the churches, wishing his parents were in purgatory that he might pray them out, Julius was having perfected a magnificently jewelled tiara costing 200,000 ducats, which he put on for the first time on the anniversary of his coronation, 1511. These two men, both of humble beginnings, would have been more a match for each other than Luther and Julius’ successor, the Medici, the man of luxurious culture.843 Under Julius II. the papal finances flourished. Great as were the expenditures of his campaigns, he left plate and coin estimated to be worth 400,000 ducats.

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

  The arrival of some of Christ’s blood in England, Oct. 13, 1247, was solemnized by royalty and furnishes one of the strange and picturesque religious scenes of English mediaeval history. The detailed description of Matthew Paris speaks of it as "a holy benefit from heaven."2048 Its genuineness was vouched for by the Masters of the Templars and the Hospitallers, and by the seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the archbishops and other prelates of the Holy Land. After fasting and keeping watch the night before, the king, Henry III., accompanied by the priests of London in full canonicals and with tapers burning, carried the vase containing the holy liquid from St. Paul’s to Westminster, and made a circuit of the church, the palace, and the king’s own apartments. The king proceeded on foot, holding the sacred vessel above his head. The bishop of Norwich preached a sermon on the occasion and, at a later date, Robert Grosseteste preached another in which he defended the genuineness of the relic, giving a memorable exhibition of scholastic ingenuity.2049 The true cross was found more than once and fragments of it were numerous, so numerous that the fiction had to be invented that the true cross had the singular property of multiplying itself indefinitely. A choice must be made between the stories. The first Crusaders beheld the cross in Jerusalem. Richard I., during the Third Crusade, was directed to a piece of it by an aged man, the abbot of St. Elie, who had buried it in the ground and refused to deliver it up to Saladin, even though that prince put him in bonds to force him to do so. Richard and the army kissed it with pious devotion.2050 Among the objects which the abbot, Martin, secured in Constantinople were a piece of the true cross and a drop of the Lord’s blood. The true cross, however, was still entire, and in 1241 it reached Paris. It had originally been bought by the Venetians from the king of Jerusalem for £20,000 and was purchased from the Emperor Baldwin by Louis IX. The relic was received with great ceremony and carried into the French capital by the king, with feet and head bare, and accompanied by his mother, Blanche, the queen, the king’s brothers, and a great concourse of nobles and clergy.2051 The crown of thorns was carried in the same procession. At a later time these relics were placed in the new and beautiful chapel which Louis built, a supposed holy coat of Christ, the iron head of the lance which pierced his side, and the sponge offered to him on the cross, together with other relics.

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

  Now, if we confine ourselves to these five books, which the most exacting and rigorous criticism admits to be apostolic—the four Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse—they alone are sufficient to establish the foundation of historical faith; for they confirm by direct statement or allusion every important fact and doctrine in the gospel history, without referring to the written Gospels. The memory and personal experience of the writers—Paul and John—goes back to the vision of Damascus, to the scenes of the Resurrection and Crucifixion, and the first call of the disciples on the banks of the Jordan and the shores of the Lake of Galilee. Criticism must first reason Paul and John out of history, or deny that they ever wrote a line, before it can expect sensible men to surrender a single chapter of the Gospels. Strong as the external evidence is, the internal evidence of the truth and credibility of the apostolic writings is still stronger, and may be felt to this day by the unlearned as well as the scholar. They widely differ in style and spirit from all post-apostolic productions, and occupy a conspicuous isolation even among the best of books. This position they have occupied for eighteen centuries among the most civilized nations of the globe; and from this position they are not likely to be deposed. We must interpret persons and events not only by themselves, but also in the light of subsequent history. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Christianity can stand this test better than any other religion, and better than any system of philosophy. Taking our position at the close of the apostolic age, and looking back to its fountain-head and forward to succeeding generations, we cannot but be amazed

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

  Andrew, the first called of the Twelve, hailed with his blessing long beforehand the destined introduction of Christianity into our country. Ascending up and penetrating by the Dniepr into the deserts of Scythia, he planted the first cross on the hills of Kieff, and ’See you,’ said he to his disciples, ’those hills? On those hills shall shine the light of divine grace. There shall be here a great city, and God shall have in it many churches to His name.’ Such are the words of the holy Nestor that point from whence Christian Russia has sprung." This tradition is an expansion of the report that Andrew labored and died a martyr in Scythia,134 and nothing more. In the ninth century the Russian tribes, inhabiting the Eastern part of Europe, were gathered together under the rule of Ruric, a Varangian prince,135 who from the coasts of the Baltic penetrated into the centre of the present Russia, and was voluntarily accepted, if not actually chosen by the tribes as their chief. He is regarded as the founder of the Russian empire, A.D. 862, which in 1862 celebrated its millennial anniversary. About the same time or a little later the Russians became somewhat acquainted with Christianity through their connections with the Byzantine empire. The Eastern church, however, never developed any great missionary activity, and when Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, in his circular letter against the Roman see, speaks of the Russians as already converted at his time (867), a few years after the founding of the empire, he certainly exaggerates. When, in 945, peace was concluded between the Russian grand-duke, Igor, and the Byzantine emperor, some of the Russian soldiers took the oath in the name of Christ, but by far the greatest number swore by Perun, the old Russian god. In Kieff, on the Dniepr, the capital of the Russian realm, there was at that time a Christian church, dedicated to Elijah, and in 955 the grand-duchess, Olga, went to Constantinople and was baptized. She did not succeed, however, in persuading her son, Svatoslav, to embrace the Christian faith. The progress of Christianity among the Russians was slow until the grand-duke Vladimir (980–1015), a grandson of Olga, and revered as Isapostolos ("Equal to an Apostle") with one sweep established it as the religion of the country. The narrative of this event by Nestor is very dramatic. Envoys from the Greek and the Roman churches, from the Mohammedans and the Jews (settled among the Chazares) came to Vladimir to persuade him to leave his old gods. He hesitated and did not know which of the new religions he should choose. Finally he determined to send wise men from among his own people to the various places to investigate the matter. The envoys were so powerfully impressed by a picture of the last judgment and by the service in the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, that the question at once was settled in favor of the religion of the Byzantine court.

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

  His Madonnas represent the perfection of human loveliness and purity. In the Madonna di San Sisto at Dresden, so called because Sixtus IV. is introduced into the picture, the eye is divided between the sad yet half-jubilant face of the Virgin Mother, the contemplative gaze of the cherubs and the pensive and sympathetic expression of the divine child. Grimm says, Raphael’s Madonnas are not Italian faces but women who are lifted above national characteristics. The Madonnas of da Vinci, Correggio, Titian, Murillo and Rubens contain the features of the nationality to which these painters belonged. Raphael alone has been able to give us feminine beauty which belongs to the European type as such.1030 The last, the greatest, and the purest of Raphael’s works is the Transfiguration in the Vatican. While engaged on it, he died, on Good Friday, his birthday. It was suspended over his coffin and carried to the church of the Pantheon, where his remains repose in his chosen spot near those of his betrothed bride, Maria di Bibbiena. In that picture we behold the divinest figure that ever appeared on earth, soaring high in the air, in garments of transparent light, and with arms outspread, adored by Moses on the right hand and by Elijah on the left, who represent the Old Covenant of law and promise. The three favorite disciples are lying on the ground, unable to face the dazzling splendor from heaven. Beneath this celestial scene we see, in striking contrast, the epileptic boy with rolling eyes, distorted features, and spasmodic limbs, held by his agonized father and supported by his sister; while the mother imploringly appeals to the nine disciples who, in their helplessness, twitted by scribes, point up to the mountain where Jesus had gone. In connecting the two scenes, the painter followed the narrative of the Gospels, Matt. xvii. 1–14; Mark ix. 2–14; Luke ix. 28–37. The connection is being continually repeated in Christian experience. Descending from the Mount of Transfiguration, we are confronted with the misery of earth and, helpless in human strength, we look to heaven as the only source of help. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. Michelangelo Buonarroti was 10 years older than Raphael, and survived him 44 years. He drew the inspiration for his sculptures and pictures from the Old Testament, from Dante and from Savonarola. He praised Dante in two sublime sonnets and heard Savonarola’s thrilling sermons against wickedness and vice, and witnessed his martyrdom. Vasari and Condivi both bear witness to his spotless morality. He deplored the corruptions of the papal court. For Rome still slays and sells Christ at the court, Where paths are closed to virtue’s fair increase.1031 The artist’s works have colossal proportions, and refuse to be judged by ordinary rules. They are divided between painting, as the frescos in the Sistine chapel of St. Peter’s, architecture as in St. Peter’s dome, and works of statuary, as Moses in Rome and David in Florence. His Pietà in St.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Daniel has a dream of four monsters trampling the earth in great wickedness and violence. Then a court scene develops in heaven: “Thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne” (7:9). This is clearly God himself, calling the world to account at last. The last great monster speaks its final arrogant words and is then put to death. Then something quite different takes place: As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being [Aramaic kebar enash, “like a son of man”] coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One [Aramaic ‘atiq yomaya, “Ancient of Days”] and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship [Aramaic malkutheh] is one that shall never be destroyed. (7:13–14) Daniel, as is common in such literature, asks an attendant to interpret the vision. This is the first response: As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. (7:17–18) It is already clear. As regularly in “apocalyptic” writing, the elements of the vision are symbolic and need decoding. The monsters represent human empires, but the “one like a son of man” represents Israel, or at least the righteous within Israel. They have suffered long under the rule of the monsters, but they are to be rescued—and not only rescued, but given sovereignty over the world. Then Daniel, still curious, asks his question again, describing the crucial element in the scene once more: As I looked, this horn made war with the holy ones and was prevailing over them, until the Ancient One came; then judgment was given for the holy ones of the Most High, and the time arrived when the holy ones gained possession of the kingdom. (7:21–22) This makes it even clearer. It is indeed a court scene, with the “holy ones”—God’s true people—in the position of vindicated defendant, while the “horn”—the final king of the fourth great empire—is condemned. What is most interesting here, for the secure interpretation of the whole passage as it stands, is that in repeating his description of the scene Daniel does not speak, this time, of “the coming of the son of man” to the “Ancient One,” but already interprets that as “the holy ones gaining possession of the kingdom.” We are then prepared for the restated and amplified interpretation at the end of the chapter: Then the court shall sit in judgment, and [the horn’s] dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and totally destroyed.

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

  § 83. Origin and History of the Catacomb. The Catacombs of Rome and other cities open a new chapter of Church history, which has recently been dug up from the bowels of the earth. Their discovery was a revelation to the world as instructive and important as the discovery of the long lost cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of Nineveh and Babylon. Eusebius says nothing about them; the ancient Fathers scarcely allude to them, except Jerome and Prudentius, and even they give us no idea of their extent and importance. Hence the historians till quite recently have passed them by in silence.516 But since the great discoveries of Commendatore De Rossi and other archaeologists they can no longer be ignored. They confirm, illustrate, and supplement our previous knowledge derived from the more important literary remains. The name of the Catacombs is of uncertain origin, but is equivalent to subterranean cemeteries or resting-places for the dead.517 First used of the Christian cemeteries in the neighborhood of Rome, it was afterwards applied to those of Naples, Malta, Sicily, Alexandria, Paris, and other cities. It was formerly supposed that the Roman Catacombs were originally sand-pits (arenariae) or stone-quarries (lapidicinae), excavated by the heathen for building material, and occasionally used as receptacles for the vilest corpses of slaves and criminals.518 But this view is now abandoned on account of the difference of construction and of the soil. A few of the catacombs, however, about five out of thirty, are more or less closely connected with abandoned sand-pits.519 The catacombs, therefore, with a few exceptions, are of Christian origin, and were excavated for the express purpose of Christian burial. Their enormous extent, and the mixture of heathen with Christian symbols and inscriptions, might suggest that they were used by heathen also; but this is excluded by the fact of the mutual aversion of Christians and idolaters to associate in life and in death. The mythological features are few, and adapted to Christian ideas.520 Another erroneous opinion, once generally entertained, regarded the catacombs as places of refuge from heathen persecution. But the immense labor required could not have escaped the attention of the police. They were, on the contrary, the result of toleration. The Roman government, although (like all despotic governments) jealous of secret societies, was quite liberal towards the burial clubs, mostly of the poorer classes, or associations for securing, by regular contributions, decent interment with religious ceremonies.521 Only the worst criminals, traitors, suicides, and those struck down by lightning (touched by the gods) were left unburied. The pious care of the dead is an instinct of human nature, and is found among all nations. Death is a mighty leveler of distinctions and preacher of toleration and charity; even despots bow before it, and are reminded of their own vanity; even hard hearts are moved by it to pity and to tears.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  In fact, all four evangelists make it abundantly clear that we are to understand both Jesus’s kingdom and his death in relation to the Temple—or rather, in relation to the fulfillment of the Temple’s role in Jesus himself (this is a major theme throughout John) and his upstaging of it in his last great symbolic actions. It is now becoming more widely recognized, I think, that the synoptic evangelists present the Last Supper as a “new Temple” moment. Jesus, having pronounced God’s judgment on the old Temple in his dramatic action and then his discourse on the Mount of Olives, now gathers his friends around him to celebrate a “Passover meal with a difference,” a meal that not only looked back, like all Passover meals, to the exodus itself, but forward to the new exodus that Jesus was about to accomplish. Like all Passover meals, it was not just a signpost, but a means, through the sharing of food and wine, of partaking in that event about to be accomplished. When Jesus wanted to explain to his followers the meaning of his death, he didn’t give them a theory; he gave them a meal. The synoptics draw this out in one way, John in another (with the foot washing, chap. 13). But if what we said before about the political significance of the Temple has any significance here, this means that Jesus’s Temple redefinition was also part of what the evangelists saw as his establishment of a kingdom vastly superior to those of both Herod and Caesar. For a new theocracy to be inaugurated, a new Temple is necessary, so that the living God may there receive the worship of the world and from there administer his wise rule over creation. This is the point above all, perhaps, that today’s attempts at political theology will find opaque. For a genuinely Jewish vision of theocracy, you need God in the midst of it. But what the gospels offer us—especially John, but actually all of them—is a God who is in the midst in and as Jesus the Messiah, and a God who is then committed to remaining in the midst, through Jesus, in the person of the Spirit.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2Wanda’s chastened and temperate mood persisted for several weeks, and while it was on her she clung like a drowning man to Stephen, haunting the house from morning until night, dreading to be alone for a moment. It cannot be said that Stephen suffered her gladly, for now with the New Year she was working hard on a series of articles and short stories; unwilling to visualize defeat, she began once again to sharpen her weapon. But something in Wanda’s poor efforts to keep sober, in her very dependence, was deeply appealing, so that Stephen would put aside her work, feeling loath to desert the unfortunate creature. Several times they made a long pilgrimage on foot to the church of the Sacré Cœur; just they two, for Mary would never go with them; she was prejudiced against Wanda’s religion. They would climb the steep streets with their flights of steps, grey streets, grey steps leading up from the city. Wanda’s eyes would always be fixed on their goal—pilgrim eyes they would often seem to Stephen. Arrived at the church she and Wanda would stand looking down between the tall, massive columns of the porch, on a Paris of domes and mists, only half revealed by the fitful sunshine. The air would seem pure up there on the height, pure and tenuous as a thing of the spirit. And something in that mighty temple of faith, that amazing thrust towards the sublime, that silent yet articulate cry of a nation to its God, would awaken a response in Stephen, so that she would seem to be brushing the hem of an age-old and rather terrible mystery—the eternal mystery of good and evil. Inside the church would be brooding shadows, save where the wide lakes of amber fire spread out from the endless votive candles. Above the high altar the monstranced Host would gleam curiously white in the light of the candles. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, would come from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms, all day and all night for the sins of Paris.

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

  The most notable adept of this conventual flagellation was Dominicus Loricatus (d. 1060), who got his name from the iron coat he wore next to his skin. He accompanied the repetition of every psalm with a hundred strokes with a lash on his naked back. Three thousand strokes were equivalent to a year’s penance. But Loricatus beat all records and accomplished the exercise of the entire Psalter no less than twenty times in six days, the equivalent of a hundred years of penance. Peter Damiani, to whom we are indebted for our account, relates that the zealous ascetic, after saying nine Psalters in a single day, accompanying them with the required number of lashes, went to his cell to make sure the count was right. Then removing his iron jacket and taking a scourge in each hand, he kept on repeating the Psalter the whole night through till he had finished it the twelfth time and was well into the thirteenth when he stopped. What is your body, exclaimed Damiani, who contented himself with prescribing forty psalms a day for his monks,—"what is your body? Is it not carrion, a mass of corruption, dust, and ashes, and what thanks will the worms give for taking good care of it?"2117 Under the appeals of preachers like Fulke of Neuilly and Anthony of Padua, there were abnormal physical manifestations, and hearers set to work flagellating themselves. The flagellant outbreak of 1259 started at Perugia and spread like an epidemic. All classes, young and old, were seized. With bodies bared to the waist, carrying crosses and banners and singing hymns, newly composed and old, they marched to and fro in the streets, scourging themselves. Priests and monks joined the ranks of the penitents. Remarkable scenes of moral reform took place. Usurers gave up their ill-gotten gains; murderers confessed, and, with swords pointed to their throats, offered themselves up to justice; enemies were reconciled. And as the chatty chronicler, Salimbene, goes on to say, if any would not scourge himself, he was held to be a limb of Satan. And what is more, such persons were soon overtaken with sickness or premature death.2118 Twenty thousand marched from Modena to Bologna. At Reggio, Parma, and other cities, the chief officials joined them. But all were not so favorable, and the Cremona authorities and Manfred forbade their entering their territories. The ardor cooled off quickly in Italy, but it spread beyond the Alps. Twelve hundred Flagellants appeared in Strassburg and the impulse was felt as far as Poland and Bohemia. The German penitents continued their penance thirty-three days in memory of the number of the years of Christ’s life. They chastised themselves and also sang hymns. Here also the enthusiasm subsided as suddenly as it was enkindled. The repetitions of the movement belong to the next period. § 136. Demonology and the Dark Arts.

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

  Michael’s in Normandy and in 1475 to Wilsnack, where, in spite of the exposure by Nicolas of Cusa, the blood was still reputed holy.1270 The most noted places of pilgrimage in Germany were Cologne with the bodies of the three Magi-kings and Aachen, where Mary’s undergarment, Jesus’ swaddling-cloth and the loin-cloth he wore on the cross and other priceless relics are kept. Some idea of the popularity of pilgrimages may be had from the numbers that are given, though it is possible they are exaggerated. In 1466, 130,000 attended the festival of the angels at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and in 1496 the porter at the gate of Aachen counted 146,000.1271 In the 14 days, when the relics were displayed, 85,000 gulden were left in the money-boxes of St. Mary’s, Aachen. Imposing religious processions were also popular, such as the procession at Erfurt,1483, in a time of drought. It lasted from 5 in the morning till noon, the ranks passing from church to church. Among those who took part were 948 children from the schools, the entire university-body comprising 2,141 persons, 812 secular priests, the monks of 5 convents and a company of 2,316 maidens with their hair hanging loosely down their backs and carrying tapers in their hands. German synods called attention to the abuses of the pilgrimage-habit and sought to check it.1272 English pilgrims, not satisfied with going to Rome, Jerusalem and the sacred places on their own island, also turned their footsteps to the tomb of St. James of Compostella, Spain. In 1456, Wey conducted 7 ship-loads of pilgrims to this Spanish locality. Among the popular English shrines were St. Edmund of Bury, St. Ethelred of Ely, the holy hood of Boxley, the holy blood of Hailes and, more popular than all, Thomas à Becket’s tomb at Canterbury and our Blessed Lady of Walsingham. So much frequented was the road to Walsingham that it was said, Providence set the milky way in the place it occupies in the heavens that it might shine directly upon it and direct the devout to the sacred spot. These two shrines were visited by unbroken processions of religious itinerants, including kings and queens as well as people less distinguished. Reference has already been made to Erasmus’ description, which he gives in his Colloquies. At Walsingham, he was shown the Virgin’s shrine rich with jewels and ornaments of silver and gold and lit up by burning candles. There, was the wicket at which the pilgrim had to stoop to pass but through which, with the Virgin’s aid, an armed knight on horseback had escaped from his pursuer. The Virgin’s congealed milk, the cool scholar has described with particular precision. Asking what good reason there was for believing it was genuine, the verger replied by pointing him to an authentic record hung high up on the wall. Walsingham was also fortunate enough to possess the middle joint of one of Peter’s fingers.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  The third speaker, the gospel story as the story of the renewed people of God, reminds us of two other elements of the exodus story: Israel’s vocation to be the royal priesthood (Exod. 19:5–6) and the gift of the Torah, through which that vocation might become a reality. When we listen to the story with the speaker properly adjusted, we hear at last the gospels describing Jesus as not only a great moral teacher, but as the one who gives to God’s people their new vocation and way of life. The gospel story, and the teaching of Jesus within it, is not simply a new “Torah,” as though replacing the old one with a new one. The whole situation is now different. Jesus’s way of life, and the renewed heart that he promises goes with it, partake already of the new creation, which enables this people to be God’s people indeed. When, thinking of the exodus, we read the gospels with the fourth speaker adjusted properly, we are reminded of God’s dark and solemn victory over Pharaoh, first in the plagues and then in the Red Sea. The story of the exodus is of course an exciting, dramatic rescue operation. When you relive it at a Passover celebration, you tend to identify with the people as they dream of freedom while living under a cruel regime, as they begin to dare to hope for it when Moses confronts Pharaoh, as they start to taste it when the plagues fall on Egypt and they are allowed to leave, as they experience it vividly in the crossing of the Red Sea—and then as they find that freedom poses its own new challenges in the wilderness. But with all this we are still focusing, naturally enough, on the experience of the people. Behind this, underneath this, is the deeper and darker story that makes sense of it all. The powers of this world exalt themselves against the creator God, the God of Israel, and God will not be mocked forever. The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our God, and he will reign forever and ever. The story of the exodus is the story of “how God became king.” That is what Moses and the Israelites sang about after the Red Sea had returned to drown the pursuing imperial army: I will sing to YHWH, for he has triumphed gloriously; Horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. YHWH is my strength and my might, And he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, My father’s God, and I will exalt him. YHWH is a warrior; YHWH is his name.... YHWH will reign for ever and ever. (Exod.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  From all that we examined in Chapter 7, it is clear that all four gospels regard the story of Jesus not only as the confrontation between God’s kingdom and Caesar’s kingdom, but as the victory of the former over the latter. This theme is continued throughout the New Testament. Toward the end of the previous section we glanced at some passages in the book of Revelation that make this point graphically. The violent death of the Lamb has won the decisive victory over the monsters and their horrid kingdoms and over the old dragon, the satan itself. But there are many other passages too that do not mince their words. It may have looked as if the powers of the world were winning a victory over Jesus (certainly that was how everyone in Jerusalem, both those who followed Jesus and those who hated him, saw things at the time). But in fact the boot was on the other foot. Think of Caesar in his title of “son of God”; think of his (claimed) royal descent, his power, and his claim to worldwide allegiance; and then hear the overtones of Paul’s stunning opening for his greatest letter: …the good news about God’s son, who was descended from David’s seed in terms of flesh, and who was marked out powerfully as God’s son in terms of the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead: Jesus, the king, our Lord! Through him we have received grace and apostleship to bring about believing obedience among all the nations for the sake of his name. (Rom. 1:3–5) Or think of Paul speaking of “the wisdom God prepared ahead of time…for our glory” (1 Cor. 2:7) and then explaining: None of the rulers of this present age knew about this wisdom. If they had, you see, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. (2:8) In other words, the powers that put Jesus on the cross didn’t realize that by doing so they were in fact serving God’s purposes, unveiling the “wisdom” that lies at the heart of the universe. Paul puts it even more positively, seeing the cross as the weapon with which God stripped the armor from the rulers and authorities, as soldiers would do with beaten enemies: He stripped the rulers and authorities of their armor, and displayed them contemptuously to public view, celebrating his triumph over them in him. (Col. 2:15). That is to say, when Jesus died on the cross he was winning the victory over “the rulers and authorities” who have carved up this world in their own violent and destructive way. The establishment of God’s kingdom means the dethroning of the world’s kingdoms, not in order to replace them with another one of basically the same sort (one that makes its way through superior force of arms), but in order to replace it with one whose power is the power of the servant and whose strength is the strength of love.