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 Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  The symbol r e m ains central to epiphanic art, and not only in the school which was called ' Sy mbo l ist'. C arlyle spoke of the symbol as "an e mbodiment and revelation o f the i nfinit e". Yeats took up the Romantic contrast of symbol with allegory: "A sy mbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a t r a n sp aren t lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of man y p o s sibl e r epresentations of an embodied thing or a familiar principle . .. : the o n e is a r evelation , the other an amusement". 8 The "image" that Pound and h is g eneration so u ght pa rt akes of t h e same nature. The image is a concrete 42.2. • S U B TL E R LA NG U A G ES manifestation; it is not meant to be understood as discourse about something. Music, th e clearly non-discursive, non-representative art, is the model. Symbolists and Imagists, like Pater, think that all art should aspire to the condition o f music. 9 Quite understandably, the Romantic imag e of the poet as a seer continues, explicitly in Baudelaire, but implicitly in the quality of admiration and aw e which surround the makers of epiphanies up to our day. There is a kin d of pi ety which still surrounds art and artists in our time, which comes from th e sense that what they reveal has great moral and spiritual significance; that in it lies. the key to a certain depth, or fulness, or seriousness, or intensity of life , or to a certain wholeness. I have to use a string of alternatives here, because this si gn ifi cance is very differently conceived, and often-for reasons whic h hav e to do with the very nature of epiphanic art and which I will discuss below-is n ot clearly conceived at all. But for many of o u r contemporar ies ar t has tak e n something like the place of religion. In contr ast to th e fulness of epiphany is the sens e of the world around us, a s we ordinarily experience it, as ou t of joint, dead, or forsaken.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  This is why late-eighteenth-c e ntu ry sentimentali s m , wh en it moved beyond the early influential formulatio ns of Rousseau, fou n d its natural home in the philosophies of nature as a source. The difference in relation to the Platonic model is that here the "senti ments" are defined by the transcendent object of love, the Good. We ca n be lieve that we can attain a descripti on o f th is ob ject independent of ou r The Expressivist Turn • 3 7 3 f e elings, although the object prop erly understo od must command our love a nd awe. But we come to define what nature is as a source in the course of ar t iculating what it inclines us to. If we think of nature as a force, an elan r unning through the world, which emerges in our own inner impulses, if these imp ulses are an indispensable pa rt of our a c cess to this force, then w e can onl y know what it is by articulating what these i mpulses impel us to. An d this articulation must be partly in terms of sentiment, as we have seen. So once ag ain, our sentiments are integral to our most original, underived definition of the good. The first difference above, that in relation to the Aristotelian model, gives rise to another slide, analogous to the one away from orthodox theology. If the good life is defined partly in t erms of c ertain se n timents, then it can also slip its moorings and de p art from the traditional ethical codes. At first, the appropriate sentiments are define d very much in congruence with the ethic of ordinary li f e and benevolence, following moral sense theory. Benevolenc e and sympathy are seen as natural, as were the traditional limits on sensual fulfilment by, say , Rousseau or Herder. But th e way is open for a redefinition. Renewed con ta ct with th e deep sources in nature ca n be seen as conferring a heightened, more vibrant quality to life. This can be interpreted in a way which abandons the usual restraints on sensual fulfilment. In p artial attune m ent to the outlook of Enlightenment materialism, sensuality can itself be made signi fi cant. The good life comes to consist in a perfect fusion of the sensual and the spiritu a l, where our sensual fulfilments are experienced as having higher significance. 9 The journey along this path tak e s us beyond the period now being discussed. We have perhaps come to the end of this r o ad on ly in our own time, with the " flower generation " of the 196o's. Similarly, the source which gives heightened vibrancy to our lives can be detached fro m benevolence and solidarity. But this , too, happens later.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Mobility was still a sacred value: the sacrificial ground was used once only, and was always abandoned after the completion of the rite. At the western end of the sacrificial area, a thatched hut represented the hall of the settled householder. During the rite, the warriors solemnly carried the fire from the hut to the eastern end of the enclosure, where a fresh hearth was built in the open air. The next day, a new sacrificial ground was established, a little farther to the east, and the rite was repeated. The ceremony reenacted Agni’s victorious progress into the new territory, as a ritualist of a later period explained: “This Fire should create room for us; this Fire should go in front, conquering our enemies; impetuously this Fire should conquer the enemies; this Fire should win the prizes in the contest.” 52 Agni was the patron of the settlers. Their colony was a new beginning and, like the first creation, had wrested order from chaos. Fire symbolized the warriors’ ability to control their environment. They identified deeply with their fire. If he could steal fire from the hearth of a vaishya farmer, a warrior could also lure his cattle away, because they would always follow the flames. “He should take brightly burning fire from the home of his rival,” says one of the later texts; “he thereby takes his wealth, his property.” 53 Fire symbolized a warrior’s power and success; it was—an im-portant point—his alter ego. He could create new fire, control and domesticate it. Fire was like his son; when he died and was cremated, he became a sacrificial victim and Agni would carry him to the land of the gods. The fire represented his best and deepest self (atman), 54 and because the fire was Agni, this self was sacred and divine. Agni was present everywhere, but he was hidden. He was in the sun, the thunder, the stormy rain, and the lightning that brought fire to the earth. He was present in ponds and streams, in the clay of the riverbank, and the plants from which fire could be kindled. 55 Agni had to be reverently retrieved from these hiding places, and pressed into the service of humanity. After establishing a new settlement, the warriors would celebrate the Agnicayana ritual, when they would ceremonially build a new brick altar for Agni. First they processed to the riverbank to collect the clay, where Agni was hidden, ritually taking possession of their new territory.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The traditional yoga had never centered on a god, but karma-yoga did. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad had instructed the yogin to focus on Rudra/Shiva, but Krishna told Arjuna that he must meditate on Vishnu. Krishna had a surprise for Arjuna. He explained that he, Krishna, was not only the son of Vishnu, but he actually was the god in human form. Even though he was “unborn, undying, the Lord of creatures,” Vishnu had descended into a human body many times. 83 Vishnu was the creator of the world and kept it in being, but whenever there was a serious crisis—“whenever sacred duty decays and chaos prevails”—he created an earthly form for himself and came into the world: To protect men of virtue And destroy men who do evil To set the standard of sacred duty, I appear in age after age. 84 Now that he had imparted this astonishing news, Krishna could speak more openly to Arjuna about the devotion of bhakti. Arjuna could learn how to detach himself from his egocentric desires by imitating Krishna himself. As Lord and Ruler of the world, Krisha/Vishnu was continually active, but his deeds (karman) did not damage him: These actions do not bind me, Since I remain detached In all my actions, Arjuna, As if I stood apart from them. 85 But if he wanted to imitate Krishna, Arjuna had to understand the nature of divinity; he had to see Krishna/Vishnu as he truly was. Right there on the battlefield, Krishna revealed his divine nature to Arjuna, who was aghast and filled with terror when he saw his friend’s eternal form as the god Vishnu, creator and destroyer, to whom all beings must return. He saw Krishna transfigured by the divine radiance, which contained the entire cosmos. “I see the gods in your body!” he cried. I see your boundless form Everywhere, The countless arms, Bellies, mouths, and eyes; Lord of all, I see no end, Or middle or beginning To your totality. 86 Everything—human or divine—was somehow present in the body of Krishna, who filled space and included within himself all possible forms of deity: “howling storm gods, sun gods, bright gods, and gods of ritual.” But Krishna/Vishnu was also “man’s tireless spirit,” the essence of humanity. 87 All things rushed toward him, as rivers roiled toward the sea and moths were drawn inexorably into a blazing flame. And there too Arjuna saw the Pandava and Kaurava warriors, all hurtling into the god’s blazing mouths. Arjuna had thought that he had known Krishna through and through, but now, “Who are you?” he cried in bewilderment. “I am Time grown old,” Krishna replied—time, which set the world in motion and also annihilated it. Krishna/Vishnu was eternal; he transcended the historical process. As destroyer, Krishna/Vishnu had already annihilated the armies that were apparently drawing up their battle lines, even though, from Arjuna’s human perspective, the fighting had not even begun.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  In its reflections in civi c humanist thought and nationalism, in Arnold's theory of culture, Romantic expressivism was seen as closely interwoven with th e moral aspirations I discussed above: as their major source of suppon or as their normal complement. But the very notion of fulfilment through an contained, as we have seen, the seeds of a possible bre a ch. This breach came about for influential strands of our culture in the nineteenth cen tury, and we are still living with the consquences. In order to see this, we have to trace the epiphanies of the creative imagination over this period. 23 VISIONS OF THE POST-ROMANTIC AGE 23.1 The idea of th e creative imagination, as it sprang up in the Roman tic era, is st ill central to modem culture. The conception is still alive among u s of art-of li terature, in the first place, and especially of poetry-as a creation which reveals, or as a revelation which at the same time defines and completes what it makes manifest . There are strong co ntinuities from the Romantic period, through the Symbolists and many strands of what was loosely called 'modernism', right up to the present day. What remains cen tral is the notion of the w ork o f art as issuing fr om or r e alizing an 'epiphany', to use o n e of Joyce 's words in a some what wider sense tha n his. What I want to capture with this term is just th is notion of a work of art as the locus of a manifestation which brings u s into the p r esence of something which is otherwi se inaccessible, and which is of the highest moral or sp iritual significan c e ; a manifestatio n, m oreover, w hich also defines or completes something, even as it reveals. A work of this kind is not to be understood simply as mimesis, even tho u gh it may involve a descriptive componen t. In fact there are two different ways in which a work can bring about what I'm calling an epiphany, and the b alance over the last century has shifted from one to the other. In the first, which dominated with the Romantics, the work does portray something u nspoilt nature, human emotion-but in such a way as to show som e greater sp iritual reality or significance shining through it.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  They too were shruti, “revealed,” regarded as scripture par excellence. They are not easy to interpret, but they have been more influential in shaping Hindu spirituality than any other part of the Vedic corpus. The two earliest Upanishads emerged seamlessly from the world of the Brahmanas. Like the Aranyakas, or Forest Texts, they were esoteric sections added onto the Brahmana commentaries of the different priestly schools. The first of the Upanishads actually called itself an Aranyaka. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad is the “Great Forest Text” of the White Yajur Veda School. It opened with a discussion of the Vedic horse sacrifice, one of the most important of the royal ceremonies and the speciality of the White Yajur Veda. The author of the Upanishad pointed out bandhus (“connections”) in the traditional way, identifying various parts of the horse with the natural world. The stallion’s head was the dawn, his eyes were the sun, and his breath was the wind. But in the Upanishad, the ritual could be performed and completed mentally. It had ceased to be linked with a physical, external sacrifice but took place entirely in the mind of the sage (rishi). The Chandogya Upanishad was the Vedantic text of the Udgatr priests who were responsible for the chant, and it began appropriately with a meditation on the sacred syllable “Om,” with which the Udgatr priest began each hymn. Sound had always been divine in India; it was the primal reality, because, it was said, everything else derived from it. Now, the Chandogya Upanishad made this single syllable stand for all sound and for the entire cosmos. Om was the essence of everything that existed—of the sun, moon, and stars. It was the brahman in form of sound, the vital power that held everything together: “As all leaves are held together by a stalk, so all speech is held together by Om. Verily, the whole world is nothing but Om.” 1 But the chant was not merely a transcendent reality external to the priest who intoned it. It was also one with the human body, with the atman, with breath, speech, ear, eye, and mind. The Chandogya Upanishad directed the attention of the audience back to the inner self. When a priest intoned this sacred syllable with these “connections” firmly in his mind, he attained the goal of the spiritual quest. Because Om was the brahman, it was “the immortal and the fearless.” 2 A person who chanted this immortal and fearless sound while contemplating these bandhus would himself become immortal and free from fear. This brings us to the heart of the Upanishadic vision.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  Those who were drawn to materialism often strengthened the la tter impression. They were indeed concerned to subvert traditional religion and morality. What could easily fa i l to be noticed was that this new/o l d p hilosophy was not just the negation of all spiritual stances to human life, but involved its own characteristic one. It was easy to miss, because of the self-imposed inarticulacy of Enlightenment naturalism concerning its moral sources. But this stance, and the conflict around it, is well captured by a writer of our day. Douglas Hofstadter recognizes that certain people hav e an instinctive horror of any "explainin g away" of the soul. I don't know why certain people have this horror while ot h ers, like me, find in reductionism the ultimate religion. Perhaps my lifelong trainin g in p hysics and science in general h as given me a d eep awe at seeing how the most substantial and familiar of objects or experiences fades away, as one appr oaches the infinitesimal scale, into an eerily insubstantial ether, a myriad of ephemeral swirling vortices of nearly inco mprehensible math ematical activity. This in me evokes a cosmic awe. To me, reductionism does n ' t "explain away"; rather , it a dd s mystery. 4 7 We don't find such an openly articulate statement in an eighteenth-centur y author. But just as with the significa n ce of human life, the spir it ua l insp iration can be sensed where it isn't stated. Thus Holbach's materialism sees al l be i ngs alike as tending to a "gravi tation sur soi", 48 as driving to maintain themselves in their being. This involved a break with the Cartesian conception of matter as fundamentally inert. This conception fi gured in a standard argument for the existe nce o f God: he had to be invoked to explain how moveme nt starts. Holbach replaces it with a picture of nature as the locus of force, a pict u re with depth , which awakens our awe and which can conceivably be the locus from whic h thought emerges, something unthinkable with the Cartesian variant.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  There i s a steady tendency towards the "forgetfulness of Being," which has to be reversed by an existential analytic, a study which brings to light the fo r gotten being of things and opens us to the meaning o f Being, which has been obscured and covered ove r in our modern world view.11 Through whatever important difference s, a line of affiliation links all these philosophical overturnings to the basic concerns o f the Romantics. They all aim to combat the hold of mechanistic-utilitarian categories on our lives; they all have some debt to philosophies of vitalism and exp ressivism: Wittgenstein to Schopenhauer, Heidegger to Dilthey.12 And they all stand dose to facets of modernist consciousness in their r ejection of the hegemony of disengaged reason and mechanism. So where the original Romantics turned to nature and unadorned fee l i ng, we find many moderns turnin g to a retrieval of experience or interiority. This is the inward turn I have described. But what about the anti-subje ctivism we find s o frequentl y in Pound and Eliot, in Rilke, and in Heidegger as well ? This is the feature which i s so often articulated a s a n opposition to Romanticism (as with Hulme), or as ' c lassicism' (Eliot), or even as an anti-humanism (Wyndham Lewis, and a gain later Heidegger). This paradoxically has some of the same roots. The original Romantic belief i n nature held for nature within us as well. The spiritual reality which emanated in the world which surrounds us was also within. The Spirit in nature comes to consciousness in man, for Schelling and Hegel. Coleridge sees nature in terms of life; everything grows, and shapes itself from within. The artist's imagination works by the same prin c iple. The artist doesn't imitate mere nature as natura naturata, but is rather formin g nature as natura naturans. But that is because of the bond between the spirit of nature a nd the human soul. The spirit is also at work in us. Early Romanticism developed out of the notion that I have called nature as a source, whose paradigmatic early statement was in Rousseau.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  IDYLLIC SITUATIONS AND PARTNERSTropical islands, warm breezes at sunset, toasts to love over candlelight, meaningful glances from a beautiful stranger—these and countless other idyllic situations are associated with romantic fantasy and fiction. Nevertheless, 21 percent of The Group’s real-life encounters stand out precisely because they involve unusually fantasylike settings or ideal partners. Not surprisingly, many of these encounters take place on vacation. Far away from familiar surroundings and distractions, it’s easier to set aside inhibitions, to take a risk, to initiate or renew a romance. Such encounters can also unfold much closer to home, as in the case of Trevor, a gay man in his late thirties: His name was Eric and he was extremely attractive to me, with a firm, slightly developed body. He was the absolute best hugger. My body came alive when he wrapped me up in his arms. I especially enjoyed kissing him, his lips so soft as he kissed me in return. I remember gazing deep into his eyes while he fucked me as I sat on top of him. Our motions were in perfect harmony. It was easy handling him inside me. I was totally amazed by it all and kept staring at him and his beautiful body, wondering if it was all a dream. The thought of my good luck, together with the sight of him, and the feeling of his dick inside of me—I’ve never been more aroused. His movements and thrusts when he came gave me an orgasm without any stimulation of my cock. I couldn’t believe it since I’ve always needed my dick jerked off to come. I never saw Eric again. Nor have I ever felt so responsive since, though I’ve attempted to recreate the feeling with other men. I often wonder what made that evening so unique. It was truly magical. In addition to its idyllic features, this story also has a poignant quality. While Eric clearly personifies Trevor’s ideal lover—with his beautiful body and ability to express tenderness and affection—he also represents a taste of perfection that seems to be a once-only bit of luck, never to be repeated. A similar hint of wistful longing can often be perceived in tales of idyllic encounters. They have a dreamlike, otherworldly quality that, by definition, is quite rare. In fantasy, however, it’s easy to create at will an ambiance of perfection, which is what well over one-third of The Group does in their favorite fantasies. Arlene’s fantasy captures the feeling perfectly: I’m in the mountains and have floated out to a rock in the middle of an isolated lake. I am lying in the sun, soaking up the warmth, with no clothes on and none with me. Suddenly I’m aware of a handsome man in his early to mid-thirties, at least six feet tall, slender, muscular, with dark hair. His body is in great shape. He’s beautifully tanned with soft lips, talkative eyes, and large hands. He is naked too.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  They are different from, perhaps even incompatible with, what we ordinarily feel. Wh at we e x perie nce in moment s of heightened inspiration can hav e this character. And today, w e are still tempted by talk of special localizat i on, but of anot h er cha r a ct e r: we speak of a person b ein g 'carried away', or 'beside herse l f', sw ept o f f as it were t o someplace outsi d e. In a sense, what we feel when we are in a to w er i ng rage seems inc o mmensurable with what we fe el when we h a ve ca lm e d d own ; the pe ople and eve nts ar e quite tran s fo r med in as pe ct. And a s imila r ch an ge can oc cu r w hen we fa ll in or out o f love . Th e la ndsca pe o f e x pe ri enc e cha nge s so mu ch t hat we are ea s i ly tempted to u se i mag es o f a c h a ng e of lo cale to des cribe the transitio n. Fo r a v ie w of the moral life which finds the highes t s ou r ces in these special s ta t es, a s in a con d i tion of the hig h est inspiration, the description of e x p er ie n ce i n terms of special locales will seem the deepest and most r e v e ali n g. We stress the special nature of these s t ates by marking their lack of co n ti n ui ty w ith ordi nary tho u ght and f eeling.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  The scientific age, having cast off mankin d 's tra d itional myths , constructs the mythology of scientific materialism, guided b y t h e corrective devic es of the scientific method, addressed with precise and deliberately affective appeal to the deepest needs of human nature, and kept strong by the blind hopes that the journey on which we are now embarked will be farther and better than the one just comp l eted. To do this succ es sfully, we have to break free from our particular, parochial a llegiances and attachmen ts; w e have to be able to see ourselves as part of the big picture. Human nature bends us to the i mperatives of selfishness and tribalism. But a more detached view of the long-range course of evolution should allow us to see beyond the blind decision-making process of natural selection and to envision the history and future of our genes against the background of the entire human species. A word already in use intuitively defin es this view: nobility. Had the dinosaurs grasped the concept they migh t have survived. They might have been us. 25 Wilson's 'nobility' incorporates some of the ideals I was describing above. It involves our having the courage to detach ourselves fr om the limite d perspective, the flattering or consoling myth , to see the ag e-long struggle for survival as a whole, and then to be move d to go beyond narrow egoism to car ry it on to greater heights. It is a kind of self-responsible freedom, a tra nsce ndence of particularity, which underlies our efficac y and which we should c ultivate. The moral vision burns at the heart of the epistemology. Wilson's 'nobility' also brings to the fore something else. What the Vic tori ans called th e 'm anl ines s' wh ic h en ab les us. to face the trut h a ls o has an ot h er si de. We not only tran scend o ur craven desir e fo r comfort a nd a ss uranc e; we also rise beyond our narrow perspective and can take in the w hole . We bec ome so fille d with awe of it that we can step outsi d e our own li mi t e d conc e rn s. There is som ethin g in the modern et hic of scienti fic r ea son w hic h is conti nuous with earlier Stoicism a nd whi ch r eson ates wit h theme s a lr e a dy ev ok ed by De scarte s.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Since the advent of literacy, our powers of memory have declined, and we find it hard to believe that people were able to learn such lengthy texts. But the Vedic scriptures were transmitted with impeccable accuracy, even after the archaic Sanskrit had become almost incomprehensible, and still today, the exact tonal accents and inflections of the original, long-lost language have been preserved, together with the ritually prescribed gestures of the arms and fingers. Sound had always been sacred to the Aryans, and when they listened to these holy texts, people felt invaded by the divine. As they committed them to memory, their minds were filled by a sacred presence. Vedic “knowledge” was not the acquisition of factual information but was experienced as divine possession. The poems of the Rig Veda did not tell coherent stories about the gods or give clear descriptions of the sacrificial rituals but alluded in a veiled, riddling fashion to myths and legends that were already familiar to the community. The truth that they were trying to express could not be conveyed in neat, logical discourse. The poet was a rishi, a seer. He had not invented these hymns. They had declared themselves to him in visions that seemed to come from another world. 36 The rishi could see truths and make connections that were not apparent to ordinary people, but he had the divinely bestowed talent to impart them to anybody who knew how to listen. The beauty of this inspired poetry shocked his audience into a state of such awe, wonder, fear, and delight that they felt directly touched by divine power. The sacred knowledge of the Veda did not simply come from the semantic meaning of the words but from their sound, which was itself a deva. The visionary truth of the Rig Veda stole up on the audience, who listened carefully to the hidden significance of the paradoxes and the strange, riddling allusions of the hymns, which yoked together things that seemed to be entirely unrelated. As they listened, they felt in touch with the mysterious potency that held the world together. This power was rita, divine order translated into human speech. 37 As the rishi physically enunciated the sacred syllables, rita was made flesh and became an active, living reality in the torn, conflicted world of the Punjab. The listeners felt that they were in touch with the power that made the seasons follow one another regularly, the stars remain in their courses, the crops grow, and enabled the disparate elements of human society to cohere. Scripture, therefore, did not impart information that could be grasped notionally but gave people a more intuitive insight that was a bridge, linking the visible with the invisible dimension of life. The rishis learned to hold themselves in a state of constant readiness to receive inspired words that seemed to come from outside but were also experienced as an inner voice.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  What c om mands affirmati on is the universe of the will to power which engenders a n d conta ins such affirmation. We can say 'yes' to all that is. But this is immensely hard, because the sense that there is something higher goes so easily with, and ten d s to engender again, the sense of our unwo rt hiness and the condemnation of ourselves and others, not to speak of t h e fals e ideals of mi ldness and benevolence and the unmanning emotion of p i ty . These ar e t h e fo r ces which make the all-too-human; and these are the for ces whic h h ave to be ove rc ome on the hard path to the superman. 454 • SUB TL E R LANGUAGES Nietzsche wanted to put behind him the doctrine o f aesthetic transfigu ration which he dre w from Schopenhauer, and which marks his early work . He wanted to go beyond "justifying,, the world through its manifestation i n art and really affirm it. But some aspect of aesthetic transfiguration remains. What in the universe commands our affirmation, when we have overcome th e al l-too-human, is not properly ca lled its goodness but comes clo se to bein g i t s beauty. It is perha p s not reducible to, but cannot be quite separated from , aesth etic categories. Part of what makes Nietz sc he's vision compelling is th e beauty of his lan g uage, especially in Zara t hustra. But the beauty is not just ancillary, not just part of the presentation or simply, an aesthetic res p ons e to a good which could b e sp e ci fied in other terms. Part of the he r ois m of the Nietzschean superman is that he can ri se beyond the moral, bey o n d the concern with good, and manage in spite of suffering and disorder and the ab se nce of all justice to respond to something like the beauty of it all. Hence th e affirmation cannot be fully separated fr o m an aesthetic transfiguration. Zarathustra is inseparably vision ary and poet . As with Baudelaire's poems on the horrible and ugly, the beauty i s inwardly connected to the stance of unflinching acceptance. The beautiful light which bathes certain passages of Zarathustra is not se parable from the soaring spirit of Zarathustra himself , which through its overcoming reaches deeply into the far landscape of human moral striving, like the slanting ra ys of the late afternoon sun.

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

  glorious Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary .... the holy John the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist, the holy, glorious and all-celebrated Apostles, and all thy Saints, through whose prayers look upon us, O God. And remember all those that are departed in the hope of the resurrection to eternal life, and give them rest where the light of Thy countenance shines upon them." Cyril of Jerusalem, in his fifth and last mystagogic Catechesis, which is devoted to the consideration of the eucharistic sacrifice and the liturgical service of God, gives the following description of the eucharistic intercessions for the departed: "When the spiritual sacrifice, the unbloody service of God, is performed, we pray to God over this atoning sacrifice for the universal peace of the church, for the welfare of the world, for the emperor, for soldiers and prisoners, for the sick and afflicted, for all the poor and needy. Then we commemorate also those who sleep, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, that God through their prayers and their intercessions may receive our prayer; and in general we pray for all who have gone from us, since we believe that it is of the greatest help to those souls for whom the prayer is offered, while the holy sacrifice, exciting a holy awe, lies before us."1047 This is clearly an approach to the later idea of purgatory in the Latin church. Even St. Augustine, with Tertullian, teaches plainly, as an old tradition, that the eucharistic sacrifice, the intercessions or suffragia and alms, of the living are of benefit to the departed believers, so that the Lord deals more mercifully with them than their sins deserve.1048 His noble mother, Monica, when dying, told him he might bury her body where he pleased, and should give himself no concern for it, only she begged of him that he would remember her soul at the altar of the Lord.1049 With this is connected the idea of a repentance and purification in the intermediate state between death and resurrection, which likewise Augustine derives from Matt. xii. 32, and 1 Cor. iii. 15, yet mainly as a mere opinion.1050 From these and similar passages, and under the influence of previous Jewish and heathen ideas and customs, arose, after Gregory the Great, the Roman doctrine of the purgatorial fire for imperfect believers who still need to be purified from the dross of their sins before they are fit for heaven, and the institution of special masses for the dead, in which the perversion of the thankful remembrance of the one eternally availing sacrifice of Christ reaches its height, and the idea of the communion utterly disappears.1051 In general, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper the sacrament continually retired behind the sacrifice. In the Roman churches in all countries one may see and hear splendid masses at the high altar, where the congregation of the faithful, instead of taking part in the communion, are mere spectators of the sacrificial act of the priest.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  On a Christia n vie w, sanctification involves our sharing to some degree God's love (agape) f o r t h e world, and this transforms how we see things and what else we long for and think important. Or a gain, the m o ve from a prerational and parochi a l perspective to one in which we recogniz e the right of all humans to e q ual r espect transforms our entire way of seeing historical cultures and thei r practices. What previously w as endowed with t he highest prestige may now seem narrow, tawd ry , ex ploitative. We c an no lon ger feel awe be fore it. On the contra ry what n ow inspires this sentiment is the moral law itself and its universal demands. We feel ourselves lift ed out of the ruck of unthinking custom, and b ec oming citizens of a wide r r epublic, a kingdom of e nds. The fact that the perspective defined by a hypergood involves ou r changing, a chang e which is qualified as 'growth', or 'sanctification', o r 'highe r consciousness', and even in volv es our repudiating earlier goods, is what makes it so p r oblematic. It is problematic right of f because controver sial, critical of where 'ordina ry ', or 'u nr egenerate', or 'primitive' moral understanding is. And this actual struggle and disag r eement, the seemingly ineradicable absence of unanimity about these hypergoods, has always bee n a potent source of moral scepticism. This perennial wor ry understandably strengthens the naturalist reaction in this case. Who is to say that the critics, the protagonists of 'higher' morality, are right against 'ordina ry ' conscious ness, or "l'homme moyen sensuel"? This suspicion is all the str o nger in the modern world because of what I described in section 1. 3 as the affirmation of ordina ry life. The rejection of the supposedl y "higher" a ctivities, c ontempla tion or citizen participation, or of "higher" levels of dedication in the form of monastic asceticism, in favou r of the ordin a ry life of marria g e, children, work in a calling conf e rred a higher dignity on what had previously been relegated to a lower status. This unleashed a powerful tendency in our civilization, one whic h has taken ever new forms. Some of these involved turning against th e very religious tradition which had inaugurated this te n de n cy and defending "natural" desire and fulfilment against the demands of sanctification, now seen as specious and destructive.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The visionary truth of the Rig Veda stole up on the audience, who listened carefully to the hidden significance of the paradoxes and the strange, riddling allusions of the hymns, which yoked together things that seemed to be entirely unrelated. As they listened, they felt in touch with the mysterious potency that held the world together. This power was rita, divine order translated into human speech.37 As the rishi physically enunciated the sacred syllables, rita was made flesh and became an active, living reality in the torn, conflicted world of the Punjab. The listeners felt that they were in touch with the power that made the seasons follow one another regularly, the stars remain in their courses, the crops grow, and enabled the disparate elements of human society to cohere. Scripture, therefore, did not impart information that could be grasped notionally but gave people a more intuitive insight that was a bridge, linking the visible with the invisible dimension of life. The rishis learned to hold themselves in a state of constant readiness to receive inspired words that seemed to come from outside but were also experienced as an inner voice. They may already have begun to develop techniques of concentration that enabled them to penetrate the subconscious. They discovered that if they got rid of their usual distracting preoccupations, “the doors of the mind may be opened,”38 and that Agni, the inventor of brilliant speech, the light of the world, enabled them to see in the same way as a god. The rishis had laid the foundations for the Indian Axial Age. At this very early date, they had made a deliberate effort to go beyond empirical knowledge and intuit a deeper, more fundamental truth.

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

  If all men are by nature utterly incompetent to good, if it is grace that works in us to will and to do good, if faith itself is an undeserved gift of grace: the ultimate ground of salvation can then be found only in the inscrutable counsel of God. He appealed to the wonderful leadings in the lives of individuals and of nations, some being called to the gospel and to baptism, while others die in darkness. Why precisely this or that one attains to faith and others do not, is, indeed, a mystery. We cannot, says he, in this life explain the readings of Providence; if we only believe that God is righteous, we shall hereafter attain to perfect knowledge.

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

  Ansgarius: Pigmenta, ed. Lappenberg. Hamburg, 1844. Vita Wilehadi, in Pertz: Monumenta II.; and in Migne: Patrol. Tom. 118, pp. 1014–1051. Rimbertus: Vita Ansgarii, in Pertz: Monumenta II., and in Migne, l.c. pp. 961–1011. Adamus Bremensis (d. 1076): Gesta Hamenburgensis Eccl. pontificum (embracing the history of the archbishopric of Hamburg, of Scandinavia, Denmark, and Northwestern Germany, from 788–1072); reprinted in Pertz: Monumenta, VII.; separate edition by Lappenberg. Hanover, 1846. Laurent: Leben der Erzb. Ansgar und Rimbert. 1856. A. Tappehorn: Leben d. h. Ansgar. 1863. G. Dehio: Geschichte d. Erzb. Hamburg-Bremen. 1877. H. N. A. Jensen: Schleswig-Holsteinische Kirchengeschichte, edit. A. L. J. Michelsen (1879). During the sixth and seventh centuries the Danes first came in contact with Christianity, partly through their commercial intercourse with Duerstede in Holland, partly through their perpetual raids on Ireland; and tales of the "White Christ" were frequently told among them, though probably with no other effect than that of wonder. The first Christian missionary who visited them and worked among them was Willebrord. Born in Northumbria and educated within the pale of the Keltic Kirk he went out, in 690, as a missionary to the Frises. Expelled by them he came, about 700, to Denmark, was well received by king Yngrin (Ogendus), formed a congregation and bought thirty Danish boys, whom he educated in the Christian religion, and of whom one, Sigwald, is still remembered as the patron saint of Nuremberg, St. Sebaldus. But his work seems to have been of merely temporary effect. Soon, however, the tremendous activity which Charlemagne developed as a political organizer, was felt even on the Danish frontier. His realm touched the Eyder. Political relations sprang up between the Roman empire and Denmark, and they opened a freer and broader entrance to the Christian missionaries. In Essehoe, in Holstein, Charlemagne built a chapel for the use of the garrison; in Hamburg he settled Heridock as the head of a Christian congregation; and from a passage in one of Alcuin’s letters127 it appears that a conversion of the Danes did not lie altogether outside of his plans. Under his successor, Lewis the Pious, Harald Klak, one of the many petty kings among whom Denmark was then divided, sought the emperor’s support and decision in a family feud, and Lewis sent archbishop Ebo of Rheims, celebrated both as a political negotiator and as a zealous missionary, to Denmark. In 822 Ebo crossed the Eyder, accompanied by bishop Halitgar of Cambray. In the following years he made several journeys to Denmark, preached, baptized, and established a station of the Danish mission at Cella Wellana, the present Welnau, near Essehoe. But he was too much occupied with the internal affairs of the empire and the opportunity which now opened for the Danish mission, demanded the whole and undivided energy of a great man. In 826 Harald Klak was expelled and sought refuge with the emperor, Ebo acting as a mediator.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Some of its most startling “axial” achievements had been military. Alexander’s two-year adventure in India was another such moment: a Greek army had reached what they regarded as the end of the earth. They had pitted themselves against the ultimate as bravely as the yogins had struggled to break through the limits of the human psyche. Where mystics had conquered interior space, Alexander explored the farthest reaches of the physical world. Like many of the Axial sages, he was constantly “straining after more.” 56 He wanted to go farther into India than the Persian kings, and reach the ocean that, he believed, circled the earth. It was the kind of “enlightenment” that would always appeal to Western explorers 57 but very different from the nibbana or moksha, characterized by self-effacement, ahimsa, and compassion, sought by the Indian mystics. The Greek soldiers were enthralled and terrified by the magnificence of India, with its fearsome monsoons, its astonishing war elephants, blazing summers, and intractable mountain passes. They were especially intrigued by the “naked philosophers” they encountered, who may have been Jains. But even though the Indians had no enduring interest in the Greeks, Alexander and his successors decisively changed the fortunes of some of the other peoples we have met in this book. The Zoroastrians of Iran remembered Alexander as the worst sinner in history, because he killed so many priests and scholars and stamped out so many of their sacred fires. He was the “accursed” (guzustag), a title that he alone shares with the Hostile Spirit. The slaughter of the priests was an irreparable loss: Zoroastrian texts were still transmitted orally; many existed only in the minds of the murdered priests, and could never be recovered. The Jews were more affected by the diadochoi than by Alexander himself. Since the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jerusalem had remained a backwater. It was not on any of the main trade routes: the caravans that stopped at Petra or Gaza had no reason to go to Jerusalem, which lacked the raw materials to develop its own industry. But during the wars of the diadochoi, Judea was continually invaded by one army after another, from Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, with their baggage, equipment, families, and slaves. Jerusalem itself changed hands no less than six times between 320 and 301. The Jews of Jerusalem experienced the Greeks as destructive, violent, and militaristic. In 301, Judea, Samerina, Phoenicia, and the entire coastal plain were captured by the armies of Ptolemy I Soter, and for the next hundred years, Jerusalem remained under the control of the Ptolemies, who did not, however, interfere much in local affairs.

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

  Rhyme is not the invention of either a barbaric or an overcivilized age, but appears more or less in almost all nations, languages, and grades of culture. Like rhythm it springs from the natural esthetic sense of proportion, euphony, limitation, and periodic return.1246 It is found here and there, even in the oldest popular poetry of republican Rome, that of Ennius, for example.1247 It occurs not rarely in the prose even of Cicero, and especially of St. Augustine, who delights in ingenious alliterations and verbal antitheses, like patet and latet, spes and res, fides and vides, bene and plene, oritur and moritur. Damasus of Rome introduced it into sacred poetry.1248 But it was in the sacred Latin poetry of the middle age that rhyme first assumed a regular form, and in Adam of St. Victor, Hildebert, St. Bernard, Bernard of Clugny, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Thomas a Celano, and Jacobus de Benedictis (author of the Stabat mater), it reached its perfection in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; above all, in that incomparable giant hymn on the judgment, the tremendous power of which resides, first indeed in its earnest matter, but next in its inimitable mastery of the musical treatment of vowels. I mean, of course, the Dies irae of the Franciscan monk Thomas a Celano (about 1250), which excites new wonder on every reading, and to which no translation in any modern language can do full justice. In Adam of St. Victor, too, of the twelfth century, occur unsurpassable rhymes; e.g., the picture of the Evangelist John (in the poem: De, S. Joanne evangelista), which Olshausen has chosen for the motto of his commentary on the fourth Gospel, and which Trench declares the most beautiful stanza in the Latin church poetry: "Volat avis sine meta Quo nee vates nec propheta Evolavit altius: Tam implenda,1249 quam impleta1250 Nunquam vidit tot secreta Purus homo purius." The metre of the Latin hymns is various, and often hard to be defined. Gavanti1251 supposes six principal kinds of verse: 1. Iambici dimetri (as: "Vexilla regis prodeunt"). 2. Iambici trimetri (ternarii vel senarii, as: "Autra deserti teneris sub annis"). 3. Trochaici dimetri ("Pange, lingua, gloriosi corporis mysterium," a eucharistic hymn of Thomas Aquinas). 4. Sapphici, cum Adonico in fine (as: "Ut queant axis resonare fibris"). 5. Trochaici (as: "Ave maris stella"). 6. Asclepiadici, cum Glyconico in fine (as: "Sacris solemniis juncta sint gaudia"). In the period before us the Iambic dimeter prevails; in Hilary and Ambrose without exception. § 116. The Latin Poets and Hymns. The poets of this period, Prudentius excepted, are all clergymen, and the best are eminent theologians whose lives and labors have their more appropriate place in other parts of this work. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers (hence Pictaviensis, † 368), the Athanasius of the West in the Arian controversies, is, according to the testimony of Jerome,1252 the first hymn writer of the Latin church.