Awe

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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 Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  but make the slightest distinction and Heaven and Hell are set infinitely apart —Hsin Hsin Ming (the Forrest Gump of the third Century) In Fearless, Max wobbles between heavenly rapture and hellish nightmare in an ever-constricting vortex of energy. This buffeting between the extreme polarities of heaven and hell generates the rhythm essential for the transformation of trauma. Finally, in surrendering to his own need to be saved, Max goes to the threshold of death’s door. While he was fortunate enough to transform his trauma without literally getting killed or going crazy, there are less violent, more dependable methods available for transformation. Somatic Experiencing is one these methods. It allows us to gradually bridge the chasm between “heaven” and “hell,” uniting the two polarities. Physiologically speaking, heaven is expansion and hell is contraction. With their gradual unication, trauma is gently healed. Organisms have evolved exquisite processes to heal the effects of trauma. These processes include the ability to unite, integrate, and transform the polarities of expansion and contraction. If these polarities are integrated in a gradual fashion, then trauma can be safely healed. When dealing with a physical trauma, the physician’s job is to support healing (wash the wound, protect it with a bandage or cast, etc.). The cast doesn’t heal the broken bone; it provides the physical mechanism of support that allows the bone to initiate and complete its own intelligent healing processes. Similarly, in integrating the psychic polarities of expansion and contraction, the felt sense supports us in orchestrating the marvel of transformation. Let It Flo w- Renegotiation Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates. The Kybalion Our lives are like streams. The currents of our experiences flow through time with periodic cycles of tranquillity, disturbance, and integration. Our bodies are the banks of the stream, containing our life-energy and holding it in bounds while allowing it to freely flow within the banks. It is the protective barrier of the bank that allows us to safely experience our sense of inner movement and change. Freud, in 1914, defined trauma “…as a breach in the protective barrier against stimuli leading to feelings of overwhelming helplessness.” [10] Using the analogy of the stream, shock trauma can be visualized as an external force rupturing the protective container (banks) of our experience. This breach then creates a turbulent vortex. With the rupture, an explosive rushing out of life-energy creates a trauma vortex. This whirlpool exists outside the banks of our life stream of normal experience (Fig. 2). It is common for traumatized individuals either to get sucked into the trauma vortex or to avoid the breach entirely by staying distanced from the region where the breach (trauma) occurred.

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

  But it was not the beauty of the flesh visible to the eye, but the true beauty of both soul and body, which He exhibited, which in the former is beneficence; in the latter—that is, the flesh—immortality."499 Chrysostom went further: he understood Isaiah’s description to refer merely to the scenes of the passion, and took his idea of the personal appearance of Jesus from the forty-fifth Psalm, where he is represented as "fairer than the children of men." Jerome and Augustin had the same view, but there was at that time no authentic picture of Christ, and the imagination was left to its own imperfect attempts to set forth that human face divine which reflected the beauty of sinless holiness. The first representations of Christ were purely allegorical. He appears now as a shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep,500 or carries the lost sheep on his shoulders;501 as a lamb, who bears the sin of the world;502 more rarely as a ram, with reference to the substituted victim in the history of Abraham and Isaac;503 frequently as a fisher.504 Clement of Alexandria, in his hymn, calls Christ the "Fisher of men that are saved, who with his sweet life catches the pure fish out of the hostile flood in the sea of iniquity." The most favorite symbol seems to have been that of the fish. It was the double symbol of the Redeemer and the redeemed. The corresponding Greek Ichthys is a pregnant anagram, containing the initials of the words: "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour."505 In some pictures the mysterious fish is swimming in the water with a plate of bread and a cup of wine on his back, with evident allusion to the Lord’s Supper. At the same time the fish represented the soul caught in the net of the great Fisher of men and his servants, with reference to Matt. 4:19; comp. 13:47. Tertullian connects the symbol with the water of baptism, saying:506 "We little fishes (pisciculi) are born by our Fish (secundum jICqUS nostrum), Jesus Christ in water, and can thrive only by continuing in the water;" that is if we are faithful to our baptismal covenant, and preserve the grace there received. The pious fancy made the fish a symbol of the whole mystery of the Christian salvation. The anagrammatic or hieroglyphic use of the Greek Ichthys and the Latin Piscis-Christus belonged to the Disciplina Arcani, and was a testimony of the ancient church to the faith in Christ’s person as the Son of God, and his work as the Saviour of the world.

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

  Perhaps, Savonarola’s relentless demands awakened in Lorenzo a serious impression showing itself in a cry to God for absolution, while the extreme unction of the priest might have lulled the dying man’s conscience to sleep with a false sense of security. At any rate, the influence of the friar of St. Mark’s with the people increased. During the years, beginning with 1494, Savonarola’s ascendancy was at its height and so cold a witness as Guicciardini reports his influence as extraordinary. These years included the invasion of Charles VIII., the banishment of the Medici from Florence and the establishment of a theocratic government in the city. "He will come across the Alps against Italy like Cyrus," Savonarola had prophesied of the French king, Charles VIII. And, when the French army was approaching the confines of Florence, he exclaimed, "Behold, the sword has come upon you. The prophecies are fulfilled, the scourge begun! Behold these hosts are led of the Lord! O Florence, the time of singing and dancing is at an end. Now is the time to shed floods of tears for thy sins." Florence listened eagerly. Piero de’ Medici went to the French camp and yielded to the king’s demand for 200,000 florins, and the cession of Pisa, Leghorn

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  I hadn’t had the fish long before I began to realize it was too large for the depth of the bowl. It kept flipping itself out. One afternoon I accidentally stepped on the fish as I tried to capture it and return it to water. It flattened and bled. I carefully picked it up and returned it to the water. The fish floated on its side, nearly dead. I began to pray. I went deep into prayer for the life of this fish. I felt my heart open and the heart of the fish open. I felt at peace. I took a break to sweep. When I returned, the fish had righted itself and was swimming in healthy circles around the bowl. In that small moment, I felt the presence of the sacred, a force as real and apparent as anything else in the world, present and alive, as if it were breathing. I wanted to catch hold, to remember utterly and never forget. But the current of hard reality reasserted itself. I had to have the house cleaned just right or my stepfather would punish me. So I continued on my path of forgetfulness. One night my mother was still working and my stepfather was out bowling or at an Elks club meeting. We had a babysitter who was watching television in the living room. A light brighter than any light I’d ever seen appeared at the head of my bed. It grew larger and larger, and as it grew it terrified me. It was not evil, like the darkness that plagued the house and our family. The light was beautiful. Even so, I called out fearfully. The babysitter came running and turned on the yellowish bedroom light. The white light disappeared. I tried to explain what I had seen, but there were no words, just as words stumble inadequately now. She told me to get to sleep and clicked off the room light. I lay there and wondered at what I had seen. I wanted it to come back, yet I was fearful of its returning and lay there with the covers pulled up to eye level. When I was ten, my mother and I stayed up to monitor Hurricane Carla. It took a rare path, tearing up the entire coastline of Texas before heading north to Tulsa. My stepfather was out for the evening. I inwardly rejoiced that my mother and I had a rare evening alone. The atmosphere of the storm was a huge aura of whirling particles. It stirred up danger in us. We walked through the house, checking doors and windows. The younger children were all in bed, sleeping. We sat together and listened as the winds began slamming the city. We knew about tornadoes. They were quirky and strange creatures. I had watched one descend from a bruised sky, approach our neighborhood.

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

  And even now the mission of the papacy is not yet finished. It seems to be as needful for certain nations, and a lower stage of civilization, as ever. It still stands, not a forsaken ruin, but an imposing pyramid completed to the very top. The Roman Church rose like a wounded giant from the struggle with the Reformation, abolished in the Council of Trent some of the worst abuses, reconquered a considerable portion of her lost territory in Europe, added to her dominion one-half of the American Continent, and completed her doctrinal and governmental system in the decrees of the Vatican Council. The Pope has lost his temporal power by the momentous events of 1870; but he seems to be all the stronger in spiritual influence since 1878, when Leo XIII. was called to occupy the chair of Leo X. An aged Italian priest shut up in the Vatican controls the consciences of two hundred millions of human beings,—that is, nearly one-half of nominal Christendom,—and rules them with the claim of infallibility in all matters of faith and duty. It is a significant fact, that the greatest statesman of the nineteenth century, and founder of a Protestant empire, who at the beginning of the Kulturkampf declared that he would never go to Canossa (1872), found it expedient, after a conflict of ten years, to yield to an essential modification of the anti-papal May-laws of 1873, without, however, changing his religious conviction, or sacrificing the sovereignty of the State; he even conferred an extraordinary distinction upon the Pope by selecting him as arbiter in an international dispute between Germany and Spain (1885).303 But it is perhaps still more remarkable, that Leo XIII. in return sent to Prince Bismarck, the political Luther of Germany, the Christ Order, which was never given to a Protestant before, and that he supported him in the political campaign of 1887. 3. How can we justify the Reformation, in view of the past history and present vitality of the Papacy? Here the history of the Jewish Church, which is a type of the Christian, furnishes us with a most instructive illustration and conclusive answer. The Levitical hierarchy, which culminated in the high priest, was of divine appointment, and a necessary institution for the preservation of the theocracy. And yet what God intended to be a blessing became a curse by the guilt of man: Caiaphas, the lineal descendant of Aaron, condemned the Messiah as a false prophet and blasphemer, and the synagogue cast out His apostles with curses.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  74 Lecture 10: politics and Economy of a Centralized Cult The account in Kings repeatedly emphasizes that the surfaces of seemingly everything were overlaid with gold. o The innermost room of the sanctuary is referred to as the Holy of Holies. In this room, Solomon is said to have placed the Ark of the Covenant, marking the place symbolically as the throne room of the deity. Our best description of the Holy of Holies comes from the prophet and priest Isaiah (Isa. 6), who describes receiving his commission to prophesy while standing in this room. Ideological Role of the Temple • The account of Solomon’s dedication of the temple shows how a royal sanctuary served as a uniting point for the kingdom and legitimized Solomon’s rule. o The invitation list for this royal dedication ceremony (1 Kings 8:1) shows the king’s desire to win over the tribal leadership of the elders. o While the priests carry the ark and all its accompanying cultic objects to the new temple, Solomon is described as offering countless animal sacrifices before the ark. The priests then placed the ark within the Holy of Holies. o In both Isaiah’s account and the description of the dedication, we get a sense that ancient Israelites imagined their deity as enormous. The ark was nothing more than his footstool, and his head was somewhere in the heavens. The hem of his robe filled the entire temple. His presence in the form of “glory” filled the temple like a cloud. • Another way in which the temple served as a legitimizing feature of a king’s rule was in its proximity to the royal palace and its architectural mirroring of the king’s throne room. In a sense, the temple and palace shared a courtyard, suggesting that the king was part of the extended family compound of the deity. Both palace and

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  The felt sense encompasses a complex array of ever-shifting nuances. The feelings we experience are typically much more subtle, complex, and intricate than what we can convey in language. As you read the following phrases, imagine how much more you might feel than is expressed: Looking at a mountain peak bathed in an alpine glow; seeing a blue summer sky dotted with soft white clouds; going to a ball game and dripping mustard on your shirt; feeling the ocean spray as the surf crashes onto rock and cliff; touching an opening rose or a blade of grass topped with a drop of morning dew; listening to a Brahms concerto; watching a group of brightly dressed children singing ethnic folk songs; walking along a country road; or enjoying time with a friend. You can imagine going through a day without emotion, but to live in the absence of the felt sense is not just unthinkable, it is impossible. To live without the felt sense violates the most basic experience of being alive. The felt sense is sometimes vague, always complex, and ever-changing. It moves, shifts, and transforms constantly. It can vary in intensity and clarity, enabling us to shift our perceptions. It does this by giving us the process as well as what is needed for change. Through the felt sense we are able to move, to acquire new information, to interrelate with one another and, ultimately, to know who we are. It is so integral to our experience of being human that we take it for granted, sometimes to the point of not even realizing that it exists until we deliberately attend to it. Although I have become much more aware of my own body sensations, I find I need a process to move into the felt sense, as you will see from the following account of a typical day in the life of Peter.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  Georgette listened quietly as she polished Lupita’s nails. I told Lupita I wanted to paint, to be an artist. She told me that what she wanted was someone to love her. And then she said to me nonchalantly, as she looked sideways at Georgette, “What do you know about that Navajo boy, the cowboy with the eyelashes—Clarence?” She had perfect timing, the mark of a good hunter or singer. Then she said directly to Georgette, “He’s a good kisser.” I hated confrontation and kept quiet. “He’s spoken for,” spit Georgette, who stood up quickly to face Lupita, spilling acetone all over her and my prized suede pants. The whole room stank of rotten apples. Lupita knew exactly what Georgette had been up to all along when she invited her to our room. I wondered if she knew anything about Clarence’s bet and whether I should tell her, and if so, when. Lupita picked up Georgette’s sharp nail file and began to file her nails. Georgette wasn’t through, though. “You Mexican bitch!” she snapped. “Get out of here.” “This is my room too,” I said. “She can stay. And by the way, please take off my pants.” Georgette glared at me as she quickly replaced my pants with her skirt. She kicked the ruined pants aside. “You’re both sick,” she spit out. “Nobody can be from Venus or anyplace else but here.” She marched out of the room carrying her case of nail polish and a story she would vent to her friends in the next room. Later I set out for the painting studio to get myself back together. When I painted, everything went away: the seductions, the sad need for attention, the missing fathers, fearful mothers, and evil stepfathers. I could fly to the moon, and to Venus too, if I wanted. I understood Lupita when she said she was from Venus. I was also from somewhere far away, the other side of the Milky Way, and would return there someday. I knew it, as I knew I could count on cerulean blue to be absolutely cerulean blue when I spread it on a canvas. An approaching cold front froze the stars to the dark sky. The Powwow Club was practicing in the gym, and a song flew out the tall narrow windows toward the white shell of the moon. The moon leaned delicately toward the bright point of Venus, framed by the graceful cottonwoods lining the sidewalk. I felt flawed, imperfect, but what haunted me was not flamboyant like Georgette’s ghost. It was a subtle thing, a delicate force, like the field of stars under the sky when we danced in the summer. I was haunted by a paradox: if there is such beauty, then why are we suffering? As I opened the door to the studio, Herbie jumped me. I screamed. I chased him, then held him down, made him promise never to frighten me again. Then I told him everything: about Lupita, about Georgette, about Mrs.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It is proper, dearest ladies, that everything made by man should begin with the sacred and admirable name of Him that was maker of all things. And therefore, since I am the first and must make a beginning to our storytelling, I propose to begin by telling you of one of His marvellous works, so that, when we have heard it out, our hopes will rest in Him as in something immutable, and we shall forever praise His name. It is obvious that since all temporal things are transient and mortal, so they are filled and surrounded by troubles, trials and tribulations, and fraught with infinite dangers which we, who live with them and are part of them, could without a shadow of a doubt neither endure, nor defend ourselves against, if God’s special grace did not lend us strength and discernment. Nor should we suppose that His grace descends upon and within us through any merit of our own, for it is set in motion by His own loving-kindness, and is obtained by the pleas of people who like ourselves were mortal, and who, by firmly doing His pleasure whilst they were in this life, have now joined Him in eternal blessedness. To these, as to advocates made aware, through experience, of our frailty (perhaps because we have not the courage to submit our pleas personally in the presence of so great a judge) we present whatever we think is relevant to our cause. And our regard for Him, who is so compassionate and generous towards us, is all the greater when, the human eye being quite unable to penetrate the secrets of divine intelligence, common opinion deceives us and perhaps we appoint as our advocate in His majestic presence one who has been cast by Him into eternal exile. Yet He from whom nothing is hidden, paying more attention to the purity of the supplicant’s motives than to his ignorance or to the banishment of the intercessor, answers those who pray to Him exactly as if the advocate were blessed in His sight. All of which can clearly be seen in the tale I propose to relate; and I say clearly because it is concerned, not with the judgement of God, but with that of men.

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

  It arose not from the field of metaphysics, but from that of experience and worship; and not as an abstract, isolated dogma, but in inseparable connection with the study of Christ and of the Holy Spirit; especially in connection with Christology, since all theology proceeds from "God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." Under the condition of monotheism, this doctrine followed of necessity from the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. The unity of God was already immovably fixed by the Old Testament as a fundamental article of revealed religion in opposition to all forms of idolatry. But the New Testament and the Christian consciousness as firmly demanded faith in the divinity of the Son, who effected redemption, and of the Holy Spirit, who founded the church and dwells in believers; and these apparently contradictory interests could be reconciled only in the form of the Trinity;1036 that is, by distinguishing in the one and indivisible essence of God1037 three hypostases or persons;1038 at the same time allowing for the insufficiency of all human conceptions and words to describe such an unfathomable mystery. The Socinian and rationalistic opinion, that the church doctrine of the Trinity sprang from Platonism1039 and Neo-Platonism1040 is therefore radically false. The Indian Trimurti, altogether pantheistic in spirit, is still further from the Christian Trinity. Only thus much is true, that the Hellenic philosophy operated from without, as a stimulating force, upon the form of the whole patristic theology, the doctrines of the Logos and the Trinity among the rest; and that the deeper minds of heathen antiquity showed a presentiment of a threefold distinction in the divine essence: but only a remote and vague presentiment which, like all the deeper instincts of the heathen mind, serves to strengthen the Christian truth. Far clearer and more fruitful suggestions presented themselves in the Old Testament, particularly in the doctrines of the Messiah, of the Spirit, of the Word, and of the Wisdom of God, and even in the system of symbolical numbers, which rests on the sacredness of the numbers three (God), four (the world), seven and twelve (the union of God and the world, hence the covenant numbers. But the mystery of the Trinity could be fully revealed only in the New Testament after the completion of the work of redemption and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The historical manifestation of the Trinity is the condition of the knowledge of the Trinity. Again, it was primarily the œconomic or transitive trinity, which the church had in mind; that is, the trinity of the revelation of God in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification; the trinity presented in the apostolic writings as a living fact.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As for the lady, no sooner had she dined than, taking her waiting-woman with her, she betook herself to Fra Alberto and gave him news of the angel Gabriel, telling him that which she had heard from him of the glories of life eternal and how he was made and adding to boot, marvellous stories of her own invention. 'Madam,' said he, 'I know not how you fared with him; I only know that yesternight, whenas he came to me and I did your message to him, he suddenly transported my soul amongst such a multitude of roses and other flowers that never was the like thereof seen here below, and I abode in one of the most delightsome places that was aye until the morning; but what became of my body meanwhile I know not.' 'Do I not tell you?' answered the lady. 'Your body lay all night in mine arms with the angel Gabriel. If you believe me not, look under your left pap, whereas I gave the angel such a kiss that the marks of it will stay by you for some days to come.' Quoth the friar, 'Say you so? Then will I do to-day a thing I have not done this great while; I will strip myself, to see if you tell truth.' Then, after much prating, the lady returned home and Fra Alberto paid her many visits in angel-form, without suffering any hindrance. However, it chanced one day that Madam Lisetta, being in dispute with a gossip of hers upon the question of female charms, to set her own above all others, said, like a woman who had little wit in her noddle, 'An you but knew whom my beauty pleaseth, in truth you would hold your peace of other women.' The other, longing to hear, said, as one who knew her well, 'Madam, maybe you say sooth; but knowing not who this may be, one cannot turn about so lightly.' Thereupon quoth Lisetta, who was eath enough to draw, 'Gossip, it must go no farther; but he I mean is the angel Gabriel, who loveth me more than himself, as the fairest lady (for that which he telleth me) who is in the world or the Maremma.'[227] The other had a mind to laugh, but contained herself, so she might make Lisetta speak farther, and said, 'Faith, madam, an the angel Gabriel be your lover and tell you this, needs must it be so; but methought not the angels did these things.' 'Gossip,' answered the lady, 'you are mistaken; zounds, he doth what you wot of better than my husband and telleth me they do it also up yonder; but, for that I seem to him fairer than any she in heaven, he hath fallen in love with me and cometh full oft to lie with me; seestow now?'[228] [Footnote 227: _cf._ Artemus Ward's "Natives of the Universe and other parts."]

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

  Gregory Thaumat. Declaration of Faith. Eij" Qeo;", Path;r lovgou zw'nto", sofiva" uJfestwvsh" kai; dunavmew" kai; carakth'ro" aji>divou, tevleio" teleivou gennhvtwr, Path;r UiJou' monogenou' " There is one God, the Father of the living Word, (who is his) subsisting Wisdom and Power and eternal Impress (lmage): perfect Begetter of the Perfect [Begotten], Father of the only begotten Son. Ei|" Kuvrio", movno" ejk monou, qe;o" ejk qeou', carakth;r kai; eijkw;n th' " qeovthto", lovgo" ejnergov", sofiva th' " tw'n o{lwn sustavsew" periektikh; kai; duvnami" th' " o{lh" ktivsew" poihtikhv, UiJo;" ajlhqino;" ajlhqinou' Patrov", ajovrato" ajoravtou kai; a[fqarto" ajfqavrtou kai; ajqavnato" ajqanavtou kai; ajivŸdio" aji>divou There is one Lord, Only of Only, God of God, the Image and Likeness of the Godhead, the efficient Word, Wisdom comprehensive of the system of all things, and Power productive of the whole creation; true Son of the true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, and Eternal of Eternal. Kai; e{n Pneu'ma {Agion, ejk qeou' th;n u{parxin e[con, kai; di j Uijou' pefhno;" »dhladh; toi' " ajnqrwvpoi"¼, eijkw;n tou' Uijou' teleivou teleiva, zwh;, zwvntwn aijtiva, phgh; aJgiva, aJgiovth", aJgiasmou' corhgov": ejn w\/ fanerou'tai qeo;" oJ Path;r oJ ejpi pavntwn kai; ejn pa'si kai; qeo;" oj Uiov" oJ dia; pavntwn: tria;" teleiva, dovxh/ kai aji>diovthti kai; basileiva/ mh; merizomevnh mhde; ajpallotrioumevnh. And there is one Holy Ghost, having his existence from God, and being manifested (namely, to mankind) by the Son; the perfect Likeness of the perfect Son: Life, the Cause of the living; sacred Fount; holiness, the Bestower of sanctification; in whom is revealed God the Father, who is over all things and in all things, and God the Son, who is through all things: a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and dominion, neither divided nor alien. Ou[te ou\n ktistovn ti h] dou'lon ejn th'/ triavdi, ou[te ejpeivsakton, wJ" provteron me;n oujc uJpavrcon, u{steron de; ejpeiselqovn: ou[te ou\n ejnevlipev pote UiJo;" Patri;, ou[te UiJw'/ Pneu'ma ajlla; a[trepto" kai; ajnalloivwto" hJ aujth; tria;" ajeiv. There is therefore nothing created or subservient in the Trinity, nor super-induced, as though not before existing, but introduced afterward Nor has the Son ever been wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son, but there is unvarying and unchangeable the same Trinity forever. II. The Miracles ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus in the fourth century, one hundred years after his death, by the enlightened and philosophic Gregory of Nyssa, and defended in the nineteenth century by Cardinal Newman of England as credible (Two Essays on Bibl. and Eccles. Miracles. Lond. 3d ed., 1873, p. 261–270), are stupendous and surpass all that are recorded of the Apostles in the New Testament. Gregory not only expelled demons, healed the sick, banished idols from a heathen temple, but he moved large stones by a mere word, altered the course of the Armenian river Lycus, and, like Moses of old, even dried up a lake. The last performance is thus related by St.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  THIRD DAY Here begins the Third Day, wherein, under the rule of Neifile, the discussion turns upon people who by dint of their own efforts have achieved an object they greatly desired, or recovered a thing previously lost. On the following Sunday, when already the dawn was beginning to change from vermilion to orange with the approach of the sun, the queen arose and summoned all her companions. Some time earlier, the steward had dispatched most of the things they required to their new quarters, together with servants to make all necessary preparations for their arrival. And once the queen herself had set out, he promptly saw that everything else was loaded on to the baggage train, as though he were striking camp, and then departed with the rest of the servants who had remained behind with the ladies and gentlemen. Meanwhile the queen, accompanied and followed by her ladies and the three young men, and guided by the song of perhaps a score of nightingales and other birds, struck out westward at a leisurely pace along a little-used path carpeted with grass and flowers, whose petals were gradually opening to greet the morning sun. After walking no more than two miles, she brought them, long before tierce was half spent, 1 to a most beautiful and ornate palace, 2 which was situated on a slight eminence above the plain. Entering the palace, they explored it from end to end, and were filled with admiration for its spacious halls and well-kept, elegant rooms, which were equipped with everything they could possibly need, and they came to the conclusion that only a gentleman of the highest rank could have owned it. And when they descended to inspect the huge, sunlit courtyard, the cellars stocked with excellent wines, and the well containing abundant supplies of fresh, ice-cold water, they praised it even more. The whole place was decked with seasonable flowers and cuttings, and by way of repose they seated themselves on a loggia overlooking the central court. Here they were met by the steward, who had thoughtfully laid on a supply of delectable sweetmeats and precious wines for their refreshment. After this, they were shown into a walled garden alongside the palace, and since it seemed at first glance to be a thing of wondrous beauty, they began to explore it in detail. The garden was surrounded and criss-crossed by paths of unusual width, all as straight as arrows and overhung by pergolas of vines, which showed every sign of yielding an abundant crop of grapes later in the year. The vines were all in flower, drenching the garden with their aroma, which, mingled with that of many other fragrant plants and herbs, gave them the feeling that they were in the midst of all the spices ever grown in the East.

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

  His Universal Science he applied to medicine and law, astrology and geography, grammar and rhetoric, as well as to the solution of theological problems.896 It was a key to all the departments of thought, celestial and terrestrial. Ideas he represented by letters of the alphabet which were placed in circles and other mathematical diagrams. By the turning of the circles and shifting of lines these ideas fall into relations which display a system of truth. The word "God," for example, was thus brought into relation with nine letters, B-K, which represented nine qualities: goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, volition, virtue, truth, and glory. Or the letters B-K represented nine questions, such as, what, quid; from what, de quo; why, quare; how much, quantum. Being applied to God, they afford valid definitions, such as "God’s existence is a necessity." This kaleidoscopic method, it is not improbable, Lullus drew from Jewish and Arabic, sources, and he himself called it Cabalistic. The philosophy of Lullus found a number of adherents who were called Lullists. It was taught at the universities of Valencia and Aragon. Giordano Bruno drew from it. Eymericus, the inquisitor, became the bitter foe of the Lullists, arraigned their leader’s teachings before the Roman court, and exhibited a bull of Gregory XI. (1372) condemning them as heretical.897 Philip II. read some of the Majorcan’s writings and left annotated copies in the Escurial library. Lullus’ works were included in the Index of Paul IV., 1559, but ordered removed from the list by the council of Trent. A papal decision of 1619 forbade Lullus’ doctrine as dangerous. In 1847 Pius IX. approved an office for the "holy Raymundus Lullus" in Majorca, where he is looked upon as a saint. The Franciscans have, since the time of Leo X., commemorated the Spaniard’s memory in their Breviary. § 76. Missions among the Mongols. Central Asia and what is now the Chinese Empire were almost as unknown to Western Europe in the twelfth century as the lake region of Central Africa was before the journeys of Speke, Livingstone, and Stanley. To the Nestorians, with their schools at Edessa and Nisibis, naturally belonged the task of spreading the Gospel in Central and Eastern Asia. They went as far as China, but after the ninth century their schools declined and a period of stagnation set in. Individual Nestorians reached positions of influence in Asiatic courts as councillors or physicians and Nestorian women became mothers of Mongol chiefs. But no Asiatic tribe adopted their creed. In the twelfth century the brilliant delusion gained currency throughout Europe of the existence in Central Asia of a powerful Christian theocracy, ruled over by the Presbyter John, usually called Prester-John.898 The wildest rumors were spread concerning this mysterious personage who was said to combine the offices of king and priest. According to Otto of Freisingen, a certain bishop of Gabala in 1145 had brought Eugenius III.

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

  He was an eyewitness of the cruel scene, yet his name is not mentioned, which would well agree with his modesty; the document breathes his mild Christian spirit, reveals his aversion to Gnosticism, his indulgence for Montanism, his expectation of the near approach of Antichrist. It is certainly one of the purest and most precious remains of ante-Nicene literature and fully equal, yea superior to the "Martyrdom of Polycarp," because free from superstitious relic-worship.1412 (7.) Finally, we must mention four more Greek fragments of Irenaeus, which Pfaff discovered at Turin in 1715, and first published. Their genuineness has been called in question by some Roman divines, chiefly for doctrinal reasons.1413 The first treats of the true knowledge,1414 which consists not in the solution of subtle questions, but in divine wisdom and the imitation of Christ; the second is on the eucharist;1415 the third, on the duty of toleration in subordinate points of difference, with reference to the Paschal controversies;1416 the fourth, on the object of the incarnation, which is stated to be the purging away of sin and the annihilation of all evil.1417 § 183. Hippolytus. (I.) S. Hippolyti episcopi et martyris Opera, Graece et Lat. ed. J. Afabricius, Hamb. 1716–18, 2 vols. fol.; ed. Gallandi in "Biblioth. Patrum," Ven. 1760, Vol. II.; Migne: Patr. Gr., vol. x. Col. 583–982. P. Ant. de Lagarde: Hippolyti Romani quae feruntur omnia Graece, Lips. et Lond. 1858 (216 pages). Lagarde has also published some Syriac and Arabic fragments, of Hippol., in his Analecta Syriaca (p. 79–91) and Appendix, Leipz. and Lond. 1858. Patristic notices of Hippolytus. Euseb.: H. E. VI. 20, 22; Prudentius in the 11th of his Martyr Hymns (pervi; stefavnwn) Hieron De Vir. ill. c. 61; Photius, Cod. 48 and 121. Epiphanius barely mentions Hippol. (Haer. 31). Theodoret quotes several passages and calls him "holy Hippol. bishop and martyr" (Haer. Fab. III. 1 and Dial. I., II. and III.). See Fabricius, Hippol. I. VIII.-XX. S. Hippolyti EpIs. et Mart. Refutationis omnium haeresium librorum decem quae supersunt, ed. Duncker et Schneidewin. Gött. 1859. The first ed. appeared under the name of Origen: jWrigevnou" filosofuvmena h} kata; pasw'n aiJrevewn e[legco". Origenis Philosophumena, sive omnium haeresium refutatio. E codice Parisino ninc primum ed. Emmanuel Miller. Oxon. (Clarendon Press), 1851. Another ed. by Abbe Cruice, Par. 1860. An English translation by J. H. Macmahon, in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library, " Edinb. 1868. A MS. of this important work from the 14th century was discovered at, Mt. Athos in Greece in 1842, by a learned Greek, Minoïdes Mynas (who had been sent by M. Villemain, minister of public instruction under Louis Philippe, to Greece in search of MSS.), and deposited in the national library at Paris. The first book had been long known among the works of Origen, but had justly been already denied to him by Huet and De la Rue; the second and third, and beginning of the fourth, are still wanting; the tenth lacks the conclusion.

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

  At last he himself became man, neutralized in human nature the power of sin and death, restored the divine image, uniting us with God and imparting to us his imperishable life. The possibility and legitimacy of the incarnation lie in the original relation of the Logos to the world, which was created and is upheld by him. The incarnation, however, does not suspend the universal reign of the Logos. While he was in man, he was at the same time everywhere active and reposing in the bosom of the Father. The necessity of the incarnation to salvation follows from the fact, that the corruption had entered into human nature itself, and thus must be overcome within that nature. An external redemption, as by preaching God, could profit nothing. "For this reason the Saviour assumed humanity, that man, united with life, might not remain mortal and in death, but imbibing immortality might by the resurrection be immortal. The outward preaching of redemption would have to be continually repeated, and yet death would abide in man."119 The object of the incarnation is, negatively, the annihilation of sin and death; positively, the communication of righteousness and life and the deification of man.120 The miracles of Christ are the proof of his original dominion over nature, and lead men from nature-worship to the worship of God. The death of Jesus was necessary to the blotting out of sin and to the demonstration of his life-power in the resurrection, whereby also the death of believers is now no longer punishment, but a transition to resurrection and glory.—This speculative analysis of the incarnation Athanasius supports by referring to the continuous moral effects of Christianity, which is doing great things every day, calling man from idolatry, magic, and sorceries to the worship of the true God, obliterating sinful and irrational lusts, taming the wild manners of barbarians, inciting to a holy walk, turning the natural fear of death into rejoicing, and lifting the eye of man from earth to heaven, from mortality to resurrection and eternal glory. The benefits of the incarnation are incalculable, like the waves of the sea pursuing one another in constant succession. (2) Under the sons of Constantine, between the years 343 and 350, Julius Firmicus Maternus, an author otherwise unknown to us,121 wrote against heathenism with large knowledge of antiquity, but with fanatical zeal, regarding it, now on the principle of Euhemerus, as a deification of mortal men and natural elements, now as a distortion of the biblical history.122 At the close, quite mistaking the gentle spirit of the New Testament, he urges the sons of Constantine to exterminate heathenism by force, as God commanded the children of Israel to proceed against the Canaanites; and openly counsels them boldly to pillage the temples and to enrich themselves and the church with the stolen goods. This sort of apology fully corresponds with the despotic conduct of Constantius, which induced the reaction of heathenism under Julian.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  It was shortly after the polio scare that I began to dream the alligator dream. I am a young girl, between four and five years old. It’s early in the morning. I delight in my feet touching the ground and in the plant beings who line the trail to the river. I breathe in playful energy from small, familiar winds as I walk to get water for the family. The winds appear to part the tall reeds through which I walk with my water jar. An alligator whips me suddenly to the water and pulls me under. I struggle, and then I am gone. My passing from earth is a quick choke. To my mourning family, my life has been tragically ended. They did not see that I entered an underwater story to live with the alligators and become one of them. I had that dream many times throughout my childhood. (My parents gave me a little brown dog, and I named him Alligator. He lived for the thrill of chasing cars. No matter where or how we penned him, when he heard a car, he was gone. One day he finally caught a car and that was the end of him.) I believe now that I had the beginnings of polio. The alligators took it away. It is possible. This world is mysterious. In those early years I lived in a world of animal powers. Most children do. In those years we are still close to the door of knowing. I got to know the trees, plants, and creatures around our little white house with red trim built in the postwar boom. Our house was one of many houses on the block. Each centered on a square of lawn, each with a gas meter perched near the street, in the place of a house altar. I played with garter snakes, horned toads, frogs, June bugs, and other creatures. Some of my favorite playmates were roly-poly bugs. They busied about with several legs and didn’t trip themselves up. They protected themselves

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

  Considering that the official distinction between bishops and presbyters was not yet clearly defined in his time, he may have been co-presbyter with Linus and Anacletus, who are represented by some as his predecessors, by others as his successors.1193 Later legends have decked out his life in romance, both in the interest of the Catholic church and in that of heresy. They picture him as a noble and highly educated Roman who, dissatisfied with the, wisdom and art of heathenism, journeyed to Palestine, became acquainted there with the apostle Peter, and was converted by him; accompanied him on his missionary tours; composed many books in his name; was appointed by him his successor as bishop of Rome, with a sort of supervision over the whole church; and at last, being banished under Trajan to the Taurian Chersonesus, died the glorious death of a martyr in the waves of the sea. But the oldest witnesses, down to Eusebius and Jerome, know nothing of his martyrdom. The Acta Martyrii Clementis (by Simon Metaphrastes) make their appearance first in the ninth century. They are purely fictitious, and ascribe incredible miracles to their hero. It is very remarkable that a person of such vast influence in truth and fiction, whose words were law, who preached the duty of obedience and submission to an independent and distracted church, whose vision reached even to unknown lands beyond the Western sea, should inaugurate, at the threshold of the second century, that long line of pontiffs who have outlasted every dynasty in Europe, and now claim an infallible authority over the consciences of two hundred millions of Christians.1194 II. From this Clement we have a Greek epistle to the Corinthians. It is often cited by the church fathers, then disappeared, but was found again, together with the fragments of the second epistle, in the Alexandrian codex of the Bible (now in the British Museum), and published by Patricius Junius (Patrick Young) at Oxford in 1633.1195 A second, less ancient, but more perfect manuscript from the eleventh century, containing the missing chapters of the first (with the oldest written prayer) and the whole of the second Epistle (together with other valuable documents), was discovered by Philotheos Bryennios,1196 in the convent library of the patriarch of Jerusalem in Constantinople, and published in 1875.1197 Soon afterwards a Syriac translation was found in the library of Jules Mohl, of Paris (d. 1876).1198 We have thus three independent texts (A, C, S), derived, it would seem, from a common parent of the second century. The newly discovered portions shed new light on the history of papal authority and liturgical worship, as we have pointed out in

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

  Contains De Clary, the Devastatio Constantinopolitana, etc.—C. Klimke: D. Quellen zur Gesch. des 4ten Kreuzzuges, Breslau, 1875.—Short extracts from Villehardouin and De Clary are given in Trans. and Reprints, published by University of Pennsylvania, vol. III., Philadelphia, 1896. Paul De Riant: Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae, Geneva, 1877–1878, 2 vols.—Tessier: Quatrième Croisade, la diversion sur Zara et Constantinople, Paris, 1884.—E. Pears: The Fall of Constantinople, being the Story of the Fourth Crusade, N. Y., 1886.—W. Nordau: Der vierte Kreuzzug, 1898.—A. Charasson: Un curé plébéien au XIIe Siècle, Foulques, Prédicateur de la IVe Croisade, Paris, 1905.—Gibbon, LX., LXI.—Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. I.—Ranke: Weltgesch., VIII. 280–298.—C. W. C. Oman: The Byzantine Empire, 1895, pp. 274–306.—F. C. Hodgson: The Early History of Venice, from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople, 1204, 1901. An appendix contains an excursus on the historical sources of the Fourth Crusade. It would be difficult to find in history a more notable diversion of a scheme from its original purpose than the Fourth Crusade. Inaugurated to strike a blow at the power which held the Holy Land, it destroyed the Christian city of Zara and overthrew the Greek empire of Constantinople. Its goals were determined by the blind doge, Henry Dandolo of Venice. As the First Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, so the Fourth Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople. Innocent III., on ascending the papal throne, threw himself with all the energy of his nature into the effort of reviving the crusading spirit. He issued letter after letter433 to the sovereigns of England, France, Hungary, and Sicily.434 He also wrote to the Byzantine emperor, urging him to resist the Saracens and subject the Greek church to its mother, Rome.435 The failure of preceding crusades was ascribed to the sins of the Crusaders. But for them, one Christian would have chased a thousand, or even ten thousand, and the enemies of the cross would have disappeared like smoke or melting wax. For the expense of a new expedition the pope set apart one-tenth of his revenue, and he directed the cardinals to do the same. The clergy and all Christians were urged to give liberally. The goods and lands of Crusaders were to enjoy the special protection of the Holy See. Princes were instructed to compel Jewish money-lenders to remit interest due from those going on the expedition. Legates were despatched to Genoa, Pisa, and Venice to stir up zeal for the project; and these cities were forbidden to furnish to the Saracens supplies of arms, food, or other material. A cardinal was appointed to make special prayers for the Crusade, as Moses had prayed for Israel against the Amalekites. The Cistercian abbot, Martin, preached in Germany;436 and the eloquent Fulke of Neuilly, receiving his commission from Innocent III.,437 distinguished himself by winning thousands of recruits from the nobility and populace of Burgundy, Flanders, and Normandy.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  I don’t know where we were going or where we had been, but I know the sun was boiling the asphalt, the car windows were open for any breeze as I stood on tiptoes on the floorboard behind my father, a handsome god who smelled of Old Spice, whose slick black hair was always impeccably groomed, his clothes perfectly creased and ironed. The radio was on. Even then I loved the radio, jukeboxes, or any magic thing containing music. I wonder what signaled this moment, a loop of time that on first glance could be any place in time. I became acutely aware of the line the jazz trumpeter was playing (a sound I later associated with Miles Davis). I didn’t know the words jazz or trumpet . I don’t know how to say it, with what sounds or words, but in that confluence of hot southern afternoon, in the breeze of aftershave and humidity, I followed that sound to the beginning, to the birth of sound. I was suspended in whirling stars. I grieved my parents’ failings, my own life, which I saw stretching the length of that rhapsody. My rite of passage into the world of humanity occurred then, through jazz. The music was a startling bridge between familiar and strange lands. I heard stomp-dance shells, singing. I saw suits, satin, fine hats. I heard workers singing in the fields. It was a way to speak beyond the confines of ordinary language. I still hear it. —Over and over and over. When you gonna come back, baby? —Over and over and over. Why did you leave me? The god of all things reached Behind the counter, pulled up a sour dishrag and Cleaned off the mess. —We all went tumbling down. I said, over and over and over. —We all went tumbling down. My mother’s singing attracted me to her road in this world. It is her song that lit my attention as I listened in the ancestor realm. Secret longing rose up in her heart as she sang along with the radio. The music threading the atmosphere in what was known as Tulsa, Oklahoma, or “T-Town,” in 1951 was songs for falling in love, songs for falling out of love, songs to endure the purgatory of longing, or improvisational swing jazz, country, or songs just for the sake of kicking it. Tulsa was a Creek Indian town established on the Arkansas River, after my father’s people were forcibly removed from their homes in the South in the mid-1800s. When they arrived in these new lands, they brought sacred fire. They brought what they could carry. Some African people came with them as family members, others as slaves. Other African people arrived independently, established their own towns. European and American settlers soon took over the lands that were established for settlement of eastern tribes in what became known as Indian Territory. The Christian god gave them authority.