Confusion
Cognitive unsettling when signals do not resolve into a clear story or next step.
2221 passages · 1 Vela essay · in 1 cluster
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From Bold Move
Cows don’t meow, they moo!” In essence, you would be stopped cold in your tracks, and your brain would be stuck trying to make sense of this surreal world that you just entered. That feeling of being stuck and in discomfort is cognitive dissonance. My clients often describe that as brain lock. Let’s come back to earth for a second (no, I have never heard a cow meow either). How did you feel when you read the title of this section of the book? Did your brain ask, “Where is she going with this? Cows don’t meow!” I bet if you were reading carefully, you had a little moment of dissonance. And that is why I like this example: because it is much easier to understand when things don’t add up in the abstract than it is to understand when it is happening inside our own brains. By learning when your brain hits dissonance and understanding the why behind it, you will be equipped to Shift (next chapter). To start to identify what dissonance feels like for you, use the reflection below. Keep in mind, you will know that you hit dissonance when your brain locks, meaning it is challenging to think, and you feel discomfort. If you completed the reflection, I bet you sensed relief right away in the first half of this reflection when you confirmed your beliefs. Perhaps you said something to yourself such as, “Exactly!” or “Well, of course!” and instead of wanting to hurl this book at a wall, you kept reading. However, if you got to the second part, I’m guessing you hit dissonance right away. Dissonance probably made you feel uneasy at best, and if you really went for the opposite view, you might have felt as my patient Yolanda describes it: “an internal war between me and myself.” Maybe you said something to yourself such as, “There is no way this is actually true” or “What the @*&#?” Perhaps you also felt the urge to quit the activity or close this book entirely. Reflection Getting to Know My Brain Lock For this reflection, you will need a pen and paper to record your answers to the questions. First, take a moment to think about something that you believe strongly, such as your political views, dietary ideology, or beliefs about individuals different from you. Topic: [Your Notes] Once you decide on a topic, answer the following question: “What are my views on this topic?” Describe in detail your “truths” related to this particular area. Now, for the next two minutes, take your phone or laptop out and do a Google search that will bring up stories that support your beliefs.
Then the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be found in the Godhead which they shared. This was an effective argu ment against the Chalcedonian doctrine of two natures, THE PERSON OF THE GOD-MAN 270 Thds.Al.Or.5 {CSCO 103:44 [17:643) Thds.Al.Or.6 (CSCO 103:51- 52[i 7 : 7 4]) Jac.Bar.E/;. {CSCO 103:121 £17:174)) Vs.¥el.Ep.Petr.Full. 7 i (CSEL 35:162-69) ; Evagr.H.e.3.44 (PG 86:2697-2700) Leont.H.Ne.r/.7 (PG 86:1757- 68) but one that proved to be theologically expensive. It was quickly labeled tritheism, for its Aristotelian interpreta tion of the key trinitarian terms, hypostasis and ousia, seemed to lead to a surrender of any unity in the Godhead except the most abstract. It was therefore at least as much from other Monophysites as from the supporters of Chal cedon that the answer came. Those who said that "if each hypostasis, when it is considered in and of itself, is an ousia and a nature, then since there are three hypostases of the Holy Trinity, there are therefore also three ousias and three natures, should know that they demonstrate ignorance more than others do." The proper way to define the doctrine of the Trinity and yet to make the anti- Chalcedonian point was to declare that "there was not a union of ousias and natures which are generic and com mon—that is, of the nature which contains the Trinity of the divine hypostases, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of the nature which includes the entire human race of all men—but there was merely a union of God the Logos and his own flesh, endowed with a rational and intellectual soul, which he united to himself in a hypostatic way." The orthodox trinitarianism of Nicea and Constantinople was preserved in this way, and yet its implications were drawn in opposition to the theory of two natures in the incarnate Logos. One of the Three in the Trinity became incarnate, suffered, and died. This did not mean that it was permissible to say: "The Trinity has become incarnate through one of its hypos tases." Here again the Monophysite concern led to con troversy over the dogma of the Trinity. The locus of the controversy, as could have been expected, was in the lit urgy.
It is, of course, quite another question whether these interpretations of the christological alternatives repre sented a fair and accurate reading of the various theolo- The Dogma of the Two Natures in Christ 265 gies. The insistence that Christ not be divided or sepa rated into two persons did not really strike the center of its intended target, which was the need to affirm that the birth, suffering, and death of Christ were real, and simul taneously to protect the Godhead from compromise by them. To say that the difference of the natures was not taken away by the union could mean that the activities and properties appropriate to each nature were to be predicated ontologically only of that nature, even though verbally it might be permissible to predicate them of "one and the same Christ." "Without confusion" could like wise be interpreted in support of the thesis that, since the incarnation no less than before it, the human was the hu man and the divine was the divine. Even more explicitly, "without change," which applied to the human nature since it was taken for granted by both sides that the divine nature was unchangeable, could be read as an attack on the notion that because the salvation of man consisted in the transformation of his human nature into a divine one, the human nature of Christ had begun the process of sal vation by its union with the divine nature. Although the Chalcedonian formula did not in fact say any of these things unequivocally, it did seem to allow room for them; hence it could even be, and indeed was, taken as a vindi cation of the Nestorian position. If anything, the relation of the formula to the other al ternative was even less clear and certainly less reassuring in the long run. It was undeniable that the formula taught a hypostatic union of sorts: "combining in one person and hypostasis." It also referred to the Virgin as Theotokos and required that, though there be two natures, they be acknowledged as "without division, without separation." For the theology of the hypostatic union, this was a good beginning, but no more than a beginning. The really diffi cult problems were either ignored or disposed of by equi vocation. It was not clear, for example, who the subject of suffering and crucifixion was, for these events in the history of salvation were not so much as mentioned.
And the specific "name" to which he was applying this stricture was "Godhead [^COT^S]" itself, the very title he used in his accommodation to Greek theism. There was perhaps one exception to the rule that all such "names" were descriptive only of human compre hensions of God. That exception pertained to a mystery that was, if anything, even more ineffable than the mystery of God's relation to the world, namely, the relations within the divine Triad. In opposition to the danger that the distinctiveness of the three hypostases would dissolve in a Platonically defined ousia, the Cappadocians, with varying degrees of emphasis, found the guarantee of the unity of the Godhead in the Father. For Basil, the Father was "a certain power subsisting without being begotten Bas.Ep.38.4 (PG 32:329); or having an origin," in whom both the Son and the Apoll.Fid.sec.pt.18 (Lietz- . ° . ? . . . mann 173) Spirit, each in his way, had their origin. Gregory of Nazianzus went so far as to call the Father "greater" in The Three and the One 223 Gr.Na2.Of.40.43 (PG 36:420) Gr.Nyss.Maced.13 (PG 45:1317) Gr.Nyss.77?.r d'ti (Jaeger 3-1:55-56) Ath.Dtfcr.31.2-3 (Opitz 2:27) Bas.^.38.4 (PG 32:333) Didym.TW».i.9 (PG 39:281) Gr.Nyss.7Vej- dii (Jaeger 3-1:39) the sense that "the equality and the being" of the equals, Son and Spirit, came from him. And Gregory of Nyssa identified the Father as "the source of power, the Son as the power of the Father, the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of power." Specifically on the question of distinctions among the Three, he identified causality as the only real point of distinction, stating that one was the cause, namely, the Father, and that the Son and the Spirit were derived from him, but eternally. In this one cause was the guarantee of the unity of the Three. This puzzling, indeed frustrating, combination of philosophical terminology for the relation of One and Three with a refusal to go all the way toward a genuinely speculative solution was simultaneously typical of the theology of the Cappadocians and normative for the subsequent history of trinitarian doctrine. Formulas such as homoousios, three hypostases in one ousia, and mode of origin were metaphysically tantalizing; but the adjudi cation of their meaning was in many ways a defiance not only of logical consistency, but of metaphysical coher ence. How, for example, could the Father be the source of Son and Spirit within the Trinity and yet fatherhood be a property not only of his hypostasis, but of the divine ousia as such?
Indeed, the two terms continued to be used almost interchangeably even after the distinction between them as technical terms had become a standard trinitarian formula. On the basis of the Nicene formula, opponents of the distinction between the two terms such as Marcellus could insist that loyalty to Nicea implied rejection of the notion of distinct hypostases. Besides, the only use of hypostasis in the New Testament as a "trinitarian" technical term, in Hebrews 1:3, seemed to be speaking of the divine ousia which Christ as homoousios shared with the Father, not of the hypostasis which was peculiar to the Father. This appeared to present biblical evidence against the formulation of one ousia, three hypostases; and Basil had to argue, in defense of the formulation, that the passage in Hebrews was not intended to dis tinguish among the hypostases. It was, then, both an obdurate tenacity about the terminology employed at Nicea and a quasi-Sabellian resistance to the notion of distinct hypostases that stood in the way of the new version of Nicene trinitarian doctrine. Basil summarized this resistance as follows: "Many persons, in their treatment of the mystical dogmas, fail to distinguish that which is common to the ousia from THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY 220 'the meaning of the hypostases.' They think that it makes no difference whether one says ousia or hypostasis. There fore to some of those who accept ideas about this subject uncritically it seems just as appropriate to say one hypostasis as one ousia. On the other hand, those who assert three hypostases suppose that it is necessary, on the basis of this confession, to assert a division of ousias into Bas.£/>.38.i (PG 32:325) the same number." It was in response to such thinking that a way had to be found that "the hypostases are con fessed and the pious dogma of the monarchy does not B&s.spir. 18.47 (PG 32:153) collapse." The only way to dispel the confusion was to come up with a definition of hypostasis that set it apart from ousia and made it a fit instrument for the specifica tion of what was distinctive in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. The hypostasis, then, had to be "that which is spoken of distinctively, rather than the Bas.^.38.3 (PG 32:328) indefinite notion of the ousia." Coupled with hypostasis in the identification of the distinctiveness of each mem ber of the Triad was another technical term, "mode of origin [T/OOTTOS rijs wa/o^eco?}." It seems first to have been used of the Son and the Spirit, the former as be- Bas.5». 18.46 (PG 32:152) gotten and the latter as proceeding from the Father; then it was applied to the Father as well, but in a negative Ps.Bas.£/z».4.i (PG 29:681) way, namely, that he was unbegotten and did not proceed.
Cyril of Alexandria suggested that "the identity of nature [^ cfyvmicrj TavTOTrjs]" between the Son and the Spirit was enough to prove that the Spirit was God, but this was, as he himself recognized, begging the Cyr.Dial.Trin.-j (PG • A 1 • 1 i • i i- 75:1104) question. Athanasius had tried many years earlier to argue that if the relation of the Spirit to the Son was the same as that of the Son to the Father, it followed that neither the Ath.Ep.Serap. 1.21 (PG . . 26:580) Son nor the Spirit could be described as a creature. But this provoked the not unwarranted taunt that the Holy Ath.Ep.Serap.4.1 (PG Spirit would then have to be interpreted as the son of the Gr.Naz.bf.31. 7 (PG 36:140) Son and hence the grandson of the Father. The same argument could, of course, take a somewhat more re spectable form. Athanasius, for example, sought to ele vate it to the status of a methodological principle: "If we must take our knowledge of the Spirit from the Son, then it is appropriate to put forward proofs which derive Ath.Ep.Serap.3.4 (PG 26:629) from him [the Son]." The argument had, after all, worked in the opposite direction. Athanasius had main tained that since the Holy Spirit was the gift of no one less than God himself and since the Son conferred the Ath.Ar.2.18 (PG 26:184) Spirit, it followed that the Son was God. The metaphor of the Son as "light from light," especially as employed in Hebrews 1:3, helped to guarantee the deity of the Spirit, too, for Christ, the radiance of God, enlightened Ath.Ep.Serap.1.19 (PG / r . t ,,„,„.. 26:573) the eyes of the heart by the Holy Spirit. THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY 214 Didym.Spir.40 {PG 39:1069) See pp. 177, 206 above Ath.Ep.Serap.1.12 {PG 26:561) Didym.$/;/>.43 (PG 39:1071) Didym.Spir.47 (PG 39:1074) Cyr. Dial. Trin. 7 (PG 75:1104-1105) Gr.Na2.Of.23.11 (PG 35:1161); Thdr.Mops. Hom.catech. 10.8 (ST 145:257-59) Ath.Ep.Serap.x.26 (PG 26:592) Bas.Spir. 16.40 (P(r 32:144) Comparison suggests that Athanasius, having devel oped the main lines of his theology in the debate over Christ as homoousios, found it sufficient proof for the assertion that the Holy Spirit was homoousios to relate the Spirit to the Son, while others, notably Didymus, had to relate the Spirit to the entire Trinity.
Others ascribed to the Holy Spirit an essence less than that of God, but more than that of a creature. He possessed a "middle nature" and was "one of a kind." On the basis of the surviving sources it seems virtually impossible to determine with any precision the relation between the several groups variously called Pneumatomachi, Tropici, and Macedo nians by the theologians and historians of the fourth and fifth centuries; modern efforts at reclassification have not proved to be very helpful, either. While this hesitancy in calling the Holy Spirit God could be attacked for "denying the Arian heresy in words but retaining it in thought," it was symptomatic of a basic lack of clarity in both the words and the thought of the theologians of the church, including those who professed to be orthodox and anti-Arian. Marcellus of Ancyra, for example, seems to have denied that the Holy Spirit had his own hypostasis. He did not distinguish between the eternal or "immanent" proceeding of the Spirit and the temporal or "economic" sending of the Spirit—a distinction that was to figure in the medieval debates between East and West. Therefore with the sec ond coming of Christ the Spirit would no longer "have any functions to discharge." The inadequacies of such a conception of the Spirit became evident when the doctrine received closer attention. But what also became evident was the state of theological reflection about it, as Gregory of Nazianzus conceded as late as 380 when he admitted The Three and the One 213 that "to be only slightly in error [about the Holy Spirit! Gr.Naz.Or.21.33 (PG ^ , ,./,,, \ 1,1 r .. 35:1121) was to be orthodox. In a remarkable summary or the controversy within the orthodox camp, composed in the same year, he declared: "Of the wise men among ourselves, some have conceived of him [the Holy Spirit] as an activity, some as a creature, some as God; and some have been uncertain which to call him. . . . And therefore they neither worship him nor treat him with dishonor, but take up a neutral position." He did add, however, that "of those who consider him to be God, some are orthodox in mind only, while others venture to be so with the Gr.Naz.Of.31.5 (PG 36:137) lips also." It was apparently not only "careful distinc tions, derived from unpractical philosophy and vain de- Bas.5/w.3.5 (PG 32:76) lusion" that could be blamed for this confusion, but also the undeveloped state of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Son in the Trinity. The relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit was, to be sure, one rather quick and simple way to dispose of the confusion.
In the teaching of Jesus its "not yet" had stood in dialectic with the "already" of his visible presence. Both poles of the dialectic appeared in his words and deeds, as these were remembered by the church. When the apocalyptic vision was eclipsed, however, many of those words and deeds appeared enigmatic. Much of the his tory of the interpretation of the Gospels during the sec ond and third centuries does consist in the effort to make sense of apocalyptic passages when the presuppositions had shifted. The "end" in such passages as Matthew 10:22 came to refer to the death of the individual, not to the end of the age. The use of the apocalyptic form in the teaching of The Apocalyptic Vision and Its Transformation 131 Jesus did not assure it a place in the church's teaching about Jesus. Even more significant than the exegetical readjustments were the doctrinal ones. The doctrine of salvation bore much of the dialectic that had originally been embodied in the apocalyptic vision. The historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth had applied to himself—or had allowed to be applied to him—the otherworldly predicates of the apocalyptic vision of the Son of man. The risen and exalted Lord, present in the church and sovereign over the world, now became the one to whom were applied the thisworldly predicates of the histo rical portrait of the Son of Mary. Neither the apocalyptic imagery nor the more ontological language of the christological dogma avoided or solved the problem of the relation between the immanent and the transcendent. Similarly, the salvation promised in the teachings of Jesus was described in futuristic terms; and although that con- Rom.i3:n notation did not disappear from Christian preaching and worship, the dialectic between the achievement of salva tion in the death and resurrection of Christ and its com pletion in his return with glory to judge the quick and the dead had now to make manifest the balance between "already" and "not yet." Only a distinction between two comings of Christ, which was also necessary in sorting out the prophecies of the Old Testament in response to Seep. 19above Judaism, could do justice to that balance. To deny the historical character of the first coming, as Gnostic doce- tism did, or to spiritualize the second coming into a parable of the soul, as Origenistic speculation did, was to subvert apostolic doctrine. If the teachings of the early church and of Jesus could simply be described as consistent eschatology, we could then trace the decline of such an eschatology as the pri mary factor in the establishment both of ecclesiastical structures and of dogmatic norms.
From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult
As much as I loved to play with dolls and pretend to be a mother, I also learned to enjoy climbing trees and hunting for snakes. I thrilled in the freedom of riding my bike full speed down steep hills with my hands off the handlebars. I came to realize I was naturally strong, so I liked to arm-wrestle, challenging anyone who might accept. Whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would announce proudly, “A man. A big tall man.” This did not seem impossible. Reality in my short life was so warped that it seemed anything could happen. “Where is your belt?” It was dinnertime, and I stood before the door of the Commons, waiting for the demonstrator to give the okay that I could enter. She stood with folded arms, studying me from head to toe. My clothes were clean; my shoes not terribly scuffed up. There were no stains anywhere; however, I had not thought to wear a belt, nor did I remember being told that I must. I looked at my jeans and the empty loops around my waist. I wasn’t sure where my belt was or if I even had one. I didn’t recall having seen one in my wardrobe. Every week I stood in line with other children to receive my allotment of clothing. “Size?” a demonstrator would ask. “Seven.” A stack of white t-shirts and mix of dark blue jeans and overalls would be placed in my hands from the size seven shelf. Sometimes I received an overall dress. Many of the children and adults possessed wide, brown leather belts with enormous brass buckles. Some adults wore a silver dollar as a centerpiece in their buckles. It was a popular style. “You cannot come into dinner without a belt,” the demonstrator said. “Go and get it.” I stepped away from the building, watching other kids file through the doorway, my stomach grumbling. “What are you doing?” I looked up to see Laurie standing before me. “I can’t go into dinner,” I said. “Why?” “I don’t have a belt.” “Did you lose it?” I shrugged, not sure. I was never really sure of anything anymore, and this situation was not the first time I’d dealt with arbitrary rules. Once a demonstrator had banned me from coming into my dorm in the evening because I wore nail polish. I did not know that nail polish was banned because we had acquired it from the staff in the first place. The polish remover was kept in the bathroom. I had had no choice that night but to stand in the muted light of the entryway for over an hour gnawing the polish off my nails. Laurie peered behind some bushes. She wore her favorite cowboy hat and brown cowboy boots, presents from someone. Legs slightly bowed and sturdy in her dark blue jeans, she bent over to sweep her hand under a hedge.
From In the Unlikely Event (2015)
“What?” “Understand that you’re sensitive.” Miri was proud for coming up with such a good word. “Is that like saying I’m dramatic, or crazy?” Miri was careful now. “Sensitive is better than dramatic, and it’s definitely not as bad as crazy.” “You saw the crash but you didn’t cry in the middle of the Christmas pageant.” “Everyone is different.” Miri didn’t add, You don’t know what’s inside of me. You don’t know about the smell in my nostrils, you don’t know how I have to sleep in bed with my mother half the night, or that the only thing she’ll say about it is, It’s over and it’s never going to happen again. Natalie held on to Miri’s hand, and looked around as if there might be someone else in her room. Then she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “You know that dancer, Ruby Granik?” “My uncle is interviewing her family,” Miri said. Natalie let go of Miri’s hand and sat up, intrigued by this information. “Do you think he’d interview me?” “He’s only talking to people who knew her. Family. Friends. People who worked with her.” Natalie’s voice went very low. “What I could tell him is just as important, maybe more important. Not that I’d want him to use my name.” “Like what?” “Swear you’ll never tell?” “I already swore I wouldn’t, remember?” “She’s the one who cried in the middle of the Christmas pageant today because she’ll never have another Christmas. She’s the one who keeps telling me about the babies inside the plane.” Natalie jumped off her bed. “I have to get ready for dance class. Come with me.” “Wait, I thought…” But Natalie grabbed her hatbox-shaped dance bag and ran down the stairs, with Miri trailing behind her. Natalie was full of surprises today, Miri thought. One minute, falling apart onstage, the next, with enough energy to light up the whole house. “Tell Mom I’ve gone to dance class,” Natalie called to Mrs. Barnes. Mrs. Barnes met her at the kitchen door. “I thought you weren’t feeling well.” “I’m better now,” Natalie said. “And Miri’s coming with me. We’ll take the bus. Mom can pick me up at the usual time.” At tap class Natalie was the best. Her feet led the way and the rest of her body followed. Double pullbacks, traveling time steps, wings—she could do it all. No one in her class could begin to keep up with her. After class, Natalie gave her teacher, Erma Rankin, her Christmas gift, which Miri guessed from the size and shape of the box was a Volupté compact, tied with the same holiday paper and red ribbon her grandmother used. Miss Rankin said, “Thank you, Natalie. I’m going to miss you. I hope you’ll still come to visit from time to time.” “What do you mean?” Natalie asked. “I’ve taught you all I can. As I told your mother a few weeks ago, you’re ready to study with the masters.
From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult
“Wheel those partitions over here.” I stood and went to the back of the room, walking around the babies from the Hatchery, who lay napping on blue-and-white-striped blankets. We were instructed to set up the partitions so they separated us from the sleeping toddlers. The children who had left to get the chairs came back carrying two each and set them in a semicircle formation, the usual layout for our seminars. The rest of us went to get more chairs. When I came back, the demonstrator had drawn three circles on the blackboard with a word inside each circle. After we took our seats, I sounded out the words silently to myself: eh-go, id, super eh-go. The demonstrator stood with a ruler and pointed at one of the circles. “Who can tell me about the ego?” A boy raised his hand. “Okay, Brad. Stand up,” the demonstrator said. Brad rose to his feet, his overalls sagging in the back. He gazed at the blackboard. “The ego is—” He paused. “The ego—” Another pause. “It’s like if you had this car and you wanted to drive it really fast, that’s the id. The super-ego says you have to go really slow to be safe, but your ego lets you go a little bit faster because the ego is in the reality.” “That’s close,” the man said. “Who else can tell me about the ego?” Cindy raised her hand. “Yes! Cindy. Stand up.” She shot to her feet, hands on her hips. “The ego is our conscience?” I mouthed the word “conscience” to myself. “The ego is how we do stuff every day, the right stuff,” Cindy said. “The ego knows it’s not good to eat five cotton candies because the id would do that, so the ego lets you eat one even though it would be better if you had vegetables. The ego sometimes has to make deals with the id, but mostly we live in our egos. If you don’t listen to the ego, you might feel guilty from the super ego. When we play the game, sometimes we speak from the id. Our id is deep inside us.” I stared at the bubbles on the blackboard, trying to understand the ideas. In my mind I conceptualized the ego and id as tiny magical creatures forcing people to do things like eat too much cotton candy or drive cars a certain way while the conscience was just a big black space. The lesson continued, but my mind drifted. I didn’t understand what was being taught or why playtime had been interrupted to talk about the ego. I retreated into my own world, something I was becoming quite good at. Some days later I sat in another seminar, this one officially part of our schedule for the day. “You are the models for the future,” the demonstrator said while she paced the room before us. “And I am here to demonstrate that. Right? Am I right?” “Yes,” we chorused.
From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)
AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Evan. ii. 73) Nor let it trouble us that Matthew says, that he who addressed this question to the Lord tempted Him; for it may be that though he came as a tempter, yet he was corrected by the answer of the Lord. Or at all events, we must not look upon the temptation as evil, and done with the intention of deceiving an enemy, but rather as the caution of a man who wished to try a thing unknown to him. PSEUDO-JEROME. Or else, he is not far who comes with knowledge; for ignorance is farther from the kingdom of God than knowledge; wherefore he says above to the Sadducees, Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures, or the power of God. It goes on: And no man after that durst ask him any questions. BEDE. (ubi sup.) For since they were confuted in argument, they ask Him no farther questions, but take Him without any disguise, and give Him up to the Roman power. From which we understand that the venom of envy may be overcome, but can hardly lie quiet. 12:35–4035. And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the Scribes that Christ is the Son of David? 36. For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 37. David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly. THEOPHYLACT. Because Christ was coming to His Passion, He corrects a false opinion of the Jews, who said that Christ was the Son of David, not his Lord; wherefore it is said, And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple. PSEUDO-JEROME. That is, He openly speaks to them of Himself, that they may be inexcusable; for it goes on: How say the Scribes that Christ is the Son of David? THEOPHYLACT. But Christ shews Himself to be the Lord, by the words of David. For it goes on: For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand; as if He had said, Ye cannot say that David said this without the grace of the Holy Spirit, but he called Him Lord in the Holy Spirit; and that He is Lord, he shews, by this that is added, Till I make thine enemies thy footstool; for they themselves were His enemies, whom God put under the footstool of Christ. BEDE. (ubi sup.) But the putting own of His enemies by the Father, does not shew the weakness of the Son, but the unity of nature, by which One works in the Other; for the Son also subjects the Father’s enemies, because He glorifies His Father upon earth.
From The Divine Comedy (1950)
6. There can be no doubt that Dante was ignorant of Greek and that his knowledge of everything relating to Greece was derived from intermediate Latin sources, principally Virgil. Perhaps this is the meaning intended.7. Gaeta, a town in southern Italy, north of Campania, thus named by Æneas after his nurse, Caïeta. For Circe, see Purg. xiv, note 3.8. The name of Ulysses’ father was Laertes, that of his wife Penelope, and that of his son Telemachus.9. This account of Ulysses’ voyage is entirely of Dante’s invention. The “columns of Hercules” (i.e. Mount Abyla in North Africa and Mount Calpe=Gibraltar) were regarded as the western limit of the habitable world. The other pole would indicate that the ship had crossed the equator. The Mountain can be no other than the Mount of Purgatory.C A N T O X X V I IThe Flame of Ulysses, having told its story, departs with permission of Virgil; and is immediately followed by another, which contains the spirit of Count Guido da Montefeltro, a Ghibelline of high fame in war and counsel. It comes moaning at the top, and sends forth eager inquiries about the people of Romagna, Guido’s countrymen. Dante describes their condition under various petty tyrants, in 1300. His words are brief, precise, and beautiful; and have a tone of large and deep sadness. Guido, at his request, relates who he is, and why condemned to such torment; after which, the Poets pass onwards to the bridge of the Ninth Chasm. [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] THE FLAME was now erect and quiet, having ceased to speak, and now went away from us with license of the sweet Poet; when another,1 that came behind it, made us turn our eyes to its top, for a confused sound that issued therefrom. As the Sicilian bull2 (which bellowed first with the lament of him—and that was right—who had tuned it with his file) kept bellowing with the sufferer’s voice; so that, although it was of brass, it seemed transfixed with pain: thus, having at their commencement no way or outlet from the fire, the dismal words were changed into its language. But after they had found their road up through the point, giving to it the vibration which the tongue had given in their passage, we heard it say: “O thou, at whom I aim my voice! and who just now wast speaking Lombard, saying, ‘Now go, no more I urge thee’; though I have come perhaps a little late, let it not irk thee to pause and speak with me; thou seest it irks not me, although I burn. If thou art but now fallen into this blind world from that sweet Latian land, whence I bring all my guilt, tell me if the Romagnuols have peace or war: for I was of the mountains there, between Urbino and the yoke from which the Tiber springs.”3
From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)
OF THE DIFFERENCE AND ORDER OF PUNISHMENTSSINCE, then, as we have shown, a reward is something proposed to the will, as an end whereby it is urged to do well, and on the other hand punishment, as an evil to be avoided, is set before the will, to withdraw it from evil; just as it is essential to a reward that it be a good in harmony with the will, so is it a necessary condition of punishment, that it be an evil, and in opposition to the will. Now, evil is the privation of good. Consequently, the difference and order of punishments must be in keeping with the difference and order of goods. Now, the sovereign good is man’s beatitude, which is his last end: and the nearer a thing approaches to this end, the higher must it be placed as a good of man. The nearest thing to that end is virtue, and everything else that is of use to man in well-doing, whereby he attains to beatitude. After this comes the right disposition of reason, and of the powers subject thereto. And after this the well-being of the body, which is requisite for facility of action. Lastly come those things that are without, which we employ as helps to virtue. Accordingly man’s greatest punishment will be his exclusion from beatitude. After this, privation of virtue, and of any perfection of the soul’s natural powers, that conduces to well-doing: then, disorder in the natural powers of the soul: then, injury to the body: lastly, loss of external goods. But as it is a necessary condition of punishment to be not only the privation of a good, but also opposed to the will: and as not every man’s will appreciates goods at their true value: it happens sometimes that the privation of a greater good is less opposed to the will, and for this reason seems to be less penal. Hence it is that many people who esteem higher and know better sensible and bodily goods than intellectual and spiritual goods, fear corporal punishment more than spiritual. And in the estimation of such men the order of punishments is apparently the reverse to that given above. For to these, injuries to the body and loss of external goods seem the greatest punishment: while they think little or nothing of the disorder of their soul, the decay of virtue, and the loss of the divine fruition, wherein man’s ultimate beatitude consists. Hence it is that they think that God punishes not the sins of man: because they see that sinners for the most part are sound of body, and outwardly prosperous, while virtuous men sometimes are none of these things.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
The silence of nine contemporary writers is certainly very noticeable. They had the means of knowing the facts. Why, then, do we accept the later statements of Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre? These are the considerations. 1. The silence of contemporary writers is not a final argument against events. Eusebius, the chief historian of the ancient Church, utterly ignores the Catacombs. Silence, said Dr. Philip Schaff, referring to the Crusades, "is certainly not conclusive," "Reformed Ch. Rev." 1893, p. 449. There is nothing in the earlier accounts contradictory to Peter’s activity prior to the Clermont synod. One and another of the writers omit important events of the First Crusade, but that is not a sufficient reason for our setting those events aside as fictitious. The Gesta has no account of Urban’s speech at Clermont or reference to it. Guibert and Fulcher leave out in their reports of Urban’s speech all reference to the appeal from Constantinople. Why does the Gesta pass over with the slightest notice Peter’s breaking away from Germany on his march to Constantinople? This author’s example is followed by Baldric, Tudebod, Fulcher, and Raymund of Agiles. These writers have not a word to say about Gottschalk, Volkmar, and Emich. As Hagenmeyer says, pp. 129, 157, no reason can be assigned for these silences, and yet the fact of these expeditions and the calamities in Hungary are not doubted. 2. The accounts of Albert of Aachen and of William of Tyre are simply told and not at all unreasonable in their essential content. William definitely makes Peter the precursor of Urban. He was, he said, "of essential service to our lord the pope, who determined to follow him without delay across the mountains. He did him the service of a forerunner and prepared the minds of men in advance so that he might easily win them for himself." There is no indication in the archbishop’s words of any purpose to disparage Urban’s part in preparing for the Crusade. Urban followed after John the Baptist. William makes Urban the centre of the assemblage at Clermont and gives to his address great space, many times the space given to the experiences of Peter, and all honor is accorded to the pope for the way in which he did his part, bk. I. 16.
From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)
What happened next is slightly odd. Augustine preserved a letter in which he writes to his new bishop, Valerius, to profess his unworthiness for his new office.52 He explains the tears he shed when he was forcibly ordained and seizes on the possibility of hope in the study of scripture, a study on which he had already set his heart. (The intellectual new cleric finds, that is, an intellectual mode of clerical existence for himself, far from the most obvious way to live the ordained life in that period.) So he pleads now for a little time off, immediately after his ordination: “For this business, I wanted to impose upon your transparent and venerable kindness for a little time, just till Easter. I sent a message through my brothers and now I ask you myself.” On the surface this is unremarkable and makes perfect sense, and is always read that way, as though Augustine were requesting a short research sabbatical. But what are we to make of the sending of the message, once through interlocutors and again in a letter? Why does Augustine need to communicate with his bishop twice, at second hand both times? The geography of the Christian quarter of Hippo (no building was more than two minutes’ walk from another) would have facilitated face-to-face conversation. And Augustine admits in another letter of the same period that his absence from Hippo was causing comment.53 The answer can be surmised, I believe, if we recall another passage where Augustine speaks of how he found this churchly future for himself. Late in book 10 of the Confessions, he says, “I was terrified by the weight of my sins and the mass of my misery, and I had thought about fleeing into the solitary life, but you stopped me and comforted me, saying, ‘Christ died for all so that we live now not for ourselves but for the one who died for us.’”54 The same themes of fear of service and divine command occur. But that thought of flight creeps in. What if Augustine were writing to his bishop from Tagaste? What if, on the morning after his ordination, he had really fled Hippo, gone back home, and shuddered at the thought of what had happened? If he then decided that he had no choice but to accept what had been laid on him, messages like the letter he sent to Valerius would be just the reassurance, to say nothing of the cover, that the situation required. It gave him time to settle his affairs in Tagaste and prepare for the move. As a devout landowner, he had not thought highly of clergy (most of whom came from well below him on the social ladder). Ascetic solitude was what was in fashion and what a reasonable person would say Augustine of the late 380s was heading toward. The urban distractions of unimpressive Hippo and the responsibilities of the clerical life played no detectible part in his intentions.
From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)
This is supposedly done when “such a person wants to practice cultivation” according to the precepts of Falun Gong.854 I pointed out that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had often expressed such concerns about racial purity. And that such concerns led to ethnic cleansing and the extermination of six million Jews. I asked how she, a Jew, could accept such racial edicts and intolerance. Her response was to routinely recite Master Li’s teachings. She explained that his racist remarks must be understood in the context of a cosmology that included many gods with particular links to specific races. According to Li, he is simply making these distinctions based on this cosmological understanding. His teachings are therefore not racist but an earnest attempt to avoid heavenly confusion with dire earthly consequences. At this juncture I pointed out an inherent problem for her with Li’s teachings. As a Jew she observed the Ten Commandments. For example, we were currently observing the fourth commandment, which states, “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.”855 I asked her what the first and foremost commandment is. She hesitated but finally answered, “You shall have no other gods beside me.”856 At this point I asked her how it was possible for her to hold to two different belief systems simultaneously, especially when they were in such conflict and directly contradicted each other. That is, on one hand Judaism is monotheistic and has only one God, but Falun Gong practitioners preach there is a plurality of many gods. I also asked her if Falun Gong practitioners had explained all this to her when she initially made contact with the group. And if this wasn’t the case, wasn’t this evidence of deliberate deception during what could be seen as their recruitment process? That is, the Falun Gong practitioners knowingly withheld or obscured information about the specific religious nature of their group, which forms the foundation for their practice. Hadn’t she deserved to know about all this before becoming more involved? As the sun set she seemed to have reached an impasse. The young woman insisted that somehow her involvement with Falun Gong was possible without any conflict. She then promised her husband and family that her children would be raised in a “Jewish home.” But I reiterated that monotheism was the single most important and consistent feature of Judaism and therefore the basis for a Jewish home. If she expected to honor her stated commitment to raise her children as Jews, how could she do so honestly while simultaneously embracing the teachings of Master Li? Wasn’t this a contradiction? How was it possible? How could she reconcile Falun Gong within the traditional framework of her very structured and regulated Jewish life? A life she had repeatedly said she would honor and which she expected her children to follow and understand? How would this work? At this juncture there was a kind of meltdown. The young woman tearfully refused to talk further and said our discussion must be concluded.
From An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)
The Spanish Church supplies us with an anticipation of the later devotions to Saints and Angels. The Canons are extant of a Council of Illiberis, held shortly before the Council of Nicæa, and representative of course of the doctrine of the third century. Among these occurs the following: "It is decreed, that pictures ought not to be in church, lest what is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls."[410:2] Now these words are commonly taken to be decisive against the use of pictures in the Spanish Church at that era. Let us grant it; let us grant that the use of all pictures is forbidden, pictures not only of our Lord, and sacred emblems, as of the Lamb and the Dove, but pictures of Angels and Saints also. It is not fair to restrict the words, nor are controversialists found desirous of doing so; they take them to include the images of the Saints. "For keeping of pictures out of the Church, the Canon of the Eliberine or Illiberitine Council, held in Spain, about the time of Constantine the Great, is most plain,"[410:3] says Ussher: he is speaking of "the representations of God and of Christ, and of Angels and of Saints."[410:4] "The Council of Eliberis is very ancient, and of great fame," says Taylor, "in which it is expressly forbidden that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls, and that therefore pictures ought not to be in churches."[411:1] He too is speaking of the Saints. I repeat, let us grant this freely. This inference then seems to be undeniable, that the Spanish Church considered the Saints to be in the number of objects either of "worship or adoration;" for it is of such objects that the representations are forbidden. The very drift of the prohibition is this,--_lest_ what is in itself an object of worship (_quod colitur_) should be worshipped _in painting_; unless then Saints and Angels were objects of worship, their pictures would have been allowed. 2. This mention of Angels leads me to a memorable passage about the honour due to them in Justin Martyr. St. Justin, after "answering the charge of Atheism," as Dr. Burton says, "which was brought against Christians of his day, and observing that they were punished for not worshipping evil demons which were not really gods," continues, "But Him, (God,) and the Son who came from Him, and taught us these things, and the host of the other good Angels who follow and resemble Him, and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, paying them a reasonable and true honour, and not grudging to deliver to any one, who wishes to learn, as we ourselves have been taught."[411:2]
From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)
The work of spiritual combat and the progress of chastity whose six stages Cassian describes can be understood, then, as a task of dissociation. One is very far from the economy of pleasures and their strict limitation; far, too, from the idea of a radical separation between the soul and the body. Such combat calls for a perpetual labor upon the movement of thought (which either prolongs and echoes, or induces, the movements of the body), upon thought’s most rudimentary forms, upon the elements that may trigger such things—a labor to ensure that the subject is never involved in waywardness, even through the most obscure and seemingly most “involuntary” form of will. The six degrees through which chastity progresses represent six stages that must nullify the involvement of the will. Undo one’s involvement in the body’s impulses—this is the first degree. Then undo one’s imaginative involvement (not dwelling on what is in the mind). Then undo the sensory involvement (no longer feeling the body’s impulses). Then undo the representative involvement (no longer thinking of objects as objects of possible desire). And finally, undo the oneiric involvement (the desire there may be in dream images, involuntary though they are). To this involvement, in which the willful act or explicit will to commit an act constitute the most visible form, but one so reprehensible that it must be excluded when the ascetic work begins, to this involvement of the subject all the more daunting for being produced in the least voluntary part of him, Cassian gives the name concupiscence. It’s against concupiscence that the spiritual combat is directed, with the effort of dissociation, of disinvolvement, that this requires. This explains the fact that, over the whole length of this struggle against the spirit of “fornication” and for chastity, the basic problem, and basically the only problem, is that of pollution—from its voluntary aspects or the indulgences that invite it to its involuntary forms in sleep or dreams. So great a problem that Cassian will make the absence of erotic dreams or nocturnal pollution the sign that one has arrived at the highest stage of chastity. He comes back to this theme often: the proof “that we have attained this purity will be that no image deceives us when we are resting or relaxed in sleep,”94 or again: “This is integrity’s end and definitive proof: that no voluptuous arousal comes to us during our sleep, and that we are not conscious of the pollutions to which nature constrains us.”95 The whole twenty-second Conference is devoted to the question of the “nighttime pollutions,” and the need to “exert all our strength to be delivered from them.” And several times Cassian evokes such holy figures as Serenus who had reached such a high degree of virtue that they were never exposed to inconveniences of this sort.96
From The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (2000)
36. Evolution of human skin color: Darwin (1871), Kingdon (1993). 37. Afrocentric approach to human evolution: Darwin (1871), Stringer & McKie (1996). CHAPTER 7 [image file=image_rsrc3AF.jpg] BODIES OF EVIDENCEGeneral references Popular overview of physical attractiveness: Etcoff (1999). Evolution of the human body through sexual selection: Barber (1995), Ellis (1934), Hersey (1996), Morris (1967, 1985), Thornhill (1998). Good reviews of the psychology of physical attractiveness: Berscheid & Walster (1978), Buss (1999), Cunningham et al. (1997), Gangestad (1993), Ridley (1993), Symons (1979, 1995), Thornhill (1998). Notes 1. Physical sex differences: Martin et al. (1994), Morris (1985). 2. Riskiness of male development: Daly & Wilson (1983, 1988), Ellis (1905, 1934). 3. Criteria for identifying sexually selected traits: Darwin (1871), Andersson (1994). 4. Sex differences highly diagnostic of sexual selection: Martin et al. (1994). 5. Universal preferences for smooth skin, taller men, and symmetric faces: Buss (1994), Etcoff (1999), Thornhill (1998). 6. Darwin on population and racial differences in sexually selected traits: Darwin (1871). 7. Developmental stability, symmetry, and fitness indicators: Moller & Swaddle (1998); see also Gangestad & Thornhill (1997), Gangestad et al. (1994), Moller & Alatalo (1999). 8. Evolution of the penis: Baker & Bellis (1995), Barber (1995), Dixson (1998), Eberhard (1985), Margulis & Sagan (1991), Morris (1985). 9. Ape penis sizes: Dixson (1998), de Waal & Lanting (1997). 10. Amazing animal penises: Wallace (1980). 11. Popular introduction to sperm competition: Baker (1996); technical reviews of sperm competition: Baker & Bellis (1995); Birkhead & Moller (1998). 231. Men produce larger-than-normal ejaculate when female partners return from long trip: Baker & Bellis (1995). 12. Sperm competition better predicted by testicle size: Harvey & Harcourt (1984); see also Birkhead & Moller (1998). 13. Margulis quote “penis dimension …”: Margulis & Sagan (1991, p. 161). 14. Penis display promoting the shift to bipedal walking: Sheets-Johnstone (1990). 15. Universality of male open-legged sitting posture: Eibl-Eibesfelt (1989). 16. William Eberhard on penis evolution and copulatory courtship: Eberhard (1985, 1996). 17. Anatomy of clitoris: Angier (1999, chapter 4). 18. Male scientists’ views of the clitoris: Gould (1987), Symons (1979), Eibl-Eibesfelt (1989), Morris (1967, 1985). 19. Female scientists on the clitoris: Fisher (1992), Hrdy (1981), Margulis & Sagan (1991), Small (1993); the clitoris debate: Angier (1999, chapter 4), Sherman (1989). 20. Natalie Angier quote “She is likely …”: Angier (1999, pp. 72–73). 241. Female genital mutilation: Angier (1999). 21. Evolution of breasts: Cant (1991), Caro & Sellen (1990), Gallup (1982), Low et al. (1987), Morris (1985). 22. Breast symmetry as a fitness indicator: Manning et al. (1997), Moller et al. (1995), Singh (1995). 23. Evolution of buttocks: Cant (1991), Caro & Sellen (1990), Low et al. (1987), Morris (1985). 24. Waists and hips: Singh (1993, 1995), Tassinary & Hansen (1998). 25. Books on body and face aesthetics: Etcoff (1999); Morris (1985). 26. Face aesthetics: Grammer & Thornhill (1994), Langlois et al. (1994), Perrett et al. (1998), Thornhill (1998), Thornhill & Gangestad (1994, 1996).