Contempt

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 110 of 253 · 20 per page

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " To my thinking," said Hircan, " the tall gentleman you have been telling us of had such a faint heart that he did not deserve the honour of having his adventure talkvl of. Having such a fine opportunity, nothing should have prevented him from profiting by it. His love, it must be owned, was not very great, since the fear of death and of shame found a place beside it in his heart." "And what could the poor gentleman have done against two women .'* " said Nomerfide. " He should have killed the old one," replied Hircan, " and the young one, seeing herself alone, would have been half vanquished." "Killed!" exclaimed Nomerfide ; "you would turn a lover into a murderer ! It would be a terrible thing to fall into your hands, I see." " If I had pushed matters so far," continued Hircan, " I should think myself ruined in reputation unless I went the whole way to the end." " Do you think it matter for wonder," said Geburon. " that a princess trained to virtue proves too much for one man t What would you say, then, to one woman in low life escaping from two men ! " " Geburon," said Ennasuite, " I call upon you for the fifth novel. If I am not mistaken, you know one about this poor woman which will not be displeasing to the company." " Be it so, then," said Geburon ; " I will tell you a story which I know to be true, having examined into it First day:, QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 43 on the spot. You will see from it that princesses arc not the only prudent and the only virtuous of their sex, and that often those who are reputed very amorous and very sly are less so than is supposed." NOVEL V. A boatwoman escapes from two Cordeliers, who wanted to force her, and exposes them to public derision.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Really? I don’t think …’ Then I saw that it was one of his conversational hairpins. I followed his glance across the room to where a dapper man, with crisp gold hair going grey, was sitting at the central table. Nantwich made a kind of diving or salaaming motion with his hands, and the man nodded and smiled. ‘Ronald Staines, you must know his stuff, of course.’ ‘I’m not sure that I do.’ I was sure he must be a dreadful photographer. ‘What sort of thing does he specialise in?’ ‘Oh, very special. You must meet, you’d love him,’ said Nantwich recklessly. I suffered a twinge of the mildly oppressive sensation one gets when one realises that the person one is talking to has plans. ‘Actually, there are lots of people, not yet dead, that I’d like you to meet. All my society is pretty bloody interesting. Falling to bits, of course, ga-ga as often as not, and a coachload of absolute Mary-Anns, I won’t deny it. But you young people know less and less of the old, they of you too, of course. I like young people around: you’re a bonny lot, you’re so heartless but you do me good.’ After this bizarre outburst he sat back and lapsed into one of his vacant spells, occasionally emitting an ‘Eh?’ or giving a shrug. I wondered what his complaint was: not just senility, clearly, as he could be sharp and to the point; was it hardening of the arteries, some slowly spreading constriction that brought on his spasmodic torpor? I knew that I must judge it by medical criteria, although I reckoned that he took advantage of his condition to further the egocentric discontinuities of his talk. Looking around the room I saw clear cases of other such afflictions, and thought how people of a certain kind gather together as if to authenticate a caricature of themselves—their freaks and foibles, unremarkable in the individual, being comically evident in the mass. As spoonfuls of soup were raised tremblingly to whiskery lips and hands cupped huge deaf ears to catch murmured and clipped remarks, the lunchers, all in some way distinguished or titled, retired generals, directors of banks, even authors, lost their distinction to me. They were anonymous, a type—and it was impossible to see how they could cope outside in the noise and race of the streets. How much did they know of the derisive life of the city which they ruled and from which they preserved themselves so immaculately and Edwardianly intact? As my eyes roamed across the room they came to rest on Abdul, who stood abstractedly sharpening his knife on the steel and gazing at me as if I were a meal.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " To my thinking," said Hircan, " the tall gentleman you have been telling us of had such a faint heart that he did not deserve the honour of having his adventure talkvl of. Having such a fine opportunity, nothing should have prevented him from profiting by it. His love, it must be owned, was not very great, since the fear of death and of shame found a place beside it in his heart." "And what could the poor gentleman have done against two women .'* " said Nomerfide. " He should have killed the old one," replied Hircan, " and the young one, seeing herself alone, would have been half vanquished." "Killed!" exclaimed Nomerfide ; "you would turn a lover into a murderer ! It would be a terrible thing to fall into your hands, I see." " If I had pushed matters so far," continued Hircan, " I should think myself ruined in reputation unless I went the whole way to the end." " Do you think it matter for wonder," said Geburon. " that a princess trained to virtue proves too much for one man t What would you say, then, to one woman in low life escaping from two men ! " " Geburon," said Ennasuite, " I call upon you for the fifth novel. If I am not mistaken, you know one about this poor woman which will not be displeasing to the company." " Be it so, then," said Geburon ; " I will tell you a story which I know to be true, having examined into it First day:, QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 43 on the spot. You will see from it that princesses arc not the only prudent and the only virtuous of their sex, and that often those who are reputed very amorous and very sly are less so than is supposed." NOVEL V. A boatwoman escapes from two Cordeliers, who wanted to force her, and exposes them to public derision.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  REMIGIUS. (ap. Gloss. ord.) Or, by the two thieves are denoted all those who strive after the continence of a strict life. They who do this with a single intention of pleasing God, are denoted by him who was crucified on the right hand; they who do it out of desire of human praise or any less worthy motive, are signified by him who was crucified on the left. 27:39–4439. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, 40. And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. 41. Likewise also the Chief Priests mocking him, with the Scribes and elders, said, 42. He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. 43. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. 44. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. CHRYSOSTOM. Having stripped and crucified Christ, they go yet further, and seeing Him on the cross revile Him. JEROME. They revile him because they passed by that way, and would not walk in the true way of the Scriptures. They wagged their heads, because they had just before shifted their feet, and stood not upon a rock. The foolish rabble cast the same taunt against Him that the false witnesses had invented, Aha! thou that destroyest the temple of God and rebuildest it in three days. REMIGIUS. Aha! is an interjection of taunt and mockery. HILARY. What forgiveness then for them, when by the resurrection of His body they shall see the temple of God rebuilt within three days? CHRYSOSTOM. And as beginning to extenuate His former miracles, they add, Save thyself; if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. de Cruc. et Latr. ii.) But He, on the contrary, does not come down from the cross, because He is the Son of God; for He therefore came that He might be crucified for us. JEROME. Even the Scribes and Pharisees reluctantly confess that He saved others. Your own judgment then condemns you, for in that He saved others, He could if He would have saved Himself. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM.d But attend to this speech of these children of the Devil, how they imitate their father’s speech. The Devil said, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; (Matt. 4:6.) and they say now, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. Yet the Lord enjoins nothing of this sort to be observed towards those who are without the Church, such as He does in reproving a brother. Of those that are without He says. If any smite thee on the one cheek, offer to him the other also. (Mat. 5:39.) as Paul speaks, What have I to do to judge them that are without? (1 Cor. 5:12.) But brethren he bids us reprove, and turn away from. JEROME. That He says, As a heathen and a publican, shews that he is to be more abhorred, who under the name of a believer does the deeds of an unbeliever, than those that are openly gentiles. Those He calls publicans, who pursue worldly gain, and levy contributions by trading, cheating, and villainous frauds, and perjuries.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AMBROSE. He would not have said that all the temptation was ended, had there not been in the three temptations which have been described the materials for every crime; for the causes of temptations are the causes of desire, namely, the delight of the flesh, the pomp of vain-glory, greediness of power. ATHANASIUS. (non occ.) The enemy came to Him as man, but not finding in Him the marks of his ancient seed, he departed. AMBROSE. You see then that the devil is not obstinate on the field, is wont to give way to true virtue; and if he ceases not to hate, he yet dreads to advance, for so he escapes a more frequent defeat. As soon then as he heard the name of God, he retired (it is said) for a season, for afterwards he comes not to tempt, but to fight openly. THEOPHYLACT. Or, having tempted Him in the desert with pleasure, he retires from Him until the crucifixion, when he was about to tempt Him with sorrow. MAXIMUS. (lib. ad. piet. ex. 12.) Or the devil had prompted Christ in the desert to prefer the things of the world to the love of God. The Lord commanded him to leave Him, (which itself was a mark of Divine love.) It was afterwards then enough to make Christ appear the false advocate of love to His neighbours, and therefore while He was teaching the paths of life, the devil stirred up the Gentiles and Pharisees to lay traps for Him that He might be brought to hate them. But the Lord, from the feeling of love which He had towards them, exhorted, reproved, ceased not to bestow mercy upon them. AUGUSTINE. (de con. Ev. lib. ii. c. 6.) The whole of this narrative Matthew relates in a similar manner, but not in the same order. It is uncertain therefore which took place first, whether the kingdoms of the earth were first shewn unto Him, and He was afterwards taken up to the pinnacle of the temple; or whether this came first, and the other afterwards. It matters little however which, as long as it is clear that they all took place. MAXIMUS. (ut sup.) But the reason why one Evangelist places this event first, and another that, is because vain-glory and covetousness give birth in turn to one another. ORIGEN. But John, who had commenced his Gospel from God, saying, In the beginning was the Word, did not describe the temptation of the Lord, because God can not be tempted, of whom he wrote. But because in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke the human generations are given, and in Mark it is man who is tempted, therefore Matthew, Luke, and Mark have described the temptation of the Lord. 4:14–2114. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. 15. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 75 < Lecture 11  Early Christianities `Another very important early Christian group, called the Marcionites, took what was the opposite view in many ways. The group is named after its founder, Marcion, a 2nd-century theologian and teacher. yIn contrast to the Jewish Christian groups, Marcion’s hero in the faith was Paul, whom he saw as the ultimate authority for what it meant to be Christian. Marcion took the views of Paul and drew them to a logical conclusion. yThe God of the Jews who gave the law to Moses was a different God from the God of Jesus; the God of the Old Testament was not the God of the New Testament. yThe material world was created by the wrathful God of the Old Testament who gave his law and then condemned everyone for not keeping it. The God of Jesus was one of love and mercy who came into the world to deliver people from the judgmental creator God. `The final set of adherents to mention is the Gnostics, which comprised multiple groups. These groups had different mythological systems, writings, beliefs, and even gods. But there were some things that held them together. yThey all held to an extensive divine realm with numerous divine beings inhabiting it. yThey told extensive myths to explain where these divine beings came from and how they related to one another. yThese myths typically explained as well how the material world came into being as a result of a cosmic catastrophe. yThis world was seen as an awful realm of pain and suffering. Humans were trapped in this material world because of their material bodies, prisons for their immortal souls. yTo escape their bodily entrapment, souls needed to learn the secret knowledge that can bring salvation. The word knowledge in Greek is gnosis; that is why these groups are called gnostic. They were made up of people who knew the secrets that can bring salvation. < 76 < Lecture 11  Early Christianities yThere were some gnostic groups that were not Christian. Those that were Christian are the ones we know most about; they taught that Christ was a divine being who came from the divine realm above to reveal the secret knowledge that can bring salvation. yIt was not his death and resurrection that ultimately mattered. It was the secret teachings he delivered. yThese teachings are often conveyed in the myths themselves, some of which we now have in writings that have been discovered in modern times. These books were lost because Gnostics, like the Jewish Christians, the Marcionites, and all the other competing groups, were squashed by their opposition. < 76 <

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 153 < TABLE OF CONTENTS Lecture 23 The Beginnings The Beginnings of a Christian of a Christian Roman EmpireRoman Empire A fter the death of Julian, every Roman emperor was Christian. Some were more outspoken and forceful in their support of the Christian church than others. One of the most forceful of all was an emperor near the end of the 4th century, Theodosius I, who ruled from 379–395 CE. By this time, Christianity had grown by leaps and bounds. If there were 2 or 3 million Christians at the beginning of the 4th century, by the end of Theodosius’s reign, there were 25 or 30 million. Theodosius: Overview `Theodosius was a deeply committed and religious Christian. He promoted the Christian cause in a very serious way, leading eventually to the Christianization of the empire and the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the state. < 15 4 < Lecture 23  The Beginnings of a Christian Roman Empire `His form of the faith was what is normally called orthodox. Among other things, that means he opposed the Arian understanding of Christ and advocated the strong doctrine of the Trinity that claimed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of the same substance were completely equal for all time, and he worked to make this the faith of all people. `Theodosius had been one of the top military commanders of the Roman armies before being appointed emperor in 379. Much of his reign involved military operations in trying to keep the empire safe from foreign invasions. Most important to this course are his efforts to advance the Christian cause. yParticularly relevant was legislation passed under Theodosius’s reign that was designed to limit, restrict, and in a sense illegalize pagan cultic practices to promote the Christian faith. yRoman imperial legislation was quite different from what we know of as federal law in the modern world. yDecrees coming from the imperial authorities in Rome itself expressed the imperial will, but they almost never could be enforced, and often they were ignored. yLocal rulers normally took the legislation as advice and directives rather than as strict instructions that had to be adhered to at all cost. Even so, enforcement could and did happen in many places. ySince the laws did express the political direction of the empire and the will of its ultimate ruler, both administrative officials and private citizens or even mobs could take matters into their own hands and act accordingly. yIn the end, once imperial legislation came to be directed against traditional pagan cults, it spelled disaster for them. Anti-Pagan Laws `A number of the laws ascribed to Theodosius proscribe pagan cultic practices and enforce Christian orthodoxy. Unlike so much previous legislation designed for just one locality or another, many of these were meant to have wide-ranging application.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 107 < Lecture 16  Imperial Persecution of the Early Christians ` This event happened in the 1st century—before most of the New Testament was even written. Specifically, the event happened in 64 CE, and it involved the persecution of Christians in Rome by the emperor Nero. Tacitus and Nero ` Regarding this persecution, we do not learn about it in detail from any early Christian source. Rather, we learn about it from the writings of a Roman historian, Tacitus. His book The Annals of Imperial Rome, written around 115 CE, describes the events leading up to the persecution and the details of the gruesome event itself. ` The Annals records major events that transpired during the reigns of several of the early emperors. Of them, the one relevant for this lecture is Nero, who ruled from 54–68 CE. Tacitus discusses a key event from his reign, the great fire of Rome, in book 15 of The Annals. This fire occurred in 64 CE. y The fire affected 10 of the 14 districts of Rome. Three were completely destroyed and seven were severely damaged. y No one knew for certain how the fire started. Tacitus himself gives two main options and indicates that he is not sure which it was: a pure accident or an act of arson. He suggests that if it was arson, it may have been ordered by Nero himself. y Why would Nero do this? A rumor started up by people who had been burnt out of house and home was that the emperor had building plans for his city that could not be implemented if the city was still standing. Therefore, he arranged for it to be burned. ` The rumor started spreading more widely, and Nero realized he had to shift the blame off himself. He chose someone else to serve as a scapegoat, and he landed on the idea of the Christians. Nero had Christians from around the city arrested and ordered them subjected to horrifying forms of execution. < 108 < Lecture 16  Imperial Persecution of the Early Christians ` By targeting, blaming, and then publicly punishing outsiders, the mighty ruler shifted the conversation away from himself, giving his subjects an opponent they could hate and absolving himself of all blame. Several important points need to be made about the persecution. y First, nothing suggests that Nero declared Christians illegal. On the contrary, later imperial involvement shows clearly there were no laws against Christians per se, even decades later. y Christians were not persecuted for being Christians. They were executed for committing arson. The charge may have been false— even Tacitus appears to think it was—but that was the charge. Being a Christian was not a crime; setting fire to Rome was.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 141 < Lecture 21  Constantine’s Interactions with the Church y The Council of Arles came to the same decision the Bishop of Rome had, ruling against the hardliner Donatists. The bishop of Carthage was legitimate, even if he had been ordained by a traditor. y Donatists again refused to accept the ruling and asked Constantine to intervene. ` By this time, Constantine was fed up with them, and it appears that he didn’t care too much one way or the other. But throughout his long career, he showed disdain for rigorists unwilling to compromise. He, too, decided against the Donatists. ` That didn’t end the controversy. It continued to rage on, and it was still a very hot debate a century later in the days of the great 5th-century theologian Augustine. The Arian Controversy ` There was only so much an emperor could do to influence the theological views of committed religionists. That became clearer in an even better- known ecclesiastical dispute Constantine found himself embroiled in a decade later: the Arian controversy. Constantine called a council of bishops known as the Council of Nicaea to resolve it. ` The issue instead involved the question of what it might mean to say Christ was the Son of God. The controversy began in the large and influential church in Alexandria, Egypt. Initially it was a disagreement between the bishop of the church, who was coincidentally named Alexander, and one of his clergy underlings, a popular teacher named Arius (hence the name: the Arian controversy). ` Alexander had asked his subordinate clergy to explain how Christ could be the Son of God, in some sense actually divine, if the Father alone was God. Christians are monotheists. How could both the Father and Son be divine if there is only one God? This had been a longstanding issue. < 142 < Lecture 21  Constantine’s Interactions with the Church < 142 < ` Arius wrote up his view: There can be only one ultimate God, only one who is almighty. Christ was a subordinate divine being who had come into existence. At one time he did not exist, and then later he did. Only God the Father was truly eternal and all-powerful. ` Christ was divine and powerful. However, the glory of the Father exceeded his glory by an infinite degree, just as Christ’s exceeds a human’s by an infinite degree. ` Arius’s bishop, Alexander, disagreed. In his view, Christ had always existed and was not subordinate to God the Father but in fact was fully equal with the Father in every way. ` For his part, Constantine thought it was trivial. He wrote to both Alexander and Arius and explicitly told them so, and he ordered them to work it out. They weren’t able to do so, and each of them had large followings of extremely interested supporters.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  It is noticeable that on this point those who have once forsaken the beaten track of truth have, in their efforts to avoid one error, fallen into a contrary mistake. There was once among certain monks an erroneous idea that manual labour was detrimental to religious perfection, because it hindered religious from casting all their care upon God and thus from fulfilling our Lord’s behest: “Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on” (Matt. vi. 25). But they who hold this opinion must, for the sake of consistency, deny that the Apostles laboured with their hands. They must interpret the words of St. Paul, “ if any man will not work, neither shall he eat,” as referring not to physical, but to spiritual labours. Otherwise the Apostolic precept would be opposed to the evangelical command. St. Augustine in his book De opere monacorum, which was written to confute this error (as he tells us in his book of Retractations), clearly proves that it is contraxy to the teaching of Holy Scripture. On the strength of this verdict, other captious men have diaseminated an error of a precisely contrary nature, teaching that religious are, unless engaged in manual labour, living in a state of damnation. The Gloss terms the upholders of this opinion friends and sup porters of Pharaoh, who said: “Why do you, Moses and Aaron, draw off the people from their works?” (Exod. v. 4). It makes the following commentary on the text: “If, today Moses and Aaron, by whom is signified the word of a prophet or a preacher, should stir up men’s hearts to leave the world and to renounce all that they possess in order to devote themselves to the service of God, and to the study of His law and word, the friends of Pharaoh would immediately exclaim: “See how men are led away, and youths persuaded to forsake work and military service and everything useful, in order to spend their time in idleness and folly. For what is their service to God? A pretext for idleness? Such were the words of Pharaoh, and thus do his friends still speak.” In order to defend the servants of God from persecution of this nature, we shall now prove that religious are not, except perhaps occasionally, bound to manual labour; moreover, those who do not work with their hands are in a state of salvation. In the first place, the Gloss, commenting on the words: “Behold the birds of the air” (Matt. vi. 26), says: “The saints are deservedly compared to birds; for they seek Heaven, and they are so far removed from the world that they do no work on earth. They do not labour, but by contemplation dwell in Heaven. Of such may it truly be said: ‘Who are these that fly like clouds?’”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Religious are further denounced by their enemies as being the source of all the evils which are to flood the world in the latter days. Hence they must be shunned by all men. For, St. Paul, writing to Timothy, (2 Tim. iii), gives a most emphatic order on this head. “Know,” he says, that in the last days there shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, etc., having an appearance indeed, of goodness (or of religion, as the Gloss says), but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid.” But, as in the same chapter St. Paul says, “Evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse, erring and driving into error,” so these defamers of religious, not satisfied with calumny, try to make void the authority of the Apostle, saying that, not even at his bidding, are they bound to admit religious to their society. For, according to civil law, there is no obligation which can compel them to permit religious to associate with them, since society is established on the basis of free will. Hence the Apostolic authority is limited to ecclesiastical affairs. St. Paul himself said (2 Cor. x. 13), “We will not glory beyond our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God has measured to us.” Now ecclesiastical affairs include the collation of benefices, the administration of the Sacraments, and the like, but not association in studies. Hence secular students are not, by Apostolic authority, bound to admit, religious to their society. Again, power is committed to the ministers of the church, not “unto destruction, but unto edification” (2, Cor. xiii. 10). Hence as the enemies of religious consider that they have proofs that union between religious and seculars would be “unto destruction,” they hold, that the authority of the Apostles cannot compel them to form such an union.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  It was one of the small, advanced ones. "The overview," he said softly and politely, craning his head with an anxious smile. “The Book of Job is divided into three parts. First, the condition of Job before he came into the cross or chastisement of the Lord; Chapter I , verses one through six. Second, the cross itself and what happened there; Chapter ..." "It was right, Perlemann," interrupted Herr Ballerstedt, touched by so much hesitant compliance, and wrote a good grade in his pocket book. "Heinricy, go on." Heinrich was one of those long rascals who didn't care about anything anymore. He shoved the handiest knife he had been working with into his trouser pocket, stood up noisily, let his lower lip droop and cleared his throat in a rough, raw man's voice. Everyone was dissatisfied that it was now his turn instead of the gentle Perlemann. The students dreamed and brooded in the warm room under the softly whizzing gas flames, half asleep. Everyone was tired from Sunday, and everyone had crawled out of their warm beds on the cold foggy morning, sighing and teeth chattering. Everyone would have liked it if little Perlemann had continued to whisper for the whole hour, while Heinricy would certainly start a fight now... "I was absent when this was being taken," he said with coarse emphasis. Herr Ballerstedt swelled, flexed his weak fist, worked his lips, and stared into young Heinricy's face with raised eyebrows. His dark red head trembled with the straining effort until he finally managed to utter a "Well..." breaking the spell and winning the game. 'There's never anything to be gained from you,' he went on with ease and eloquence, 'and you always have an excuse ready, Heinricy. If you were ill last hour, you could very well have informed yourself about the work done during these days, and if the first part deals with the condition before the cross and the second with the cross itself, you could finally turn to the Count on your fingers that the third part according to the stateaforesaid misery. But you lack the right devotion, and not only are you a weak person, you are also always ready to gloss over and defend your weakness. But remember, Heinricy, that as long as this is the case, there is no question of an elevation and improvement. You sit down. Waterfowl, go on." Heinricy, thick-skinned and defiant, sat down with scratches and creaks, whispered cheekily to his neighbor and pulled out his handy knife again. Apprentice Waterbird stood up, a boy with sore eyes, turned up nose, protruding ears and chewed fingernails. In a soft, squeaky voice he finished the "overview" and began to tell about Job, the man in the land of Uz, and what happened to him.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  I wish I were the sort of person who liked everybody and everything. I feel so negative sometimes. I have friends who can listen to any song, watch any movie, or read any book, and they think everything is just great. I truly envy people who can do that. I say all of this because, as the author finally started reading from his new book, I didn’t like it at all. I fought my critical nature but couldn’t help but compare his new stuff to the genius of his previous work. His words were vaporous and cliché, trendy and full of sales pitches. They weren’t his words, they were words that sell, words that tickle ears and reach a specified demographic. In regard to spirituality, he surprised me by straying from his Christian convictions and bringing Muhammad into the light. He said that Muhammad was one of his heroes. I don’t have so many problems with Muhammad, but I have problems with middle-aged white guys who grew up in America claiming Muhammad as a hero, not because Muhammad never did anything good (he did), but because calling Muhammad a hero is such an incredibly trendy thing to do. I know I am judging the guy’s motives and all, but can you get any more trendy than subscribing to half-Christian, half-Islamic ideas? The guy was layering religious propositions like clothes in a J. Crew catalog. The absolute most annoying thing about this guy’s religious ideas was that they were so precisely where I was going with mine. It was like seeing my future pass before my eyes. I was on my way to becoming Captain Trendy Spiritual Writer. It was spooky. Trendy Writer talked about how Khwaja Khandir is his fishing guide. He described Khwaja Khandir as the Islamic version of the Holy Spirit: Khwaja Khandir tells him where the fish are and teaches him things about life like how to manage his money or achieve inner peace or please his wife. It was all hokey and hoo-ha. I felt as if I were being visited by the ghost of Christmas future, and the ghost was saying, “Hey, Don, you’re going to end up like this guy: A yuppie Christian writer with no backbone!”

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  His life had certainly cost him enough in pain to make the world’s judgment a thing of no account. They had not known him as she had known him; they did not care as she had cared! It only made her sad that he never, as he had promised, came to take her away, and that while she was growing up she saw him so seldom. When she became a young woman she did not see him at all; but that was her own fault. No, she did not accuse him; but she accused her aunt, and this from the moment she understood that her aunt had loved her mother, but did not love him. This could only mean that her aunt could not love her, either, and nothing in her life with her aunt ever proved Elizabeth wrong. It was true that her aunt was always talking of how much she loved her sister’s daughter, and what great sacrifices she had made on her account, and what great care she took to see to it that Elizabeth should grow up a good, Christian girl. But Elizabeth was not for a moment fooled, and did not, for as long as she lived with her, fail to despise her aunt. She sensed that what her aunt spoke of as love was something else—a bribe, a threat, an indecent will to power. She knew that the kind of imprisonment that love might impose was also, mysteriously, a freedom for the soul and spirit, was water in the dry place, and had nothing to do with the prisons, churches, laws, rewards, and punishments, that so positively cluttered the landscape of her aunt’s mind. And yet, to-night, in her great confusion, she wondered if she had not been wrong; if there had not been something that she had overlooked, for which the Lord had made her suffer. ‘You little miss great-I-am,’ her aunt had said to her in those days, ‘you better watch your step, you hear me? You go walking around with your nose in the air, the Lord’s going to let you fall right on down to the bottom of the ground. You mark my words. You’ll see. ’ To this perpetual accusation Elizabeth had never replied; she merely regarded her aunt with a wide-eyed, insolent stare, meant at once to register her disdain and to thwart any pretext for punishment. And this trick, which she had, unconsciously, picked up from her father, rarely failed to work. As the years went on, her aunt seemed to gauge in a look the icy distances that Elizabeth had put between them, and that would certainly never be conquered now.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " It is no great thing to boast of," said Simontault, " for an honest woman to refuse a man so ugly as you rep- resent this secretary to have been. Had he been hand- some and well-bred, her conduct would then have been some evidence of virtue. As I think I know the man, if it was my turn to tell a story, I think I could give you one about him not less droll than this." " Well, do so," said Ennasuite, " Courtiers, and inhabitants of great cities," he con- tinued, " have such a good opinion of their own capacity that they regard others as very small folk in comparison with themselves. Though craft and cunning are of all countries and all conditions, yet as those who think themselves the shrewdest do so only through vanity, they are only the more laughed at when they happen to make some mistake, as I shall instance to you in an affair of recent occurrence." Third day ] QUEEN OF NA VARRE. 275 NOVEL XXVIII. A secretarj-, thinking to dupe a certain person, was himself duped. When King Francis I. was at Paris with his sister the Queen of Navarre, that princess had a secretary named Jean, who was not one of those who let anything worth having be lost for want of picking it up. There was neither president nor counsellor with whom he was not acquainted, merchant nor rich man whose house he did not frequent. At the same time there also arrived in Paris a merchant of Bayonne, named Bernard du Ha, who, having business in hand, and being in need of pro- tection, addressed himself to the lieutenant criminel, who was of his country. The Queen of Navarre's secretary used also to go frequently to see the same person, as a good servant of his master and mistress. One holiday, when he went to the house, he found neither the lieuten- ant nor his lady at home ; but there was Bernard du Ha, playing a viol or some other instrument for the ser- vant-women of the house, and teaching them to dance the branles of Gascony. When the secretary saw this, he wanted to make Bernard believe that he was doing wrong, and that if the lieutenant and his lady knew of it they would be very angry- Having talked to him in so alarming a manner that the other begged him not to tell what he had seen, he said, " What will you give me not to say a word about it V Bernard du Ha, who was not so frightened as he made believe, perceiving that the secretary wanted to dupe him, promised to give him a pasty of the best Basque ham he had ever eaten. The 276 THE HEPTAMEROAr OF THE [ATovel 2B secretary was highly pleased, and begged that he might have the pasty on the following Sunday after dinner, which the other promised.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Herr Modersohn blinked and spelled out a new name. "Waterbird," he said. "Deceased!" exclaimed Petersen, overcome with gallows humor. And amid shuffling of feet, grunts, crows, and jeers, all repeated that Waterfowl was dead. Herr Modersohn blinked again, looked around, twisted his mouth sourly, and then looked back at the class register, pointing with his small, clumsy hand to the name he was about to call out. "Perlemann," he said without much confidence. "Unfortunately gone mad," said Kai Graf Mölln clearly and firmly; and with growing hello, this too was confirmed. Then Herr Modersohn got up and called out over the noise: "Buddenbrook, you're going to do a detention for me. If you laugh again, I shall have to reprimand you." Then he sat down again. - Indeed, Buddenbrook had laughed, he had burst into a low, violent laugh at Kai's joke, which he couldn't stop. He thought it was good, and the "unfortunately" in particular shook him with comedy. But when Mr. Modersohn barked at him, he became calm and looked at the candidate calmly and gloomily. At that moment he saw everything about him, every pathetic hair of his beard, which allowed his skin to show through everywhere, and his brown, bright, hopeless eyes; saw that he was wearing, as it were, two pairs of cuffs on his small, clumsy hands, because his shirt sleeves were just as long and wide at the wrists as the cuffs proper, saw his whole poor and despairing form. He also looked inside himself. Hanno Buddenbrook was almost the only one whom Mr. Modersohn already knew by name, and he used that to constantly call him to order, dictate detentions and bully him. He only knew the pupil Buddenbrook because he had distinguished himself from the others by his quiet demeanor, and he used this gentleness to make him constantly feel the authority which he dared not assert towards the loud and impudent. Even pity is made impossible on earth by meanness, thought Hanno. I take no part in torturing and exploiting you, candidate because he had distinguished himself from the others by being quiet, and he used this gentleness to constantly make him feel the authority that he dared not assert in the face of the loud and bold. Even pity is made impossible on earth by meanness, thought Hanno. I take no part in torturing and exploiting you, candidate because he had distinguished himself from the others by being quiet, and he used this gentleness to constantly make him feel the authority that he dared not assert in the face of the loud and bold. Even pity is made impossible on earth by meanness, thought Hanno. I take no part in torturing and exploiting you, candidate Modersohn, because I find that brutal, ugly and ordinary, and how do you answer me?

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  Each of the thumbnail images showed a frail woman softly lit, holding a microphone prayerfully in both of her hands. Maybe all of these clips were from the same concert, or maybe the simple, floor-length white gown she wore in each of them was a sort of signature. Mitko found the video he wanted, and as it began I was moved by the thought that he was granting me access to a private history and so to the intimacy I longed for with him, and that this music, so connected to his past, might allow that intimacy passage across our two languages. And yet, as I watched this woman, who was beautiful with a hollow sort of beauty, I was increasingly repelled by what seemed to me a transparent and entirely artless manipulation. She sang in a choked whisper, affecting an extremity of dignified, photogenic devastation, and at the end of a particularly tragic passage she broke into what seemed to me obviously rehearsed tears, lowering the microphone in a posture of defeat. From time to time, the camera (it was a professional film, an elaborate concert video) positioned itself at the singer’s shoulder, forcing us into greater sympathy with her as we shared her vantage on the thousands of fans stretching out into the darkness. They burst into a kind of ecstasy at the sight of her tears, producing collectively a sound of mingled dismay and joy. Ah, said that sound, here at last is the life of significance, the real life that frees us from ourselves. These thoughts took me away from the moment I shared with Mitko, and made me feel that I too had been played, lured into a sentimentality entirely inappropriate to what was, after all, a transaction. As Mitko continued looking tenderly at the screen, a look that now I suspected was artificial, calculated and sly, I stood up, I put my hands on his shoulders and bent my face once again to his neck. Haide , I said, come on, tasting him and tugging at his shoulders. He tried at first to put me off again, he said we could take our time, the night was long; he was counting on a place to spend that night, and no doubt had experienced hospitality withdrawn by men whose desire dissolved immediately to disgust.

• From Science and Religion (2006)

  7 of his ire results from the First Vatican Council’s then-recent declarations, particularly against abuses of rationalism, namely, the council’s assertion that there are revealed truths that are not accessible to unaided reason, that is, to rational (scienti ¿ c) inquiry. Much of Draper’s text exempli ¿ es the widespread Anglo-American anti-Catholicism and racism of the period—particularly the opposition to new (Catholic) immigrants in America. At the same time, Protestantism is seen as the twin sister of modern science, and when Protestants cause problems, it is either on account of “misunderstandings” or because they are incompletely “emancipated” from Catholicism. Although Draper’s work is easy to dismiss as cranky and ahistorical, his theme and many of his anecdotes have entered the common consciousness, where they have remained hard to remove. A more sustained, and seemingly more historical, presentation of the warfare thesis appeared in a series of publications by Andrew Dickson White. White ¿ rst treated the subject in 1869, published a longer version ( The Warfare of Science ) in 1876, and eventually put out a ponderous two-volume work, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom , in 1896. White was a historian at the University of Michigan and, later, the ¿ rst president of Cornell University. His books, although still melodramatic in tone to modern tastes, did not share the rabidity of Draper and did not sell as well. However, their apparent historical documentation gave them greater inÀ uence. White’s interest was provoked by criticism he received for establishing Cornell without religious af¿ liation. Co-founder and ¿ rst president of Cornell University, Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) wrote and delivered increasingly lengthy discourses on the “warfare” between science and religion. The Teaching Company Collection.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer: There are different opinions about this question. Some say that the soul and, indeed, every substance, with the exception of God, is composed of matter and form. The first to maintain this position is Avicebron, the author of the Fons vitae. The reason for this position, which is also mentioned in one of the objections (Obj. 6), is this: that matter is found wherever the properties of matter exist. Wherefore, since the properties of matter are found in the soul, namely, to receive, to be in potency, and other things of this kind, Avicebron is of the opinion that there must be matter in the soul. But this argument is silly, and the position itself is impossible. Now the weakness of this argument become’s apparent if we consider that to receive, to be a subject, and other things of this sort, are not found in the soul and in prime matter in the same specific way. For prime matter is actuated by means of change and motion, and since every change and motion may be reduced to local motion, as the primary and most universal type of motion, as is proved in the Physics [VIII, 7, 260b 6], it follows that matter is present only in those things in which there is potency to place (ab ubi). Moreover, things of this kind, which are circumscribed by place alone, are corporeal. Hence, in accordance with the way in which the philosophers have spoken about matter, matter is present only in corporeal things; unless, of course, someone wishes to employ matter in an equivocal sense. The soul, however, does not receive something by means of motion and change, but, on the contrary, by being separated from motion and from movable things. Accordingly, it is said in the Physics [VII, 3, 247b 10] that the soul becomes cognitive and possesses prudence when at rest. Wherefore the Philosopher also states, in the De anima [III, 4, 429a 30] that intellection is referred to as a passion, but is a passion of a different nature from that present in corporeal things. Therefore, if anyone wishes to conclude that the soul is composed of matter because it is receptive or is acted upon, he is clearly deceived by an equivocation. Consequently it is evident that the aforesaid argument is foolish.