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.

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• From The Case for God (2009)

  Clifford’s book struck an instant chord. By the late 1860s, widespread veneration for science as the only path to truth had made the idea of “belief” without verification offensive not only intellectually but morally. For the American sociologist Lester Ward (1841–1913), superstition (a term that he applied indiscriminately to any religious idea) led to neurological softening of the brain and weakened moral fiber. Once you had accepted the idea that some matters lay beyond human comprehension, you would swallow anything.72 For the English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–73), the delusions of faith “would sanction half the mischievous illusions recorded in history.”73 Credulity was an act of abject cowardice: “Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith!” Ingersoll protested with his usual bravura, “Banish me from Eden if you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!”74 Today we are so used to the idea that science and religion are at loggerheads that these ideas no longer surprise us. But in the late nineteenth century, most churchmen still looked up to science; they had not yet fully appreciated how thoroughly Darwinism had undermined the natural theology on which their “belief” was based. At this time, it was not the religious who were fueling the antagonism between the two disciplines but the advocates of science. Most scientists had no interest in bashing religion; they were content to get on quietly with their research and objected only when theologians tried to obstruct their inquiries.75 It was the popularizers of Darwin who went on the offensive in an antireligious crusade. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Karl Vogt (1817–95), Ludwig Buchner (1824–99), and Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) toured Europe, lecturing enthusiastically to packed audiences.76 Vogt was a good scientist (though some of his colleagues feared that he reached his conclusions too hastily) but was so vehemently anticlerical that when he discussed religion, he lost all perspective. His method was to present faith at its most simplistic—inveighing fiercely against the myth of Noah’s Ark, for example, as though it were a real impediment to scientific advance—and then to devote a disproportionate amount of time and energy to attacking the straw dog he had set up.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “—the Third. He’d move in with Esmeralda if Esmeralda would have the papers on the house made out in both Lance’s and Esmeralda’s names. The next day, Esmeralda was with her attorneys, and Lance moved in. Then Esmeralda tries to make out—and Lance says nothing doing, He promised to move in, and he did. But Touch him, no.... The old man was a case, I mean Ive never seen anyone so nervous. And she says to Lance he can have Anything. All right, says Lance, he wants the house in his name only. It was a magnificent house, babe: Lance still has it: all gorgeous modern furniture, original paintings (all the way from New York)—drapes like in the Movies—everything!... So the old man calls her attorneys again, she has the house put in Lance’s name—And Then Guess What?” Jamey gulps his drink in anticipation. “Youll never believe it!” “We were all there—Jamey was there—all the kids from the set. Lance gave this party, to celebrate his new house, and Esmeralda is there hobbling around on her cane, following Lance, smiling, nodding—thinking at last shes made it. Well! It was real late, and Lance goes to Esmeralda Drake the Third, and says to her—” “He really said this, we all heard it.” “—and says to her: ‘Get out of my house, I dont want to see you here again!’” “And the old man looked like a ghost—” “Yes, like he was going to die right there, and Lance saying: ‘I mean it, I mean it, get the hell out, youve bugged me long enough, get out.’ And he shoves Esmeralda Drake through the door right in front of our startled eyes.... Well, you know, Lance is a big fellow. And he had no trouble. The old man almost stumbled on her cane. Well, it was about four oclock in the morning—” “It was later—dont you remember someone had just said lets watch the dawn?” “Yes, youre right. We were so tanked, remember?” “Yes, and remember how Ronnie slapped you when you tried to make his boyfriend?” “Ronnie slapped me? I slapped Ronnie!” “Thats not what I saw,” sang Jamey. “How would you know, Miss Mess? You were trying to make everyone; they couldnt drag you out of the toilet.... Now shut your hole and let me go on.... So, babe,” Chick says, turning his back on Jamey, “Lance shoves the old man out, and about seven oclock the poor old bastard (well, yes, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him)—the poor old bastard comes beating on the door with her cane—Lance had locked the door, and Lance yells at her, ‘Get away from me, you lecherous old man!’” “No. He called her a dirty old man.” “All right, all right—it’s just a polite way of saying the same thing. And dont talk so damn loud, everyone’s looking.” “And whats wrong with That?” says Jamey, striking a pose.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘I will tell you something else. Many sermons, and devotional homilies, spring from bad intentions. Some preachers just want to flatter or to entertain. Some are motivated by hypocrisy, or vainglory, or hate. If I cannot get at my enemy directly, I will sting him in a sermon. I will wound him in covert ways, so that he cannot fight back. “No,” I say, “I will not name the enemies of us pardoners. That would be too low.” But of course the congregation know exactly whom I am talking about. They can tell from my looks and gestures. That is how I retaliate against those who defame me. I spit out my venom under the cover of holiness. I seem virtuous, but seeming is not being. ‘I will tell you the truth in one sentence. I preach only for money. I want their silver pence. That is why my theme has always been, and always will be, the same. “Greed is the root of all evil.” It is suitable, don’t you think? I preach against the very vices I practise! It saves time. And even though I may be guilty of that sin, I persuade other folk to repent with much wailing and lamenting. But that is really not my intention. I will say it one more time. I preach only for the cash. You have probably understood me by now. ‘So I tell them tales of old times, taken out of books. The lewd people love a good story. That is the only way they can remember anything. Do you really think that I am going to live like a monk, when I can earn money so easily? I have never even considered the idea. Truly. I can preach and beg in all sorts of places. I never intend to work. I am not going to make baskets, or thresh wheat, for a living. I never beg in vain. I always get my reward. I am not going to imitate the example of the apostles, in other words. I want meat and fine clothes, and bread and cheese, and of course money. I will take it from the meanest servant or the poorest widow in the village, even though she has to deprive her children of food. I like to drink and make merry, too, and I make sure I have a whore in every town. Listen to me, ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion. You want me to recite a tale to you. I have had a draught of the landlord’s best ale in that hostelry, and I am ready to tell you a story that will really entertain you. I may be a very wicked man, but I can relate a highly virtuous tale. It is one of the stories I use in my sermons, after all. So be silent. I will begin.’ The Pardoner’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Pardoners Tale

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  There was also riding with us a good man of religion, the poor PARSON of a small town. He was poor in wealth, perhaps, but rich in thought and holy works. He was also a learned man, a clerk, who preached Christ’s gospel in the most faithful fashion and who taught his parishioners the lessons of devotion. He was gracious, and diligent; in adversity, as he proved many times, he was patient. He refused to excommunicate any of his flock for their failure to pay tithes to him; indeed he would rather give what little he possessed to the poor people of the parish. He did not earn a large income, or collect much from the offering plate, but he was content with what he had. He had a large parish, with the houses set far apart, but neither rain nor thunder would prevent him from visiting his parishioners in times of grief or dearth. He would pick up his sturdy staff, and take off to the furthest reaches of his parish where he would bless both rich and poor. He gave the best possible example to his flock. Perform before you preach. Good deeds are more fruitful than good words. He took this message from the gospel, but he added his own gloss - if gold may rust, then what will iron do? For if a priest be evil, what then might happen to the layman in his care? It would be a shame, as far as the priesthood is concerned, if the sheep were clean and the shepherd had the scab. A priest’s life must be a sign, pointing the way to heaven. Only then will his parishioners follow his virtuous example. So he did not hire out his post as a benefice. He did not leave his sheep in the mire while he ran off to London, seeking sinecures in the guild or chantry business. No. He stayed at home, and protected his flock from the wolves of sin and greed that threatened it. He was a true shepherd, not a religious mercenary. But although he was a holy and virtuous man, he did not treat sinners with contempt or disgust; in conversation he was never disdainful or haughty, but properly benevolent and courteous. He wanted to draw people to God with kind words and good deeds. Do you think, he used to say, that you can simply hop into heaven? He was not so benign with men and women who were obstinate in sin. He would rebuke them with stern words, whatever their standing in the world. ‘Barren corn,’ he said to one of them, ‘is known as deaf corn. A rotten nut is known as a deaf nut. You are a deaf man.’ I do not believe that a better priest could be found. He never expected deference or reverence from those he met, and he did not affect an over-refined conscience. He simply taught, and followed, the law of Christ and the gospel of the apostles. He was God’s darling. I was in such awe of him that I scarcely talked to him.

• From City of Night (1963)

  But those longed-for words, delayed until the waves of my hatred for him had smothered their meaning, made me pull away from him: “I hate you!—youre a failure—as a man, as a father!” And later those words would ring painfully in my mind when I remembered him as a slouched old man getting up before dawn to face the hospital trash.... Soon, I stopped going to Mass. I stopped praying. The God that would allow this vast unhappiness was a God I would rebel against. The seeds of that rebellion—planted that ugly afternoon when I saw my dog’s body beginning to decay, the soul shut out by Heaven—were beginning to germinate. When my brother was a kid and I wasnt even born (but I’ll hear the story often), he would stand moodily looking out the window; and when, once, my grandmother asked him, “Little boy, what are you doing by the window staring at so hard?”—he answered, “I am occupied with life.” Im convinced that if my brother hadnt said that—or if I hadnt been told about it—I would have said it. I liked to sit inside the house and look out the hall-window—beyond the cactus garden in the vacant lot next door. I would sit by that window looking at the people that passed. I felt miraculously separated from the world outside: separated by the pane, the screen, through which, nevertheless—uninvolved—I could see that world. I read many books, I saw many, many movies. I watched other lives, only through a window. Sundays during summer especially I would hike outside the city, along the usually waterless strait of sand called the Rio Grande, up the mountain of Cristo Rey, dominated at the top by the coarse, weed-surrounded statue of a primitive-faced Christ. I would lie on the dirt of that mountain staring at the breathtaking Texas sky. I was usually alone. I had only one friend: a wild-eyed girl who sometimes would climb the mountain with me. We were both 17, and I felt in her the same wordless unhappiness I felt within myself. We would walk and climb for hours without speaking. For a brief time I liked her intensely—without ever telling her. Yet I was beginning to feel, too, a remoteness toward people—more and more a craving for attention which I could not reciprocate: one-sided, as if the need in me was so hungry that it couldnt share or give back in kind. Perhaps sensing this—one afternoon in a boarded-up cabin at the base of the mountain—she maneuvered, successfully, to make me. But the discovery of sex with her, releasing as it had been merely turned me strangely further within myself. Mutually, we withdrew from each other. And it was somewhere about that time that the narcissistic pattern of my life began. From my father’s inexplicable hatred of me and my mother’s blind carnivorous love, I fled to the Mirror. I would stand before it, thinking: I have only Me!... I became obsessed with age.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Henceforth, Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem would be the only legitimate national shrine. 38 Not content with this orgy of destruction, the Deuteronomists (D) also rewrote the history of Israel, making major additions to the JE narrative that gave even greater prominence to Moses, who had liberated the people from Egypt at a time when Josiah was trying to become independent of the pharaoh, and extending the saga to include the story of Joshua’s conquest of the northern highlands, to which Josiah (the new Joshua) had just laid claim. In some respects, Deuteronomy reads like a modern document. Had it been implemented, the reformers’ program would have included the establishment of a secular sphere and an independent judiciary separate from the cult; 39 a constitutional monarchy, which made the king subject to the Torah like any other citizen; 40 and a centralized state with a single, national shrine. 41 The reformers also rationalized Israelite theology to rid it of superstitious mythology. 42 You could not manipulate God by sacrifice, and God certainly did not live in his temple, which instead of being a sacred “center,” as of old, was merely a house of prayer. 43 But a rational, secular ideology is not necessarily any more tolerant than a mythical one. The Deuteronomists’ reform revealed the greatest danger of idolatry. In making their national God, now the only symbol of the divine, endorse the national will, they had crafted a god in their own image. In the past, Marduk’s power had always been challenged by Tiamat’s, Baal’s by Mot’s. For J and E, the divine was so ambiguous that it was impossible to imagine that Yahweh was infallibly on your side or to predict what he would do next. But the Deuteronomists had no doubt that they knew exactly what Yahweh desired and felt it a sacred duty to destroy anything that seemed to oppose his/their interests. When something inherently finite—an image, an ideology, or a polity—is invested with ultimate value, its devotees feel obliged to eliminate any rival claimant, because there can be only one absolute. The type of destruction described by the Deuteronomists is an infallible indication that a sacred symbol has become idolatrous. The vision of the Deuteronomists had been affected by the violence of their time. At about the same time as the sages of India had started to make ahimsa, “nonviolence,” essential to the religious quest, the Deuteronomists depicted Joshua slaughtering the inhabitants of Canaan like the Assyrian generals who had terrorized the region for over two hundred years. In the event, the Deuteronomists’ divinely articulated nationalism ended in tears. Their belligerent theology had blinded them to practical realities on the ground. It was only a matter of time before the great powers turned their attention to Judah. In 611 Pharaoh Necho II marched through Canaan in a bid to counter the rising power of Babylon.

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

  "And as He went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto Him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down."—Mark 13:1,2. Sources. Josephus: Bell. Jud., in 7 books; and Vita, c. 4–74. The history of the Jewish war was written by him as eye-witness about A.D. 75. English translations by W. Whiston, in Works of Jos., and by Rob. Traill, ed. by Isaac Taylor, new ed., Lond., 1862. German translations by Gfrsörer and W. Hoffmann, Stuttgart, 1836; and Paret, Stuttg., 1855; French translations by Arnauld d’andilly, 1667, Joachim Gillet, 1756, and Abbé Glaire, 1846. Rabbinical traditions in Derenbourg: Histoire de la Palestine depuis Cyrus jusqu’à Adrien. Paris, 1867 (first part of his L’Histoire et la géographie de la Palestine d’après les Thalmuds et les autres sources rabbiniques), pp. 255–295. Tacitus: Hist., II. 4; V. 1–13. A mere fragment, full of errors and insults towards the vanquished Jews. The fifth book, except this fragment, is lost. While Josephus, the Jew, is filled with admiration for the power and greatness of Rome, Tacitus, the heathen, treats Jews and Christians with scorn and contempt, and prefers to derive his information from hostile Egyptians and popular prejudice rather than from the Scriptures, and Philo, and Josephus. Sulpicius Severus: Chronicon, II. 30 (p. 84, ed. Halm). Short. Literature. Milman: The History of the Jews, Books XIV.-XVII. (New York ed., vol. II., 219 sqq.). Ewald: Geschichte des Folkes Israel, VI. 705–753 (second ed.). Grätz: Geschichte der Juden, III. 336–414. Hitzig: Geschichte des Volkes Israel, II. 594–629. Lewin: The Siege of Jerusalem by Titus. With the Journal of a recent Visit in the Holy City, and a general Sketch of the Topography of Jerusalem from the Earliest Times down to the Siege. London, 1863. Count de Champagny: Rome et la Judie au temps de la chute de Néron (ans 66–72 après Jésus-Christ), 2. éd., Paris, 1865. T. I., pp. 195–254; T. II., pp. 55–200. Charles Merivale: History of the Romans under the Empire, ch. LIX. (vol. VI., 415 sqq., 4th ed., New York, 1866). De Saulcy: Les derniers jours de Jérusalem. Paris, 1866. E. Renan: L’Antechrist (ch. X.-XX., pp. 226–551). Paris, second ed., 1873. Emil Schürer: Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte (Leipzig, 1874), pp. 323–350. He also gives the literature. A. Hausrath: Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, Part III., second ed., Heidelberg, 1875, pp. 424 487. Alfred J. Church: The Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem, from Josephus. With illustrations. London, 1880.

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

  "That the eternal truth of God preached by the Prophets and Apostles, is on our side, we are prepared to show, and it is indeed easy for any man to perceive. But all that is done is to assail us with this battering-ram, ’Nothing can excuse withdrawal from the Church.’ We deny out and out that we do so. With what, then, do they urge us? With nothing more than this, that to them belongs the ordinary government of the Church. But how much better right had the enemies of Jeremiah to use this argument? To them, at all events, there still remained a legal priesthood, instituted by God; so that their vocation was unquestionable. Those who in the present day have the name of prelates, cannot prove their vocation by any laws, human or divine. Be it, however, that in this respect both are on a footing, still, unless they previously convict the holy Prophet of schism, they will prove nothing against us by that specious title of Church. "I have thus mentioned one Prophet as an example. But all the others declare that they had the same battle to fight—wicked priests endeavoring to overwhelm them by a perversion of this term Church. And how did the Apostles act? Was it not necessary for them, in professing themselves the servants of Christ, to declare war upon the synagogue ? And yet the office and dignity of the priesthood were not then lost. But it will be said that, though the Prophets and Apostles dissented from wicked priests in doctrine, they still cultivated communion with them in sacrifices and prayers. I admit they did, provided they were not forced into idolatry. But which of the Prophets do we read of as having ever sacrificed in Bethel? Which of the faithful, do we suppose, communicated in impure sacrifices, when the temple was polluted by Antiochus, and profane rites were introduced into it?

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

  He also wrote at Worms, for his private solace, not for publication, an epic poem in sixty-one distichs (one hundred and twenty-two lines), which celebrates the triumph of Christ and the defeat of his enemies (Eck, Cochlaeus, Nausea, Pelargus) after their apparent and temporary victory.532 He was not a poetic genius, but by study he made up the defects of nature.533 The Colloquy of Worms, after having hardly begun, was broken off in January, 1541, to be resumed at the approaching Diet of Regensburg (Ratisbon) in presence of the emperor on his return. The Diet at Regensburg was opened April 5, 1541. Calvin appeared again as a delegate of Strassburg and at the special request of Melanchthon, but reluctantly and with little hope of success. He felt that he was ill suited for such work, and would only waste time.534 After long and vexatious delays in the arrival of the deputies, the theological Colloquy was opened and conducted on the Roman Catholic side by Dr. John Eck, professor at Ingolstadt (who had disputed with Luther at Leipzig and promulgated the papal bull of excommunication), Julius Pflug, canon of Mainz (afterwards bishop of Naumburg), and John Gropper, canon and professor of canon law at Cologne; on the Protestant side by Melanchthon of Wittenberg, Bucer of Strassburg, and Pistorius of Nidda in Hesse. Granvella presided in the name of the emperor; Cardinal Contarini, an enlightened and well-disposed prelate, who was inclined to evangelical views and favored a moderate reformation, acted as legate of Pope Paul III., who sent, however, at the same time the intolerant Bishop Morone as a special nuncio. Calvin could see no difference between the two legates, except that Morone would like to subdue the Protestants with bloodshed, Contarini without bloodshed. He was urged to seek an interview with Contarini, but refused. He speaks favorably of Pflug and Gropper, but contemptuously of Eck, the stentorian mouthpiece of the papal party, whom he regarded as an impudent babbler and vain sophist.535 The French king was represented by Du Veil, whom Calvin calls a "busy blockhead." There were present also a good many bishops, the princes of the German States, and delegates of the imperial cities. The emperor, in an earnest speech, exhorted the divines, through an interpreter, to lay aside private feelings and to study only the truth, the glory of God, the good of the Church, and the peace of the empire.

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

  Solomon is not to be compared with Theognis, Socrates, and other Greek sages; moreover he is said to have been overcome by women, and therefore does not deserve to be ranked among wise men. Paul was an arch-traitor; calling God now the God of the Jews, now the God of the Gentiles, now both at once; not seldom contradicting the Old Testament, Christ, and himself, and generally accommodating his doctrine to circumstances. The heathen emperor thinks it absurd that Christian baptism should be able to cleanse from gross sins, while it cannot remove a wart, or gout, or any bodily evil. He puts the Bible far below the Hellenic literature, and asserts, that it made men slaves, while the study of the classics educated great heroes and philosophers. The first Christians he styles most contemptible men, and the Christians of his day he charges with ignorance, intolerance, and worshipping dead persons, bones, and the wood of the cross.

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

  through a bloody battle of parties, that for such a price he would at once turn Christian himself.485 Such an example could not but shed its evil influence on the lower clergy of the great cities. Jerome sketches a sarcastic description of the Roman priests, who squandered all their care on dress and perfumery, curled their hair with crisping pins, wore sparkling rings, paid far too great attention to women, and looked more like bridegrooms than like clergymen.486 And in the Greek church it was little better. Gregory Nazianzen, himself a bishop, and for a long time patriarch of Constantinople, frequently mourns the ambition, the official jealousies, and the luxury of the hierarchy, and utters the wish that the bishops might be distinguished only by a higher grade of virtue. § 54. Organization of the Hierarchy: Country Bishop, City Bishops, and Metropolitans. The episcopate, notwithstanding the unity of the office and its rights, admitted the different grades of country bishop, ordinary city bishop, metropolitan, and patriarch. Such a distinction had already established itself on the basis of free religious sentiment in the church; so that the incumbents of the apostolic sees, like Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, stood at the head of the hierarchy. But this gradation now assumed a political character, and became both modified and confirmed by attachment to the municipal division of the Roman empire. Constantine the Great divided the whole empire into four praefectures (the Oriental, the Illyrian, the Italian, and the Gallic); the praefectures into vicariates, dioceses, or proconsulates, fourteen or fifteen in all;487 and each diocese again into several provinces.488 The praefectures were governed by Praefecti Praetorio, the dioceses by Vicarii, the provinces by Rectores, with various titles—commonly Praesides. It was natural, that after the union of church and state the ecclesiastical organization and the political should, so far as seemed proper, and hence of course with manifold exceptions, accommodate themselves to one another. In the East this principle of conformity was more palpably and rigidly carried out than in the West. The council of Nice in the fourth century proceeds upon it, and the second and fourth ecumenical councils confirm it. The political influence made itself most distinctly felt in the elevation of Constantinople to a patriarchal see. The Roman bishop Leo, however, protested against the reference of his own power to political considerations, and planted it exclusively upon the primacy of Peter; though evidently the Roman see owed its importance to the favorable cooperation of both these influences. The power of the patriarchs extended over one or more municipal dioceses; while the metropolitans presided over single provinces. The word diocese (dioivkhsi") passed from the political into the ecclesiastical terminology, and denoted at first a patriarchal district, comprising several provinces (thus the expression occurs continually in the Greek acts of councils), but afterward came to be applied in the West to each episcopal district. The circuit of a metropolitan was called in the East an eparchy (ejparciva), in the West provincia.

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

  In Salerno, also, women practised medicine and lectured, as did Trotula, about 1059, who wrote on the diseases of women. In Paris, as we have been reminded by Denifle, the daughters of one Mangold taught theology in the latter part of the eleventh century.1277 On the other hand, due care was taken to protect the students of Bologna against the wiles of women. The statutes of its college, founded by Cardinal Albornoz, 1367, for Spanish students, forbade them dancing because "the devil easily tempts men to evil through this amusement," and also forbade women to "enter the premises because a woman was the head of sin, the right hand of the devil, and the cause of the expulsion from paradise."1278 A graduate of civil law was required at Bologna to have studied seven years, and of canon law six years. To become a doctor of both laws, utriusque juris, a term of ten years was prescribed. In 1292, Nicholas IV. formally granted the Bolognese doctors the right to lecture everywhere, a right they had exercised before. The promotion to the doctorate was accompanied with much pageantry an involved the candidate in large outlay for gifts and banquets.1279 The class rooms in canon and civil jurisprudence at Bologna became synonymous with traditional opinions. There was no encouragement of originality. With the interpretation of the text-books, which had been handed down, the work of the professor was at an end. This conservatism Dante may have had in mind when he made the complaint that in Bologna only the Decretals were studied. And Roger Bacon exclaimed that "the study of jurisprudence has for forty years destroyed the study of wisdom [that is philosophy, the sciences, and theology], yes, the church itself and all departments."1280 When the Renaissance came, it did not start with Bologna or any of the other Italian universities but in the courts of princes and popes and especially in the city of Florence. The universities produced no Savonarola and encouraged no religious or doctrinal reform. Note. – An account of the brilliant celebration of the eighth centenary of Bologna, 1888, is given by Philip Schaff: The University, etc., in Lit. and Poetry, pp. 265–278. On that occasion Dr. Schaff represented the University of New York. The exercises were honored by the presence of Humbert and the queen of Italy. The ill-fated Frederick III. of Germany sent from his sick-room a letter of congratulation, as in some sense the heir of Frederick Barbarossa. The clergy were conspicuous by their absence from the celebration, although among the visitors was Father Gavazzi, the ex-Barnabite friar, who in 1848 fired the hearts of his fellow-citizens, the Bolognese, for the cause of Italian liberty and unity and afterwards became the eloquent advocate of a new evangelical movement for his native land, abroad as well as at home. A contrast was presented at the five hundredth anniversary of the University of Heidelberg, 1886, which Dr.

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

  The third principle was the importance of preaching and the right of laymen to exercise that function. Peter Waldo and his associates were lay evangelists. All the early documents refer to their practice of preaching as one of the worst heresies of the Waldenses and an evident proof of their arrogance and

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

  In the first place, he proposed to improve the irreclaimable priesthood after the model of the Christian clergy. The priests, as true mediators between the gods and men, should be constantly in the temples, should occupy themselves with holy things, should study no immoral or skeptical books of the school of Epicurus and Pyrrho, but the works of Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, Chrysippus, and Zeno; they should visit no taverns nor theatres, should pursue no dishonorable trade, should give alms, practise hospitality, live in strict chastity and temperance, wear simple clothing, but in their official functions always appear in the costliest garments and most imposing dignity. He borrowed almost every feature of the then prevalent idea of the Christian priesthood, and applied it to the polytheistic religion.68 Then, he borrowed from the constitution and worship of the church a hierarchical system of orders, and a sort of penitential discipline, with excommunication, absolution, and restoration, besides a fixed ritual embracing didactic and musical elements. Mitred priests in purple were to edify the people regularly with sermons; that is, with allegorical expositions and practical applications of tasteless and immoral mythological stories! Every temple was to have a well arranged choir, and the congregation its responses. And finally, Julian established in different provinces monasteries, nunneries, and hospitals for the sick, for orphans, and for foreigners without distinction of religion, appropriated to them considerable sums from the public treasury, and at the same time, though fruitlessly, invited voluntary contributions. He made the noteworthy concession, that the heathens did not help even their own brethren in faith; while the Jews never begged, and "the godless Galileans," as he malignantly styled the Christians, supplied not only their own, but even the heathen poor, and thus aided the worst of causes by a good practice. But of course all these attempts to regenerate heathenism by foreign elements were utterly futile. They were like galvanizing a decaying corpse, or grafting fresh scions on a dead trunk, sowing good seed on a rock, or pouring new wine into old bottles, bursting the bottles and wasting the wine. II. The negative side of Julian’s plan was the suppression and final extinction of Christianity.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  For d’Holbach, religion was born of weakness, fear, and superstition; people had created gods to fill the gaps in their knowledge, so religious belief was an act of intellectual cowardice and despair. First, men and women had personified the forces of nature, creating divinities in their own image, but eventually they had merged all these godlings into a massive deity that was simply a projection of their own fears and desires. Their God was “nothing but a gigantic, exaggerated man,” rendered incredible and unintelligible “by dint of keeping together incompatible qualities.”52 God was an incomprehensible chimera, a mere negation of human limitations.53 His infinity, for example, simply meant that he had no spatial boundaries, but such a being was utterly inconceivable. How could you reconcile the goodness of an omnipotent God with human suffering? This incoherent theology was bound to disintegrate in the Age of Reason. Descartes, Newton, Malebranche, and Clarke, who had all tried to save God, were simply atheists in disguise. Clarke, for example, had assumed that matter could not have brought itself into existence, but recent research had proved that he was mistaken. Even the great Newton had succumbed to the prejudices of his infancy. His Dominion was nothing but a deified despot, created in the image of a powerful man.54 If only these philosophers had realized that they need look no higher than Nature, their philosophy would have come out correctly. The System of Nature has been called the bible of the “scientific naturalism” or “scientism” that has continued to fuel the assault on faith. Its central belief is that the natural, material world is the only reality; it needs no external Cause because it is self-originating. There is no God, no soul, and no afterlife, and, although human beings can live useful and creative lives, the world itself has neither point nor purpose of its own. It just is. Science alone can give us a reliable understanding of all reality, including human intelligence and behavior. Because there can be no evidence for God’s existence, all rational, educated individuals must repudiate religion altogether.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  Sometimes it reflects a die-hard belief in the protective coloration of heterosexual relationships, sometimes a self-hate which all women have to fight against, taught us from birth. Although elements of these attitudes exist for all women, there are particular resonances of heterosexism and homophobia among Black women. Despite the fact that woman-bonding has a long and honorable history in the African and African-american communities, and despite the knowledge and accomplishments of many strong and creative women-identified Black women in the political, social and cultural fields, heterosexual Black women often tend to ignore or discount the existence and work of Black lesbians. Part of this attitude has come from an understandable terror of Black male attack within the close confines of Black society, where the punishment for any female self-assertion is still to be accused of being a lesbian and therefore unworthy of the attention or support of the scarce Black male. But part of this need to misname and ignore Black lesbians comes from a very real fear that openly women-identified Black women who are no longer dependent upon men for their self-definition may well reorder our whole concept of social relationships. Black women who once insisted that lesbianism was a white woman’s problem now insist that Black lesbians are a threat to Black nationhood, are consorting with the enemy, are basically un-Black. These accusations, coming from the very women to whom we look for deep and real understanding, have served to keep many Black lesbians in hiding, caught between the racism of white women and the homophobia of their sisters. Often, their work has been ignored, trivialized, or misnamed, as with the work of Angelina Grimke, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Lorraine Hansberry. Yet women-bonded women have always been some part of the power of Black communities, from our unmarried aunts to the amazons of Dahomey. And it is certainly not Black lesbians who are assaulting women and raping children and grandmothers on the streets of our communities. Across this country, as in Boston during the spring of 1979 following the unsolved murders of twelve Black women, Black lesbians are spearheading movements against violence against Black women. What are the particular details within each of our lives that can be scrutinized and altered to help bring about change? How do we redefine difference for all women? It is not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences. As a tool of social control, women have been encouraged to recognize only one area of human difference as legitimate, those differences which exist between women and men. And we have learned to deal across those differences with the urgency of all oppressed subordinates.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  Just six years prior, in 1965, sociologist (and later senator) Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in his now infamous Moynihan Report, illustrated the "erotic life of racism."" In his report, Moynihan posited that the crux of the degeneration of the black family and black community was the black "matriarchal" family structure, which, in turn, implicates not only (a false sense of) black dysfunction and pathology, but also contrived notions of black female promiscuity and hypersexuality. The illegitimacy rate among blacks, comparatively higher than that of whites, putatively functioned as material evidence, though was skewed and illusory, as the disproportionately higher abortion rate among whites was conspicuously neglected from the discourse or his report. Thus, it reinscribed and reified racist/ racialized stereotypes of an always already aberrant, "anormative" black sexuality, resulting in a castigation of blacks-rather than systematic American racism, racist oppression, and a long history of U.S. state and legally sanctioned sexual crimes against black bodies-for cumulative black familial and communal "dysfunction." As literary and sexuality studies scholar Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman cogently notes, historical "sexual aberrance incorporated a logic of racial and corporeal identity by which to make it visible" with "transgressive sexuality" being constituted by conventions predicated on aesthetics and phenotypes, notably "appearance" in the "arena of race, by which to make it known."51 What this brings into stark transparency are the contradictions of American life, deeply paradoxical, of the indeed racially sexualized constructions of American sociosexual character. For, as the individual and aggregate findings of Kinsey and Poussaint had shown, while black people's sexual lives were varied, they were neither as exaggerated nor pathologically anomalous as the stereotypes or The Moynihan Report otherwise suggested. Contrastingly, white sexuality lacked the puritanical character that had historically been attributed to it, as the studies exposed that whites engaged more frequently in clandestine taboo sexual acts and a sexual culture that belied their presumably "normative" sexual character. Three years later, in a 1974 issue of Ebony with a cover featuring the then sex symbol Billy Dee Williams, sociologist Robert Staples, in "Has the Sexual Revolution Bypassed Blacks?," argued that although blacks, unlike their white counterparts, were far less involved in certain sexual behavior, such as pornography, "swinging," and open marriages, college-age blacks were more likely to engage in premarital sex than their white counterparts during the sexual revolution.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “After a while,” another man told me, “Glen will be out of the hustling ranks. Hell quit going around with the teenage girls he still tries to impress us with—and he’ll have a steady young boyfriend. Watch and see.” “After all,” another man added, “pretending that you never, never, never do this or that is fine—or if you dont now, that you never will. But really never, never, never doing this or that—well, it’s slightly insane. It’s a perversion in itself.” And so, that summer, it was an insistent refrain: the premium on Youth. Often, it was brought up bitchily by scores after the sexscene—but other times it was said from an acute awareness of the life they—we!—lived.... Mr. King had brought it up, but that had been at the beginning of the journey, and its meaning had been remote then. It wasnt how I would live that terrified me. It was, instead, the horror that the youthful cravings would extend into a time when what made them possible of gratification might no longer be. And one of that summer-wave of people who would emphasize that refrain was an evil old auntie—whom I will remember as an impeccably clean dirty old man—whose name is Hubert, but who says self-affectionately: “Call me Hughie, dear—everyone does”—a rabbity-looking, mincing, effeminate, beady-eyed little old man of about 60. As he tried to flash brilliantly before me, confusing T. E. with D. H. Lawrence, I couldnt help—and what the hell?—coming on intellectually, and I corrected him. “Oh, dear me,” he said, “how frightful—an Intellectual! You should have kept your mouth closed, youngman. My oh my—oh!—the mind of an old man and the body of a young boy. Dear, dear me!” And I struck back at him: “Better than the mind of a young boy and the body of an old man!” “Ouch!” he winced, “dear me, dear dear me,” as with rabbity gestures, he cuddled himself on a chair.... Although I had dinner with him several times after that, he indicated no sexual interest in me then. And it was with him, soon after, that I went to the mansion of that famous director whom Skipper had known. Derisively, the old auntie announced to the director: “This youngman is an Intellectual—watch out,” and the director had immediately sneered: “The last time I even talked to one—a writer,” he said, “I ended up in Confidential magazine.” “Oh, dear, oh, my—listen to that, will you?” the little auntie fluttered: “Oh, the wages of Fame—tsk-tsk!” The director commanded the youngman living with him at that time: “Go tell Mattie we’ll have lunch outside”—with a coldness and an undisguised contempt—a paid owningness—that made me cringe. The youngman moved away obediently—after having fixed our drinks. That whole evening turned into progressively less veiled hostility between myself and the director, as—throughout his brutal imitation of a star then involved in a frontpage sex scandal—the face of Skipper—somewhere drunk in downtown Los Angeles—scorched my thoughts.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I offered him a position opening our second retail store, in Eugene, off the campus, at a monthly salary of four hundred dollars. He didn’t negotiate, thank goodness. If he’d asked for four thousand a month, I might have found a way. “Deal?” I said. “Deal,” he said. He reached out, shook my hand. He still had the strong grip of an athlete. The waitress brought the check and I told Woodell grandly that lunch was on me. I pulled out my wallet and found that it was empty. I asked Blue Ribbon’s Full-time Employee Number Four if he could float me. Just till payday. WHEN HE WASN ’ T sending me new employees, Bowerman was sending me the results of his latest experiments. In 1966 he’d noticed that the Spring Up’s outer sole melted like butter, whereas the midsole remained solid. So he’d urged Onitsuka to take Spring Up’s midsole and fuse it with the Limber Up’s outer sole, thus creating the ultimate distance training shoe. Now, in 1967, Onitsuka sent us the prototype, and it was astonishing. With its luxurious cushioning and its sleek lines, it looked like the future. Onitsuka asked what we thought it should be called. Bowerman liked “Aztec,” in homage to the 1968 Olympics, which were being held in Mexico City. I liked that, too. Fine, Onitsuka said. The Aztec was born. And then Adidas threatened to sue. Adidas already had a new shoe named the “Azteca Gold,” a track spike they were planning to introduce at the same Olympics. No one had ever heard of it, but that didn’t stop Adidas from kicking up a fuss. Aggravated, I drove up the mountain to Bowerman’s house to talk it all over. We sat on the wide porch, looking down at the river. It sparkled that day like a silver shoelace. He took off his ball cap, put it on again, rubbed his face. “Who was that guy who kicked the shit out of the Aztecs?” he asked. “Cortez,” I said. He grunted. “Okay. Let’s call it the Cortez.” I WAS DEVELOPING an unhealthy contempt for Adidas. Or maybe it was healthy. That one German company had dominated the shoe market for a couple of decades, and they possessed all the arrogance of unchallenged dominance. Of course it’s possible that they weren’t arrogant at all, that to motivate myself I needed to see them as a monster. In any event, I despised them. I was tired of looking up every day and seeing them far, far ahead. I couldn’t bear the thought that it was my fate to do so forever. The situation put me in mind of Jim Grelle. In high school, Grelle—pronounced Grella , or sometimes Gorilla —had been the fastest runner in Oregon, and I had been the second-fastest, which meant four years of staring at Grelle’s back. Then Grelle and I both went to the University of Oregon, where his tyranny over me continued.

• From City of Night (1963)

  Standing up—again reciting as if from memory, his voice welling with authority—Neil began: “Yes I do consider myself something of a Saint. The leader of a movement. Ive made Enormous strides here in Oakland and in San Francisco. Why, I practically organized the Stirrup Club—and that coffee shop nearby where all the cyclists go. And Im advancing rapidly in Los Angeles. Just look at all the leather bars there!... Yes, a magnificent movement! Previous such movements have failed. Mine wont—because I know The Secret. Youll watch this movement grow—the only truly militant current the world has ever known—and it will carry everything before it.” He swept his hand across the air, frightening the cat who at that moment had been approaching him again. “Hitler failed,” he said, pronouncing the inevitable name. Chin thrust forward, bowlegs spread, planted firmly like the hands on his flaring hips, he went on: “Yes, Hitler failed. But We will succeed. And women? Women will be out! They represent weakness!—but still they want to dominate their Masters—The Male!” He closes his eyes as if to contain the sudden hatred. “Women are vampires! Vicious, draining blood-suckers!” Carl shakes his head: “Listen... listen.” Neil: “Women will have but one purpose: to give birth to more of Us. That Is All! They say the great civilizations collapsed when We threatened to take over. Theyve missed the point. They collapsed because We didnt go to the inevitable limit: which is complete—...” Carl finishes for him again, as if hes heard it so often he can tell it himself; he barks mockingly: “Complete acceptance—right, honeypie? And not only acceptance!—but a rejection of the other!” “Exactly!” Neil boomed. “And Im not, of course, talking about the ordinary world of simpering faggots and lisping queens that exists now: Theyre weak! Sentimental! They disgust me!... Im talking about Power!... About a movement that has had a glorious history. Why, the Marquis de Sade (the Great! French! Nobleman!)—he and Dr Masoch used to have some exquisite experiments with each other.” His eyes glimmer relishingly. Carl comes in killingly: “Neil, Neil, Neil—youve been wrong all these years: The Marquis de Sade and Masoch didnt even live at the same time. Youve thrown history together for your own purposes—something like the way youve done with the furniture in this house!... Masoch wasnt even a masochist, sugarheart.” He spills some wine on his chin, pushes it with a finger into his mouth in a babyish gesture. He sucks the finger loudly. “As a matter of fact, Saint Nick, they lived in diff—diffrunt cunt—countries!”