Contempt
Contempt is the cold emotion — not heat but a lowering of the gaze, the slight curl of the lip, the sense that something or someone has fallen beneath serious response. Where anger still believes the other can be reached, contempt has stopped believing it. Vela reads contempt as a primary emotion with a particular danger to it, distinct from the anger it cools into, and attends to what it costs both the one who feels it and the one it is aimed at.
Working definition · Cold disregard—the sense that something or someone is beneath serious response.
5055 passages · 1 Vela essay · in 1 cluster
Vela’s read on this emotion
Contempt is the most corrosive of the emotions Vela reads, and the reading does not soften that. Anger can clear the air; contempt poisons it slowly, because it has already decided the other does not merit the effort of being addressed. The writers worth following have read contempt as a verdict, and verdicts are the things relationships least survive.
The reading is densest where contempt has been organized against a group or turned against the self. The literature of stigma reads how contempt does its social work — the look that places a person below the line of full regard, aimed at the poor, the sick, the foreign, the queer. Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life maps the small social machinery through which standing is granted and withdrawn, which is the stage contempt performs on. The memoir of family harm holds the particular wound of a parent's contempt — worse, often, than a parent's anger, because contempt withdraws the relationship rather than engaging it. Self-contempt, the gaze turned inward, is the form chronic shame takes once it has built a settled stance toward its own bearer.
Contempt is not the same as anger, disgust, or hatred. Anger engages; contempt dismisses. Disgust recoils from contamination; contempt looks down from a height. Hatred is hot and attentive; contempt is cold and inattentive, which is part of why it wounds. The four overlap and the reading keeps them separate, because contempt's coldness is precisely the thing that distinguishes it.
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From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
§ 20. Social Reforms. The Institution of Slavery. 4. The institution of slavery193 remained throughout the empire, and is recognized in the laws of Justinian as altogether legitimate.194 The Justinian code rests on the broad distinction of the human race into freemen and slaves. It declares, indeed, the natural equality of men, and so far rises above the theory of Aristotle, who regards certain races and classes of men as irrevocably doomed, by their physical and intellectual inferiority, to perpetual servitude; but it destroys the practical value of this concession by insisting as sternly as ever on the inferior legal and social condition of the slave, by degrading his marriage to the disgrace of concubinage, by refusing him all legal remedy in case of adultery, by depriving him of all power over his children, by making him an article of merchandise like irrational beasts of burden, whose transfer from vender to buyer was a legal transaction as valid and frequent as the sale of any other property. The purchase and sale of slaves for from ten to seventy pieces of gold, according to their age, strength, and training, was a daily occurrence.195 The number was not limited; many a master owning even two or three thousand slaves. The barbarian codes do not essentially differ in this respect from the Roman. They, too, recognize slavery as an ordinary condition of mankind and the slave as a marketable commodity. All captives in war became slaves, and thousands of human lives were thus saved from indiscriminate massacre and extermination. The victory of Stilicho over Rhadagaisus threw 200,000 Goths and other Germans into the market, and lowered the price of a slave from twenty-five pieces of gold to one. The capture and sale of men was part of the piratical system along all the shores of Europe. Anglo-Saxons were freely sold in Rome at the time of Gregory the Great. The barbarian codes prohibited as severely as the Justinian code the debasing alliance of the freeman with the slave, but they seem to excel the latter in acknowledging the legality and religious sanctity of marriages between slaves; that of the Lombards on the authority of the Scripture sentence: "Whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder."
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
"Nevertheless, the Prophets on this account neither raised themselves new churches, nor built new altars for the oblation of separate sacrifices; but whatever were the characters of the people, yet because they considered that God had deposited his word among that nation, and instituted the ceremonies in which he was there worshipped, they lifted up pure hands to him even in the congregation of the impious. If they had thought that they contracted any contagion from these services, surely they would have suffered a hundred deaths rather than have permitted themselves to be dragged to them. There was nothing, therefore, to prevent their departure from them, but the desire of preserving the unity of the Church. "But if the holy Prophets were restrained by a sense of duty from forsaking the Church on account of the numerous and enormous crimes which were practiced, not by a few individuals, but almost by the whole nation, it is extreme arrogance in us, if we presume immediately to withdraw from the communion of a Church, where the conduct of all the members is not compatible either with our judgment or even with the Christian profession. "Now what kind of an age was that of Christ and his Apostles? Yet the desperate impiety of the Pharisees, and the dissolute lives everywhere led by the people, could not prevent them from using the same sacrifices, and assembling in the same temple with others, for the public exercises of religion. How did this happen, but from a knowledge that the society of the wicked could not contaminate those who, with pure consciences, united with them in the same solemnities. "If any one pay no deference to the Prophets and the Apostles, let him at least acquiesce in the authority of Christ. Cyprian has excellently remarked: ’Although tares, or impure vessels, are found in the Church, yet this is not a reason why we should withdraw from it. It only behooves us to labor that we may be the wheat, and to use our utmost endeavors and exertions that we may be vessels of gold or of silver. But to break in pieces the vessels of earth belongs to the Lord alone, to whom a rod of iron is also given. Nor let any one arrogate to himself what is the exclusive province of the Son of God, by pretending to fan the floor, clear away the chaff, and separate all the tares by the judgment of man. This is proud obstinacy, and sacrilegious presumption, originating in a corrupt frenzy.’
From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)
“What has happened to you?” Obama asked. “Why do you wear these strange skins?” Onyango said nothing, and Obama decided that Onyango must be wearing trousers to hide the fact that he was circumcised, which was against Luo custom. He thought that Onyango’s shirt must be covering a rash, or sores. Obama turned to his other sons and said, “Don’t go near this brother of yours. He is unclean.” Then he returned to his hut, and the others laughed and shunned Onyango. Because of this, Onyango returned to Kisumu, and would remain estranged from his father for the rest of his life. Nobody realized then that the white man intended to stay in the land. We thought that they had come only to trade their goods. Some of their customs we soon developed a taste for, like the drinking of tea. With tea, we found that we needed sugar, and teakettles, and cups. All these things we bought with skins and meat and vegetables. Later we learned to accept the white man’s coin. But these things did not affect us deeply. Like the Arabs, the white men remained small in number, and we assumed they would eventually return to their own land. In Kisumu, some white men stayed on and built a mission. These men spoke of their god, who they said was all-powerful. But most people ignored them and thought their talk silly. Even when white men appeared with rifles, no one resisted because our lives were not yet touched by the death such weapons could bring. Many of us thought the guns were just fancy ugali stirrers. Things began to change with the first of the white man’s wars. More guns arrived, along with a white man who called himself district commissioner. We called this man Bwana Ogalo, which meant “the Oppressor.” He imposed a hut tax that had to be paid in the white man’s money. This forced many men to work for wages. He conscripted outright many of our men into his army to carry provisions and build a road that would allow automobiles to pass. He surrounded himself with Luos who wore clothes like the white man to serve as his agents and tax collectors. We learned that we now had chiefs, men who were not even in the council of elders. All these things were resisted, and many men began to fight. But those who did so were beaten or shot. Those who failed to pay taxes saw their huts burned to the ground. Some families fled farther into the countryside to start new villages. But most people stayed and learned to live with this new situation, although we now all realized that it had been foolish to ignore the white man’s arrival.
From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)
Hopi villages respected Christianity as the religion of the Spaniards, but vehemently resisted it as an option for them, especially if it meant leaving their sacred work at the controls of life in the kiva . Instead, they called on their partners in this holy mission to stand by them and protect them from Christian conversion. These partners were the Hopi’s celestial reinforcements, the katsinas .3 The katsinas are Spirits, the embodiment of life in all of its forms, the powerful partners of the Hopi in maintaining balance and harmony on the planet. Again, the Hindu parallel is helpful. Just as Hinduism understands a single creator, but a pantheon of gods embodying different aspects of creation, so do the Hopis recognize God as the single source to life, but they honor many different Spirits as manifestations of God’s sacred order. Hopi actively work with them to perform their task of preserving life. There are katsinas for natural wonders like the sun and stars, for other creatures like birds and insects, and for plant life like corn and flowers. Each one is represented with a distinctive form, like the statues of Christian saints, adorned with special clothing and colors to signify their sacred role in God’s creation. Hopi dancers can put on costumes to embody these Spirits, signifying that they are sacramentally present in Hopi worship, an outward and visible sign of the inward, unseen reality of the Spirits coming into the human experience to lend support and spiritual power to the moment. When the Catholic priests demanded that the Hopi burn the images of the katsinas , they were asking for an act of complete sacrilege. To break the relationship with the katsinas would be to sever humanity’s ties to all other forms of life. It would mean that the moon would no longer bring the tides, the bees would no longer pollinate the flowers, and the corn would no longer grow to feed the people. Hopi people existed in a sophisticated vision of the natural cycles of life. They understood a scientific interrelationship between the different agencies and aspects of life. Until well into the nineteenth century the Hopi’s worldview was far more akin to our current image of the Earth as an integrated life system than that of the European colonizers. The katsinas were not idols. They were not the simplistic images of a pagan culture that could not grasp the “higher” theology of the church. Rather, they were symbolic of both a rational and spiritual matrix of enormous complexity and coherence. For the Hopi, what the friars were offering seemed like simplistic superstition. Consequently, the Hopi resisted conversion. They did so peacefully and politely, in keeping with the nonviolent style of life known as the Hopi Way. Actually, they predated their Hindu counterparts in practicing Satyagraha , the word for non-violent “non-cooperation” advocated by Gandhi hundreds of years later with his people’s European colonizers.
From The History of Christian Theology (2008)
85 to the Book of Common Prayer . Under Elizabeth and for much of the 17 th century, it was illegal not to go to church; this legal requirement was instituted to enforce “conformity.” The king or queen was declared by Parliament “the supreme governor” of the Church of England. Anglican theologians who emphasize this government supervision of the church are called “Erastians.” In 1628, the king forbade public debate on the interpretation of the 39 Articles, thus allowing Arminians and others to sign them under their own preferred interpretation. The Puritans were Reformed theologians who wanted to further reform the Church of England according to the word of God, purifying it of residual Roman Catholic or “popish” customs. The Puritans’ argument initially focused on ceremonial practices of the Church of England required by the government. Puritanism began with the Vestiarian controversy in the 1560s, when some of Elizabeth’s clergy objected to the use of traditional Catholic vestments. Other customs to which Puritans objected included making the sign of the cross, kneeling to receive communion, and observing holy days other than the Sabbath. The crucial theological issue was whether the church had the right to make rules and customs that were not required in scripture. Richard Hooker, the most important theologian of the Anglican tradition, wrote The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity defending the church’s right to decide for itself concerning adiaphora, that is, matters not required by faith. Puritan ministers who would not observe the regulations of the Church of England were called non-conformists. Puritans also argued against the worldliness of the clergy. The Puritans, who were among the most learned theologians of England, objected to worldly and ill-educated parish priests. Their concern for church discipline (for example, the duty of a minister to exclude drunkards and adulterers from communion) led to their reputation as kill-joys. The Puritans, who were among the most learned theologians of England, objected to worldly and ill- educated parish priests.
From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)
peyaduvOnodueba, whence Hup Bae prop. 322 =we display strength), neg. Jos 237 (D; || ולא ,(תשביעו so באלהי ישראל Is 48' (|| v2 Dyas). b. sq. 860. rei: faults Gn 41° (E), the ark 184", land of Judah Ist9”, Rahab (= Egypt) ץצ 874, works of % 77" (Kt, Qr Qal q.v.), his righteousness ¥ 71°, lovingkindness, Is 63’; human loye Ct 1‘; also in technical sense, apparently = accuse before God, alw. sq. }'¥, 1K 3178 Nu 5% (P) Ez 21% v® (sq. M373 DIYWB), 20%. ¢. sq. cl., with כִּי Is 12*; no conjunction Je 4 ל indir. obj.; || .(השמיעו 6 abs. commemorate, praise 1 Ch16* (792, appar. Levitical function, sq. ,(ולהודות ולהלל ליהוה so perh. also לְהוַכִיר in titles y 38. 70'(others sub 5). 4. record, only pt. 312 as subst. (title of public officer)=recorder 288" 20% 1K 48 2K 188% = Ts 36°, 1 Ch 18” 2 Ch 34%. 5. of sacrifice, make a memorial, i.e. offer an 11318 q.v.; sq. myad Is 66%. — JPPeters 221258 yds, TIN ץש 42°(v. Qal I. 1), ‘let me make my azkara, and pour out libation for (עלי) my life.’ eo [n23] n.pr.m. only 73! 1 Ch 8" (G Zaxovp)="131 9” q.v. (cf. Ph. n.pr. 72). זכר ד n.m. Ex 17™, vid. following. remembrance, memorial (cf. ' " . גנד. בב בר Ht 7°" 120) __’p abs. y 111% estr. Dt 25+; Ex 3%, 7731 זְכְרִי 34 estr. Ex 17“ vand.H; }12 Is 268+, FID! y 6% N31 Ho 12*+ , D131 Dt remembrance, memory: a. of per- .1 —:4+32° sons or people, blotted out by their destruction, (השבית) 32% Dt ,25% 2%= (מחה .6 Ex17™ (E; (TaN), Jb 18% 97 ,(הכרית (both ”109 347 ץ Is 26" (728); cf. on other hand ,(שם|| ;אבד) 6° ש י'+0 .ל | ‘tas portion of righteous. עולֶם character and 8' י' (||AAN=MM),~ 6. of 102% d. remembrance of par- דד ד "97 730° works ticular days, 1.6. their observance Est 9” ("2% memorial, by which one is re- .2 .(הַבּוּרִים Pr ז' צריק micmbered : a. nearly=DY, msqad י" esp. of ; (נשכח (c. *פ cf. also Ec ,(שם ||) !10 (all |[0%). "135 ץ 268 Ex 3” (E), Ho 12° Is . =renown (of Israel) Ho 14° (cf. VB). n.m. & adj. male (As. zikaru, zikru, זכר oro von coe, Ar. 385; Aram.§8134, J203; Sab. on[3]7 DHM7™6*5; relation to above obscure; male as mentioned, talked of, Lane*™*; fr. assumed orig. sense be sharp (traces of this in Arab.: v. Lane), Bé?” 1 in ChWB”, cf. Ar. 35 male organ; Schwally 271 זכור
From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)
Thus the newly stratified society, the hymn claimed, was not a dangerous break with the egalitarian past but was as old as the universe itself. Aryan society was now divided into four social classes—the seed of the elaborate caste system that would develop later. Each class (varna) had its own sacred “duty” (dharma). Nobody could perform the task allotted to another class, any more than a star could leave its path and encroach on a planet’s circuit. Sacrifice was still fundamental; members of each varna had to give up their own preferences for the sake of the whole. It was the dharma of the Brahmins, who came from Purusha’s mouth, to preside over the rituals of society.31 For the first time in Aryan history, the warriors now formed a distinct class called the rajanya, a new term in the Rig Veda; later they would be known as Kshatriya (“the empowered ones”). They came from Purusha’s arms, chest, and heart, the seat of strength, courage, and energy, and their dharma was daily to put their lives at risk. This was a significant development, because it limited violence in the Aryan community. Hitherto all able-bodied men had been fighters and aggression the raison d’être of the entire tribe. The hymn acknowledged that the rajanya was indispensable, because the kingdom could not survive without force and coercion. But henceforth only the rajanya could bear arms. Members of the other three classes—Brahmins, vaishyas, and shudras—now had to relinquish violence and were no longer allowed to take part in raids nor fight in their kingdom’s wars. In the two lower classes we see the systemic violence of this new society. They came from Purusha’s legs and feet, the lower and largest part of the body; their dharma was to serve, to run errands for the nobility, and bear the weight of the entire social frame, performing the productive labor on which the agrarian kingdom depended.32 The dharma of the vaishya, the ordinary clansman, now forbidden to fight, was food production; the Kshatriya aristocracy would now confiscate his surplus. The vaishya was thus associated with fertility and productivity but also, being taken from a place close to Purusha’s genitals, with carnal appetite, which, according to the two upper classes, made him unreliable. But the most significant development was the introduction of the shudra: the dasa at the base of the social body was now defined as a “slave,” one who labors for others, performing the most menial tasks and therefore stigmatized as impure. In Vedic law, the vaishya was to be oppressed; however, the shudra could be removed or slain at will.33
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
The emperor, who was then besieging the city of Cremona, being appealed to by both parties (though with different feelings), and using a right exercised by Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, Charlemagne, and Otto, summoned a council at Pavia to investigate and decide the case, 1160.136 The rival popes were invited by messengers to appear in person. Octavian, who was always an imperialist, accepted the invitation. Roland distrusted the emperor, and protested against his right to call a council without his permission. He said that he honored him as a special defender of the Church above all other princes, but that God had placed the pope above kings. The partisan council, which consisted chiefly of bishops from Germany and North Italy, after a grave debate, unanimously decided in favor of Octavian, and excommunicated Roland, Feb. 11, 1160. The emperor paid the customary honors to Victor IV., held his stirrup and kissed his toe. Alexander issued from Anagni a counter-excommunication against the anti-pope and the emperor, March 24, 1160. He thereby encouraged revolt in Lombardy and division in Germany. Another schism rent the Church. The rival popes dispatched legates to all the courts of Europe. France, Spain, and England sided with Alexander. He took refuge in France for three years (1162–1165), and was received with enthusiasm. The kings of France and England, Louis VII. and Henry II., walked on either side of his horse, holding the bridle, and conducting him into the town of Courcy on the Loire. Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Norway, and Sweden supported Victor. Italy was divided: Rome and Tuscany were under the power of the emperor; Sicily favored the Gregorian pope; the flourishing commercial and manufacturing cities of Lombardy were discontented with the despotic rule of Barbarossa, who was called the destroyer of cities. He put down the revolt with an iron hand; he razed Milan to the ground after a long and atrocious siege, scattered the population, and sent the venerated relics of the Magi to the cathedral of Cologne, March, 1162. Victor IV. died in April, 1164. Pascal III. was elected his successor without regard to the canonical rules. At the request of the emperor, he canonized Charles the Great (1165). Alexander III. put himself at the head of the Lombard league against the emperor; city after city declared itself for him. In September, 1165, he returned to Italy with the help of Sicily, and French and English gold, and took possession of Rome.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
In his ascetic zeal for the moral reform of the clergy, Arnold was in sympathy with the Hildebrandian party, but in his views of the temporal power of the pope, he went to the opposite extreme. Hildebrand aimed at the theocratic supremacy of the Church over the State; Arnold sought the welfare of the Church in her complete separation from the State and of the clerical office from secular entanglements. Pascal II., we may say, had prepared the way for this theory when he was willing to sacrifice the investiture to the emperor. The Hildebrandian reform had nearly passed away, and the old corruptions reappeared. The temporal power of the Church promoted the worldliness of the clergy. The author of the Historia Pontificalis says that Arnold’s doctrine agreed with the Gospel, but stood in crying contrast with the actual condition of things. St. Bernard, his opponent, was as much opposed as he to the splendor and luxury of bishops, the secular cares of the popes, and expressed a wish that he might see the day when "the Church, as in olden times, should cast her net for souls, and not for money."123 All the monastic orders protested against the worldliness of the Church, and realized the principle of apostolic poverty within the wall of convents. But Arnold extended it to the secular clergy as well, and even went so far as to make poverty a condition of salvation for priests and monks.124 Arnold’s sermons gained great popular applause in Lombardy, and caused bitter disputes between the people and the bishop of Brescia. He was charged before the Lateran Synod of 1139 with inciting the laity against the clergy, was deposed as a schismatic (not as a heretic), commanded to be silent, and was expelled from Italy. He went again to France and was entangled in the controversy of Abaelard with Bernard. Pope Innocent condemned both Abaelard and Arnold to silence and seclusion in a convent, 1140. Abaelard, weary of strife and life, submitted and retired to the convent of Cluny, where two years later he died in peace.125 But Arnold began in Paris a course of public lectures against the worldliness and immorality of the clergy. He exposed especially the avarice of the bishops. He also charged St. Bernard with unholy ambition and envy against scholars. Bernard called him a man whose speech was honey, whose doctrine was poison. At his request the king expelled Arnold from France. Arnold fled to Zürich and was kindly received and protected by the papal legate, Cardinal Guido, his former fellow-student in Paris.126 But Bernard pursued him even there and denounced him to the bishop of Constance.
From The History of Christian Theology (2008)
19 often called rulers or archons; they are evil and try to block the soul’s escape from this world after death. The soul or spirit is divine, belonging to the other world, which is why it wants to escape this world and all bodily things, where it is not really at home. Gnosticism’s disdain for the physical world is linked to a profound rejection of Judaism. The God of the Jews is the creator God, maker and ruler of this physical world, which means he is at best ignorant, and probably evil. He forbids humans to eat from the Tree of Knowledge ( gnosis) because he wants them to stay ignorant and under his power. He is also described as an arrogant archon who boasts of being the only God, ignorant of the divine realm above him. The Gnostics’ view of Christ ¿ ts with their other-worldly view of divinity. The divine world or Pleroma consists of spiritual principles called “aeons.” According to some Gnostics, the physical world originates from a disruption in the Pleroma when the lowest of the aeons, Sophia or Wisdom, gets in a passion. Christ is an aeon sent into this world to bring saving knowledge of the world above, the Pleroma. Because matter is evil, he is never really embodied: Either he dwells in the man Jesus only for a time or his body is an illusion, a mere appearance (which is the view now called Docetism). The God of the Jews is not Jesus’s Father but his enemy. The “lost Gospels” in the news lately are mainly Gnostic. The most important were found in a cache of buried books in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The Nag Hammadi library is very important for our understanding of ancient Gnosticism but, with one possible exception, is not an important source for the life of the historical Jesus. The possible exception, the Gospel of Thomas, is a “sayings Gospel.” The sayings are all attributed to Jesus, though many are actually much later. The later sayings are in a broad sense Gnostic, in that salvation consists of the soul’s awakening to the knowledge that it does not belong to this world. Among the earlier sayings, most are similar to those found in the New Testament, and some may be closer to what Jesus actually said—though Early orthodoxy was characterized by belief in the goodness of the Creator, the God of the Jews.
From Tipping the Velvet (1998)
They occasionally obliged a gentleman with a poke or two, when they were feeling friendly; but they never let their own parts be fondled or kissed. They were proud to the point of mania, Sweet Alice said, on that score.My own renter persona was, of necessity, a rather curious mixture of types. Never a very virile boy, I held no appeal for the kind of gentleman who liked a rough hand through the slit of his drawers, or a bit of a slap in the shadows; equally, however, I could never afford to let myself be seen as one of those lily-white lads whom the working-men go for, and make rather free with. Then again, I was choosy. There were many fellows with curious appetites in the streets round Leicester Square; but not all of them were the sort I was after. Most men, to be frank, will step aside with a renter as you or I might call into a public-house, on our way home from the market: they take their pleasure, give a belch, and think no more of it than that. But still there are always some - they are gentlemen, for the most part; I learned to spot them from afar - who are fretful, or wistful, or romantic - who could, like the fellow from the Burlington Arcade, be brought to kiss me, or thank me, or even weep over me, as I was handling them.And, as they did so - as they strained and gasped, and whispered their desires to me in some alley or court or dripping lavatory stall - I would have to turn my face away to hide my smiles. If they favoured Walter, then so much the better. If they did not - well, they were all gents and (whatever their own opinion on the matter) with their trousers unbuttoned they all looked the same.I never felt my own lusts rise, raising theirs. I didn’t even need the coins they gave me. I was like a person who, having once been robbed of all he owns and loves, turns thief himself - not to enjoy his neighbours’ chattels, but to spoil them. My one regret was that, though I was daily giving such marvellous performances, they had no audience.
From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)
24°, should be avoided y 1'; smitten and punished for the benefit of the simple Pr 19* 217 and banished for the removal of conten- tion 22°; judgment is prepared for him 19”; || עָרִייץ Is 29%; wine is a scorner Pr 205-- . Hiph. Pf. 3 mpl. sf. 297 119%; Pt. מליץ Gn 42° Jb 33™; pl. מָלִיצִי. פס 2Ch 32%; sf. S20 Jb 16°; PY Is 437;—1. deride 116% W119". 2. Pt. interpreter Gn 42° (E); fig. of interme- diaries between God and man, Jb 33” Is 437; ambassador 2Ch32". Po‘lel Pt. pl. לצצִים (2 dropped Kié***) scorners 110 -ך Hithp. Tmpf. תתלוצצר act as a scorner, shew oneself « mocker, Is 28™, n.{m.] seorning, Pr 1; לצון WIN men of scorning, scorners = O"¥) 298 Is 28™. ).גג מליצהז 5. [ satire, mocking-poem Hb 2% also Pr 1° (al. here figure, enigma). perhaps=be ; לוש (Vof foll., Thes ליש strong (Thes) cf. Ar. 23}, GcJ, strength; SY (med. +) m1. v. be strong, etc., appar. denom. =be lion-like). fr לרש nam*™ tion (Ar. ES, 3 NN); As. ne&u, lion is comp. by Hal (cf. Hpt**7*>) BaZA til 1588, at) :—lion Jb 4" Is 30° (|| nz), Tis לי בַּבְּהָמָה Pr 30”. yu. לש n.pr.loc. (on meaning lion, cf. יל בוד 1-15 (om.2nded)) ;__former name of Dan, in extreme north of Canaan, Ju 1879 (y, 73 p-192b); G Aaa; =DY) q.v. ; ef. Buhle 8", n.pr.m. father of Michal’s second לוש .צנ ך Apes, 69 (לוש husband, 15 25%+ 2 5 3° Qr (Kt Sedrys, A Aa(e)es, GL Iwas, SeAreep. trend n.pr.loc. N. of Jerus. 18 10" (perh. akin to mr. ,ליש v. Di); site unknown; v. Kasteren”***™ conj. ‘Jsawiye, village two miles NE. fr. Jerus. (PEF 8? + ¥em t- 27 RopP i 47 ef. Buh]S* = 6( ev Sa, Aaca. J? = m3) TImv. of Epa q-v- 72? ל vb. capture, seize, take (by lot) (Ph. לבר. take out, choose )1( ; ₪ 29 as BH; Ar. SN is strike, push, with the hand, ete., 35. 45 cipline 97 reproof 9° 15": or rebuke 13', | pestle, ef. mod.’ [5ג. attack Wetzst 26 לכר
From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)
rag בל vb. be senseless, foolish (NI nb33, moa of immodesty; Ar. 03 = pe contra) be noble, distinguished, Ae; also. gracious (Frey); Aram. 233 Pa. reject, despise, v. XY Ne 3° 06149; im deriv. as NH)};- Qal Pf. 2 ms. 1P23 Pr 30" éf thou hast been foolish in lifting up thyself (opp. Di). Pf. ד s. sf. consec. DN Na 3°; Impf. 31 2am) Dt 325" 2 aaame pba Je 14”; בל Mi 7°;—regard or treat as a 532 (q.¥-); with contumely, c. acc.: AS 23D "ץ 11 בָּן 8 treateth father as a fool (with contumely); ’ צגר Dt 32” and he treated with contumely Rock ot his salvation (i.e.%; || (נטש ; " su Na 3° 7 will treat thee (Nineveh) with contum (|| שַפָצִים OY DOWN) ; Je 147 do not with contumely the throne of thy glory (|| 8 Te ba adj. foolish, senseless, esp. of t man who has no perception of ethical a religious claims, and with collat. idea 01 0 disgraceful ; —abs.“1 28 3°%+14 t.; mpl.B 13" Ez 13° (G Co (ְמַלְבּם ; fpl. i922 Th 2" senseless, esp. of religious and moral insen bility: ג" DY Dt 32° (of Isr., unappreciative 0 J.’s benefits ; opp. 037), so of heathen natior ש 74" (blaspheming name of ”), “2 גי Dt 32” )|| הַכּבְאִים 3“ ; (לא עֶם Ez 13° (si vera 1-, v. supr elsewh. as subst. (impious and presumptuous fool, Is 32° (opp. 272 noble-minded), characte ized 88 at once irreligious and churlish, Vv’, denying God ש 1 4= 53%: insulting God 74" and God’s servant 39°; Pr 177 arrogant spee becometh not the (imp.ous and presumptuous fool (whose faults it only makes the more 0 spicuous), much less do lying lips him that noble (3°93), v2! (|| 2°D3), 302 ond ל כי ישבע (one of the things under which the ear trembles), P23 ‘22 Jb 30° 1.0. ignoble met 6% nya ‘22); as one who might be expectet bay to have a contumelious end, 1338 הַכָּמות 73 ימות 283° was Abner (destined) to die, as a ‘3 dieth ? of the man who amasses riches unjustly ובאחריתו יהיה נבל Je 17" 1.6. will prove him- self to be 3 כ' ; as acting immorally (with collat. idea of disgracefully) 2 ₪ 13 5 7083 ואתה תהיה הַגּבָלִים בישראל (cf. 923); +. only in NNN 7272 nidaan Jb 2” (of Job’s wife). Cf Dr? 92,6.15.21; ; 457 I. ba n.pr.m. (on popular etymol. see 1$ 25” infr.); a churlish man of Carmel, whose widow David married 1 § 2 5 9779701995 (joy Adar שמו Daz (כּשְמו כְִּהוּא צ*+ 10 6 1 8 + 2 5 2? 45 G NaBar.
From The History of Christian Theology (2008)
81 by Menno Simons, are the origin of the Mennonites, the largest contemporary Anabaptist group, as well as their offshoot, the Amish. The German branch of the Anabaptists came to be known as Moravian Anabaptists. Rejecting infant baptism has radical implications for one’s view of church, society, and Christian identity. Baptism is an initiation rite which marks the social boundaries of the church, the difference between those who belong inside the Body of Christ and those who do not. To reject the baptism of another church is to say it is not really Christian or a church. Anabaptist teaching, in the 16 th-century context, implied that no one outside their group was really Christian. The Swiss Anabaptists thus regarded all groups and institutions outside their community as “the world.” They regarded not only the Catholic church but the Zwinglian churches and the Swiss town governments as un-Christian. Other churches regarded this as heresy, and governments treated it as sedition, that is, a crime worthy of death. Anabaptists were persecuted by both Catholics and Protestants through most of the 16 th century. Anabaptists were hated in large measure because they were a threat to Christendom. “Christendom,” characteristic of the medieval and early modern period, means a society in which the body politic is understood to be a Christian body. Christendom requires Christian rulers, known as “the sword” of Christendom, who are concerned for the welfare of the church and are willing to enforce this concern. Anabaptist paci ¿ sm implies that the responsibilities of the ruler, including warfare and enforcement of religion, are not really Christian. The Anabaptists took a different route from the magisterial Reformation, that is, the Lutheran and Reformed, who were eager to enlist the support of Christian rulers or magistrates. Unlike the Lutherans and the Reformed, the Anabaptists never enlisted the support of the state or tried to become a state church. Instead, they began a series of private meetings in Zurich, The Anabaptists can be thought of as taking a step further away from Catholicism, beyond the Reformed.
From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)
When we’re tempted to think cynical thoughts—that life is worthless, that our efforts are pointless, that nothing matters in the end, that no one can be trusted—we can choose instead to open ourselves up to the world around us, taking delight in God Himself and all He has done for us. These are all choices that we can make to reconfigure our thinking patterns and help ourselves become whom we long to be. This brings us to our fifth weapon for shifting out of harmful patterns of thinking: humility. One of the enemies of our minds especially rampant in this generation is the inflated view of self being handed to us all over social media, in the shows and movies we watch, even in the self-help books we read. We’re fed a continuous message of how much we matter, how very important we are—and we believe every word of the deceiver. We can make a different choice. When the enemy invites us to taste the fruit of self-importance and “be like God,”4 we can choose instead to take up our cross and follow Jesus, knowing that our identity is anchored in Him alone. But everything in our human nature will fight against it. LIE : The more self-esteem I have, the better life will go for me. TRUTH : The more I choose God and others over myself, the more joyful I will be. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!5 I CHOOSE TO SERVE GOD AND OTHERS OVER SERVING MYSELF. [image file=Image00044.jpg] I recently posted on Instagram this quote often attributed to Andrew Murray: Humility is perfect quietness of heart…. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble. The comments in response to that post were priceless: “Wow. This is difficult.” “How rare.” “Whoa. That hurts.” Humility is impossibly opposite of the ways of this world. Our spinning thoughts can hardly comprehend being at rest instead of jockeying for approval.
From The Great Transformation (2006)
Legalism first developed in the kingdoms of Wei, Han, and Zhao, which had broken away from the old state of Jin in the early fifth century. These were rogue states, and their rulers were, therefore, less wedded to tradition and more open to radical theories of government. In about 370, an ambitious young man called Shang Yang (c. 390–338) had settled in Wei and joined the discussions of the local political scientists, who had no grand spiritual program but simply wanted to reform the military, increase agricultural production, bolster the power of the ruler by weakening the local nobility, and develop a clear and effective legal code. Shang failed to gain the favor of the king of Wei, but in 361 managed to become chief adviser to the prince of Qin. This was a great opportunity. Qin had a large barbarian population, which knew next to nothing about Zhou traditions, and the nobility was too weak and impoverished to put up any effective opposition to Shang’s revolutionary program. His reform, which flouted many of the major principles of the Axial Age, made the backward, isolated kingdom of Qin the most powerful and advanced state in China. At the end of the third century, as a result of Shang’s far-reaching measures, Qin would conquer all the other states, and in 221 its ruler would become the first historical emperor of China. Lord Shang felt no loyalty to past tradition. “When the guiding principles of the people become unsuited to their circumstances,” he argued, “their standard [fa] of value must change. As conditions in the world change, different principles are practised.”4 It was no use dreaming of a golden age of compassionate sage kings. If people were more generous in the past, this was not because they had practiced ren, but because the population was smaller and there was enough food to go round. Similarly, the corruption and conflict of the Warring States period was not the result of dishonesty, but occurred simply because resources were scarce.5 Instead of promoting nonviolence, Lord Shang wanted the people of Qin to be as eager for war and bloodshed as a hungry wolf. He had only one objective: “the enrichment of the state and the strengthening of its military capacity.”6 To meet its targets, governments had to exploit the fear and greed of the population. Very few people wanted to expose themselves to the perils of modern warfare, but Shang devised such dire punishments for deserters that death on the battlefield seemed preferable. He also rewarded the outstanding military service of peasants and noblemen alike with a grant of agricultural land.
From The Great Transformation (2006)
Society must take active measures to repress this natural sympathy, since it was incompatible with virtue. 96 Instead of cultivating the “shoots” of compassion, like Mencius, Plato wanted to eliminate it. In his later work, we see a harshness that could have been accentuated by his second Sicilian adventure. After the death of the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse, Plato unwisely became involved in the political conspiracy that led to the assassination of his old protégé Dion in 354. At one point, Plato was put under house arrest and narrowly escaped execution. Not only had his philosophical ideas proved wholly ineffective, but he himself was personally scarred, and from this time forward he took a harder line. Plato’s vision of the forms had introduced a new dynamic into Greek religion. Since Homer, Greeks had been encouraged to accept reality as it was, and had no ambition to transcend it or radically change their condition. Poets, scientists, and tragedians had insisted that existence was transitory, moribund, and often cruelly destructive. Human life was dukkha; not even the gods could change this unsatisfactory state of affairs. This was the true reality, and a mature human must face up to it, either with heroic defiance or with tragic or philosophical insight. Plato reversed this. Our earthly, corporeal life was indeed miserable and awry, but it was not the true reality. It was un real, compared with the immutable, eternal world of the forms, and this perfect world was accessible to human beings. People did not have to put up with suffering and death. If they were prepared to devote themselves to a long, exacting philosophical initiation, their souls could ascend to the divine world without any help from the gods and achieve an immortality that had once been the prerogative of the Olympians. After Plato there was a yearning for an ineffable reality that existed beyond the gods. In his later years, however, Plato turned back to the world and his theology became more concrete. In Timaeus, Plato suggested that the world had been created by a divine craftsman ( demiourgos ), who was eternal and wholly good but not omnipotent; he was not free to fashion the cosmos as he chose but had to model his creation upon the forms. The craftsman was not a figure that could inspire a religious quest, because he had no interest in humanity. He was not the Supreme God: a higher god existed, but he was also irrelevant to the human predicament. “To find the maker and father of this universe is hard enough,” Plato remarked, “and even if I succeeded, to declare him to everyone is impossible.” 97 Plato’s aim was not religious. He simply wanted to devise a rational cosmology. Created according to the forms, imbued with reason, his universe had an intelligible pattern that could be investigated empirically.
From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)
If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq. Once, after a particularly thorny meeting with MET, I asked him whether he could turn out his followers if a public showdown with the city became necessary. “I don’t got time to run around passing out flyers trying to explain everything to the public,” he said. “Most of the folks out here don’t care one way or another. The ones that do are gonna be double-crossing Negroes trying to mess things up. Important thing is to get our plan tight and get the city signed on. That’s how stuff gets done—not with a big crowd and noise and all that. Once we got a done deal, then y’all announce it any way you like.” I disagreed with Rafiq’s approach; for all his professed love of black people, he seemed to distrust them an awful lot. But I also knew his approach was dictated by a lack of capacity: Neither his organization nor his mosque, I had discovered, could claim a membership of more than fifty persons. His influence arose not from any strong organizational support but from his willingness to show up at every meeting that remotely affected Roseland and shout his opponents into submission. What held true for Rafiq was true throughout the city; without the concentrating effect of Harold’s campaign, nationalism dissipated into an attitude rather than any concrete program, a collection of grievances and not an organized force, images and sounds that crowded the airwaves and conversation but without any corporeal existence. Among the handful of groups to hoist the nationalist banner, only the Nation of Islam had any significant following: Minister Farrakhan’s sharply cadenced sermons generally drew a packed house, and still more listened to his radio broadcasts. But the Nation’s active membership in Chicago was considerably smaller—several thousand, perhaps, roughly the size of one of Chicago’s biggest black congregations—a base that was rarely, if ever, mobilized around political races or in support of broad-based programs. In fact, the physical presence of the Nation in the neighborhoods was nominal, restricted mainly to the clean-cut men in suits and bow ties who stood at the intersections of major thoroughfares selling the Nation’s newspaper, The Final Call.
From The History of Christian Theology (2008)
19 often called rulers or archons; they are evil and try to block the soul’s escape from this world after death. The soul or spirit is divine, belonging to the other world, which is why it wants to escape this world and all bodily things, where it is not really at home. Gnosticism’s disdain for the physical world is linked to a profound rejection of Judaism. The God of the Jews is the creator God, maker and ruler of this physical world, which means he is at best ignorant, and probably evil. He forbids humans to eat from the Tree of Knowledge (gnosis) because he wants them to stay ignorant and under his power. He is also described as an arrogant archon who boasts of being the only God, ignorant of the divine realm above him. The Gnostics’ view of Christ ¿ ts with their other-worldly view of divinity. The divine world or Pleroma consists of spiritual principles called “aeons.” According to some Gnostics, the physical world originates from a disruption in the Pleroma when the lowest of the aeons, Sophia or Wisdom, gets in a passion. Christ is an aeon sent into this world to bring saving knowledge of the world above, the Pleroma. Because matter is evil, he is never really embodied: Either he dwells in the man Jesus only for a time or his body is an illusion, a mere appearance (which is the view now called Docetism). The God of the Jews is not Jesus’s Father but his enemy. The “lost Gospels” in the news lately are mainly Gnostic. The most important were found in a cache of buried books in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The Nag Hammadi library is very important for our understanding of ancient Gnosticism but, with one possible exception, is not an important source for the life of the historical Jesus. The possible exception, the Gospel of Thomas, is a “sayings Gospel.” The sayings are all attributed to Jesus, though many are actually much later. The later sayings are in a broad sense Gnostic, in that salvation consists of the soul’s awakening to the knowledge that it does not belong to this world. Among the earlier sayings, most are similar to those found in the New Testament, and some may be closer to what Jesus actually said—though Early orthodoxy was characterized by belief in the goodness of the Creator, the God of the Jews.
From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)
“Who are we meeting with again?” I had scheduled three meetings, hoping to find a job strategy that would meet the needs of people in Altgeld. For now at least a new manufacturing boom appeared out of our reach: The big manufacturers had opted for well-scrubbed suburban corridors, and not even Gandhi could have gotten them to relocate near Altgeld anytime soon. On the other hand, there did remain a part of the economy that could be called local, I thought, a second-level consumer economy—of shops, restaurants, theaters, and services—that in other areas of the city continued to function as an incubator of civic life. Places where families might invest their savings and make a go of a business, and where entry-level jobs might be had; places where the economy remained on a human scale, transparent enough for people to understand. The closest thing to a shopping district in the area was in Roseland, and so we followed the bus route up Michigan Avenue, with its wig shops and liquor stores, discount clothing stores and pizzerias, until we arrived in front of a two-story former warehouse. We entered the building through a heavy metal door and took a narrow set of stairs down into a basement filled with old furniture. In a small office sat a slight, wiry man with a goatee and a skullcap that accentuated a pair of prominent ears. “Can I help you?” I explained who we were and that we had spoken on the phone. “That’s right, that’s right.” He gestured to two large men standing on either side of his desk and they walked past us with a nod. “Listen, we’re gonna have to make this quick ’cause something’s come up. Rafiq al Shabazz.” “I know you,” Shirley said as we shook hands with Rafiq. “You’re Mrs. Thompson’s boy, Wally. How’s your momma doing?” Rafiq forced a smile and offered us all a seat. He explained that he was the president of the Roseland Unity Coalition, an organization that engaged in a range of political activities to promote the black cause and claimed considerable credit for helping Mayor Washington get elected. When we asked him how our churches could encourage local economic development, he handed us a leaflet accusing Arab stores of selling bad meat. “That’s the real deal, right here,” Rafiq said. “People from outside our community making money off us and showing our brothers and sisters disrespect. Basically what you got here is Koreans and Arabs running the stores, the Jews still owning most of the buildings. Now, in the short term, we’re here to make sure that the interests of black people are looked after, you understand. When we hear one of them Koreans is mistreating a customer, we gonna be on the case. We gonna insist that they respect us and make a contribution back to the community—fund our programs, what have you.