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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Besides, in the ceremonies of this art they employ certain characters and geometrical figures. But a figure is no principle of action, imparted or received: or else mathematical drawings would be active and passive. Matter therefore cannot be disposed by geometrical figures to the reception of any natural effect. It follows that these figures are not used as disposing causes, but as signs. Now we use signs only to address other intelligent beings. Magical arts therefore owe their efficacy to some intelligence, to whom the speech of the magician is addressed,—as is also shown by the sacrifices, prostrations, and other rites employed, which can be nothing else but signs of reverence paid to some intelligent nature. CHAPTER CVI THAT THE SUBSISTENT INTELLIGENCE, WHICH LENDS EFFICACY TO MAGICAL PERFORMANCES, IS NOT GOOD IN BOTH CATEGORIES OF BEINGIT remains to be further investigated, what that intelligent nature is, by whose power these operations are carried into effect. To begin with, it is apparent that it is no good and praiseworthy nature. For it is not the behaviour of an intelligence well disposed to lend countenance to acts contrary to virtue. But that is what is done by magical arts: they usually serve to bring about adulteries, thefts, killing, and the like evil practices. Hence they who use such arts are called evil practitioners’ (malefici). 3. The working of a benignant intelligence is to bring men to the proper good things of men, which are the good things of reason: but to draw men away from those good things, and allure them to trifles, is the conduct of an intelligence of a perverse bent. Now by these magical arts men make no profit in the good things of reason, which are sciences and virtues, but only in such trifles as the finding of things stolen, the catching of robbers, and the like. 4. There seems to be a certain grimace and character of unreasonableness attaching to the proceedings of the aforesaid arts. Thus they require an agent who abstains from sexual intercourse, and yet they are frequently employed for the procurement of sexual intercourse in its illicit forms. 6. As it belongs to the good to lead on to goodness, one might expect any right-minded intelligence to lead on to truth, truth being the proper good of the understanding. But the proceedings of magicians are generally of a character to mock men and deceive them. 8. It is not the way of a rightly ordered intelligence, supposing it to be a superior being, to take orders from an inferior; or, supposing it to be an inferior, to suffer itself to be entreated as though it were a superior being. But magicians invoke those whose assistance they use, with supplication, as though they were superior beings; and then, when they have come, they command them as though they were inferiors. CHAPTER CVII

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

  Criticism. It seems irrational for one to abandon his own and live on an other’s property,—or for one to receive of another and pay him back nothing in return. There is no impropriety in ministers of the altar and preachers, to whom the people are indebted for doctrine and other divine gifts, receiving support at their hands: for the labourer is worthy of his hire, as the Lord says (Matt. x, 10); and the Apostle, the Lord hath ordained that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel (1 Cor. ix, 14). But it is an apparent absurdity for these persons who minister to the people in no office to receive the necessaries of life from the people. Others moreover, who through sickness and poverty cannot help themselves, must lose their alms through these professors of voluntary poverty, since men neither can nor will succour a great multitude of poor. Moreover independence of spirit is particularly requisite for perfect virtue: otherwise men easily become partakers in other people’s sins, either by expressly consenting to them, or by palliating or dissembling them. But this method of life is a great drawback to such independence, for a man cannot but shrink from offending one by whose patronage he lives. Moreover the necessity of exposing one’s necessities to others, and begging relief, renders mendicants objects of contempt and dislike, whereas persons who take up a perfect life ought to be reverenced and loved. But if any one will praise the practice of begging as conducive to humility, he seems to talk altogether unreasonably. For the praise of humility consists in despising earthly exaltation, such as comes of riches, honours, fame, but not in despising loftiness of virtue, for in that respect we ought to be magnanimous. That then would be a blameworthy humility, for the sake of which any one should do anything derogatory to loftiness of virtue. But the practice of begging is so derogatory, as well because it is more virtuous to give than to receive, as also because there is a look of filthy lucre about it.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  More than $4 million of government largesse flows each year into the Colorado City public school district—which, according to the Phoenix New Times, “is operated primarily for the financial benefit of the FLDS Church and for the personal enrichment of FLDS school district leaders.” Reporter John Dougherty determined that school administrators have “plundered the district’s treasury by running up thousands of dollars in personal expenses on district credit cards, purchasing expensive vehicles for their personal use and engaging in extensive travel. The spending spree culminated in December [2000], when the district purchased a $220,000 Cessna 210 airplane to facilitate trips by district personnel to cities across Arizona.” Colorado City has received $1.9 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pave its streets, improve the fire department, and upgrade the water system. Immediately south of the city limits, the federal government built a $2.8 million airport that serves almost no one beyond the fundamentalist community. Thirty-three percent of the town’s residents receive food stamps—compared to the state average of 4.7 percent. Currently the residents of Colorado City receive eight dollars in government services for every dollar they pay in taxes; by comparison, residents in the rest of Mohave County, Arizona, receive just over a dollar in services per tax dollar paid. “Uncle Rulon justifies all that assistance from the wicked government by explaining that really the money is coming from the Lord,” says DeLoy Bateman. “We’re taught that it’s the Lord’s way of manipulating the system to take care of his chosen people.” Fundamentalists call defrauding the government “bleeding the beast” and regard it as a virtuous act. Uncle Rulon and his followers believe that the earth is seven thousand years old and that men have never walked on the moon; film clips showing Apollo astronauts on the lunar surface are part of an elaborate hoax foisted on the world by the American government, they say. In addition to the edict against watching television or reading newspapers, residents of Colorado City are forbidden to have any contact with people outside the UEP—including family members who have left the religion. DeLoy, as it happens, is one such apostate. DeLoy and his immense family live in a correspondingly immense house—at sixteen thousand square feet, it is more than five times as large as a typical three-bedroom home—which he built with his own hands in the middle of town. DeLoy’s brother David lives in a similarly large home just a few yards away, on the other side of a six-foot fence. “My brother over the fence there,” says DeLoy, gesturing with his chin, “him and I are just as close as any two people on the planet. Our father was disabled when we were small children, so David and I raised each other. But now he isn’t allowed to talk to me, because I’m no longer in the religion.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Of all the beliefs that laid the foundation of Utah’s culture of violence, none would have more devastating consequences.” The Reformation was spearheaded by the God-besotted Jedidiah Grant, Brigham’s immensely popular second counselor, whom the Saints affectionately called “Jeddy, Brigham’s Sledge Hammer.” Grant explained to the Lord’s chosen that they had the “right to kill a sinner to save him, when he commits those crimes that can only be atoned for by shedding his blood.” In September 1856 he sermonized that there were sinners even then in their midst who needed “to have their blood shed, for water will not do, their sins are of too deep a dye.” Grant preached as fervently about the Saints’ duty to marry profusely as he did about blood atonement, and his aggressive campaign on behalf of plural marriage achieved the desired effect. Mormon men started taking on wives at a frantic rate. Apostle Wilford Woodruff observed in 1856, “All are trying to get wives, until there is hardly a girl fourteen years old in Utah, but what is married, or is just going to be.” The Saints readily accepted their prophet’s avowal that plural marriage was a divinely ordained and crucially important doctrine. But Brigham had badly miscalculated how the rest of the republic would react to the Mormons’ embrace of polygamy. After the sacred doctrine became known outside of Utah, a nearly hysterical barrage of condemnation rained down on the Saints from afar—a barrage that would continue unabated for half a century. Most Americans considered polygamy to be morally repugnant, even as they were secretly fascinated by it. These remarks from Congressman John Alexander McLernand of Illinois, speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives, are a fair characterization of the Gentile reaction to the Mormon doctrine: “As to polygamy, I charge it to be a crying evil; sapping not only the physical constitution of the people practicing it, dwarfing their physical proportions and emasculating their energies, but at the same time perverting the social virtues, and vitiating the morals of its victims. . . . It is a scarlet whore. It is a reproach to the Christian civilization, and deserves to be blotted out.” * Brigham rebutted such criticism, at least on some occasions, with the counterintuitive argument that plural marriage was actually an antidote to immorality, because men with a multitude of wives wouldn’t be tempted to engage in adulterous liaisons or visit prostitutes. Other times he maintained that polygamy actually had nothing to do with sexual gratification whatsoever: “God never introduced the Patriarchal order of marriage with a view to please man in his carnal desires,” Brigham insisted. “He introduced it for the express purpose of raising up to His name a royal Priesthood, a peculiar people.” The Mormon leader insisted, as well, that the marital customs of the Saints were a religious freedom protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Gardner emphasized, were the hallmarks of NPD, and Ron Lafferty was nothing if not grandiose and emotionally cold. Ron had readily volunteered that Brenda’s death had aroused in him no feelings whatsoever. And he’d insisted to one and all that he was an especially important person in the eyes of God—that God had anointed him, Ron Lafferty, the “one mighty and strong.” Although an exaggerated desire to mete out justice is not listed among the defining characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder in DSM-IV, it probably should be. Narcissists erupt with self-righteous indignation whenever they believe others are breaking rules, acting unfairly, or getting more than their fair share of the pie. They have no compunction about breaking the rules themselves, however, because they know they’re special and the rules don’t apply to them. In Ron’s case, he was quick to castigate anyone he thought was behaving selfishly or unrighteously—indeed, in the case of Brenda and Erica Lafferty, he didn’t hesitate to assume the role of judge, jury, and executioner. Yet nobody howled louder about unfair persecution when he was accused of moral, ethical, or legal lapses by others. When narcissists are confronted by people who disparage the legitimacy of their extravagant claims, they tend to react badly. They may plunge into depression—or become infuriated. As Gardner explained to the court, when narcissists are belittled or denigrated “they feel horrible. . . . They have this sense they’re either grandiose, perfect, and beautiful people, or absolutely worthless. So if you challenge their grandiosity—these are the words in the diagnostic manual—‘They respond with humiliation or rage.’ Their reaction to criticism is intense. And I think that is a characteristic that’s very clearly demonstrated by Mr. Lafferty.” Gardner described Ron as “a man whose grandiose self had been severely challenged by divorce and by rejection by his community. He was excommunicated. And in those moments of sitting quietly and thinking, he came up with a set of ideas that gave him a sense of release and relief. They’re logical. They may not be based in fact, but it has a logical quality, because it serves his purposes in a very logical way.” A skeptical Mike Esplin demanded, “It’s logical for him?” “For him,” Dr. Gardner asserted. “Any psychiatrist looking at that would say this is a set of defenses he’s using so he doesn’t feel the pain of his loss so much. So he’s created some ideas that are soothing to him. Many people looking at religion would say religion is a set of ideas created by people as a way to soothe them, because we live in a very uncertain and oftentimes tragic world.” Many people would also argue that virtually everyone who has introduced a new framework of religious beliefs to the world—from Jesus to Muhammad to Joseph Smith to Ron Lafferty—fits the diagnosis for narcissistic personality disorder.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Goldilocks and the Three BaronsThere is little that is so utterly vexing as an interfering busybody. Such a one is always poking about, seemingly trying to learn about causes and effects, but generally just stirring up a great deal of trouble over nothing. These meddlesome trespassers bash and barge their way into the most intimate places, disregarding decorum and logic in their efforts to create an illusion of something shocking or remarkable. It matters not whether the affair they are about to divulge is real or factual; either way it must be exposed. And one of the most notorious of these offenders was Goldilocks. Goldilocks was deeply interested in matters not relating to her, particularly those of a confidential nature. These she would turn into feature articles that she would then submit to her editor at the Woodland Enquirer. She had exposed and humiliated countless inhabitants of the forest in just this way, and it was a dreadful thing, indeed, when one was unfortunate enough to have done something to capture her notice. It was through this circumstance that Goldilocks came to be in a more remote part of the forest one morning, in search of three English barons who lived there. It was a curious and unusual thing to her that three men should decide to separate themselves from civilization and live alone together in the deepest part of the woods. Unconventional behavior, to her mind, was synonymous with wrongdoing, and since the men were wealthy and renowned, she felt it her responsibility to reveal their secrets to the world. The barons, on the other hand, were completely unaware of the interest they had stirred with their actions. Although they were indeed isolated from the rest of society, living so far out in the country, the lifestyle nevertheless suited them, for they were pompous and intolerant by nature, and found the general community to be somewhat odious and tiresome. The common tastes of the majority were unbearably vulgar to them, and the general public’s concerns seemed utterly absurd. In view of these opinions, it did not seem at all out of the ordinary to the barons that they should wish to separate themselves from what they considered to be the lower classes. And, in truth, these supposed lower classes were no doubt better off for not having shared a more intimate acquaintance with the snooty barons. And so it was, with their usual self-absorption and total unawareness of any interests outside of their own, that the barons sat down to eat their morning meal. Their only immediate concern was the observation that their morning porridge was unusually hot. A discussion ensued to determine a solution to the matter. “I say,” remarked the first baron, raising his eyebrows and addressing his friends in an icy tone. “This porridge is exceedingly hot.” “Indeed,” agreed the next. “It is offensive, to say the very least.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There used to be, and belike is yet, a custom, in all maritime places which have a port, that all merchants who come thither with merchandise, having unloaded it, should carry it all into a warehouse, which is in many places called a customhouse, kept by the commonality or by the lord of the place. There they give unto those who are deputed to that end a note in writing of all their merchandise and the value thereof, and they thereupon make over to each merchant a storehouse, wherein he layeth up his goods under lock and key. Moreover, the said officers enter in the book of the Customs, to each merchant's credit, all his merchandise, causing themselves after he paid their dues of the merchants, whether for all his said merchandise or for such part thereof as he withdraweth from the customhouse. By this book of the Customs the brokers mostly inform themselves of the quality and the quantity of the goods that are in bond there and also who are the merchants that own them; and with these latter, as occasion serveth them, they treat of exchanges and barters and sales and other transactions. This usance, amongst many other places, was current at Palermo in Sicily, where likewise there were and are yet many women, very fair of their person, but sworn enemies to honesty, who would be and are by those who know them not held great ladies and passing virtuous and who, being given not to shave, but altogether to flay men, no sooner espy a merchant there than they inform themselves by the book of the Customs of that which he hath there and how much he can do;[414] after which by their lovesome and engaging fashions and with the most dulcet words, they study to allure the said merchants and draw them into the snare of their love; and many an one have they aforetime lured thereinto, from whom they have wiled great part of their merchandise; nay, many have they despoiled of all, and of these there be some who have left goods and ship and flesh and bones in their hands, so sweetly hath the barberess known to ply the razor. [Footnote 414: _i.e._ what he is worth.]

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  1047 After his criminal conviction and subsequent sentencing, Ray sold his home in the Beverly Hills area of California for $3.015 million. 1048 In 2012 James Ray claimed he was broke and $11 million in debt. He requested that the court declare him “indigent” for the purpose of costs associated with his appeal. Prosecutor Sheila Polk said shortly before sentencing that Ray “led the life of a pretender, and there are predictable consequences when one leads a life of pretense.” 1049 Polk later received the 2012 Arizona State Bar Criminal Justice Award for her outstanding work as a prosecutor. 1050 Beverly Bunn, an orthodontist from Texas who endured Ray’s sweat lodge, offered this impression of her former self-help guru. “James Ray preaches that thoughts, feelings and actions are all connected. That was true in his own life.” 1051 LGATs suggest that their philosophy can potentially solve almost any life problem, from personal issues to professional performance. However, it is doubtful that this “one size fits all” prescription is in fact a meaningful solution. Instead of succumbing to the lure of LGATs, there are far safer and more focused ways to address professional and personal concerns. Professionals can seek career enhancement through continuing education at accredited institutions. Those struggling with personal problems can seek counseling from a licensed professional or advice from a trusted friend. There are also support groups that may specifically address a perceived problem recommended by local community services. This approach to self-improvement is more proved and pragmatic and largely avoids the accountability and safety issues that seem inherent in many LGATs. Psychologist Margaret Singer summarized her impressions. “Having observed a number of LGATs and having interviewed many persons who attended variants of these programs as part of their work assignments, I am astonished at the gross childishness and unkindness of humiliating anyone under the guise of education, experiential learning, or the claim that participation in such travesties enhances work performance.” 1052 She labeled such LGATs as “high-confrontation, psychologically intense programs” 1053 and said, “They are a modern-day, corporate version of social and psychological influence techniques that make people deployable without their knowledge or consent—precisely my objection to cults.” 1054 CHAPTER 17 LGAT INTERVENTION At the urging of his adult son, a medical doctor agreed to attend the Forum, which is large group awareness training (LGAT) run by Landmark Education, a privately owned for-profit company. The son persuaded his father to participate with him when he repeated the initial weekend of training called the Forum. The doctor thought the weekend offered an opportunity to spend quality time with his son. The son believed the training would improve their relationship and bring them closer together.

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

  ...Tyranny is the deviation-form or corruption of kingship. [Thus these forms stand to each other in the opposition of contrariety.] In regard to this point, Aristotle shows, first, that both forms are of the same genus, for both are monarchies, i.e., one-man governments. Second, he brings out their differences, saying that they differ most widely, from which it appears that they are contraries. For contraries, being of the same genus, are most widely distant one from the other. What the difference is between tyranny and kingship, the Philosopher declares by saying that, in this regime, the tyrant looks to his own advantage, while the king has his eye on that of his subjects. This is further evidenced in what follows: The true king, Aristotle says, is sufficient for governing by his own resources and, therefore, should possess all good things: the goods of the soul, -those of the body, and external goods; and he should possess them in such abundance that he be worthy and, at the same time potent, to hold power. If he is such, he needs nothing further and so will not be tempted to care for his own advantage as do those who still are in need. The king will be the benefactor of his subjects, which is the attribute of those who have an overflowing abundance of good things. If a king is not such a man, he is rather a clerotos, as Aristotle says, which means he is king [not naturally but] by the decision of the lots. On the other hand, the tyrant, since he pursues his own interest, is the very contrary of the king. Hence it is clear that tyranny is the worst deviation-form. For it is the contrary of the best that is worst and a man passes over from kingship, i.e., the best form, to tyranny which is a de-o pravity of monarchy, i.e., one-nign rule; in other words, it is the bad king who becomes a tyrant. Tyranny, then, the Philosopher concludes, is the worst form of government. [Ibid. 1260b 12-16: The corruption of aristocracy.] Aristocracy, in its turn, passes over into oligarchy, i.e., the dominion of a few. This happens on account of the badness of the rulers who do not distribute according to worthiness the goods which belong to the city but snatch away either all or a great deal of them, for their own use and in order to enrich themselves and their friends. Thus it comes about that instead of the most worthy (who are the rulers in an aristocracy) there are now a few and bad man at the head of the city. [Ibid. 16-22: The corruption of timocracy.]

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ing nor making any effort to meet. Angela’s prudence for- bade her to write: ‘ Litera scripta manet ’ — a good motto, and one to which it was wise to adhere when dealing with a firebrand like Stephen. Stephen had given her a pretty bad scare, she realized - the necessity for caution; still, thinking over that incredible scene, she found the memory rather exciting. Deprived of her anodyne against boredom, she looked upon Ralph with unfriendly eyes; while he, poor, inadequate, irritable devil, with his vague sus- picions and his chronic dyspepsia, did little enough to divert his wife — his days, and a fairly large part of his nights as well, were now spent in nagging. He nagged about Tony who, as ill luck would have it, had decided that the garden was rampant with moles: ‘If you can’t keep that bloody dog in order, he goes. I won’t have him digging craters round my roses!’ Then would come a long list of Tony’s misdeeds from the time he had left the litter. He nagged about the large population of green-fly, deploring the existence of their sexual organs: ‘< Nature’s a fool! Fancy procreation being ex- tended to that sort of vermin!’ And then he would grow some- what coarse as he dwelt on the frequent conjugal excesses of green-fly. But most of all he nagged about Stephen, because this as he knew, irritated his wife: ‘ How’s your freak getting on? I haven’t seen her just lately; have you quarrelled or what? Damned good thing if you have. She’s appalling; never saw such a girl in my life; comes swaggering round here with her legs in breeches. Why can’t she ride like an ordinary woman? Good Lord, it’s enough to make any man see red; that sort of thing wants putting down at birth, I’d like to institute state lethal chambers! ’ Or perhaps he would take quite another tack and complain 170 THe WELL OF LONELINESS

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

  At the same time he began at Einsiedeln to attack from the pulpit certain abuses and the sale of indulgences, when Samson crossed the Alps in August, 1518. He says that he began to preach the gospel before Luther’s name was known in Switzerland, adding, however, that at that time he depended too much on Jerome and other Fathers instead of the Scriptures. He told Cardinal Schinner in 1517 that popery had poor foundation in the Scriptures. Myconius, Bullinger, and Capito report, in substantial agreement, that Zwingli preached in Einsiedeln against abuses, and taught the people to worship Christ, and not the Virgin Mary. The inscription on the entrance gate of the convent, promising complete remission of sins, was taken down at his instance.35 Beatus Rhenanus, in a letter of Dec. 6, 1518, applauds his attack upon Samson, the restorer of indulgences, and says that Zwingli preached to the people the purest philosophy of Christ from the fountain.36

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  […] It matters not whether the affair they are about to divulge is real or factual; either way it must be exposed. And one of the most notorious of these offenders was Goldilocks. Goldilocks was deeply interested in matters not relating to her, particularly those of a confidential nature. These she would turn into feature articles that she would then submit to her editor at the Woodland Enquirer. She had exposed and humiliated countless inhabitants of the forest in just this way, and it was a dreadful thing, indeed, when one was unfortunate enough to have done something to capture her notice. […] It was a curious and unusual thing to her that three men should decide to separate themselves from civilization and live alone together in the deepest part of the woods. Unconventional behavior, to her mind, was synonymous with wrongdoing, and since the men were wealthy and renowned, she felt it her responsibility to reveal their secrets to the world.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Violet Peacock, who was now a V.A.D. with a very imposing Red Cross on her apron, occasionally managed to catch Stephen at home, and then would come reams of tiresome gossip. Some- times she would bring her over-fed children along, she was stuff- ing them up like capons. By fair means or foul Violet always managed to obtain illicit cream for her nursery — she was one of those mothers who reacted to the war by wishing to kill off the useless aged. ‘ What’s the good of them? Eating up the food of the nation! ’ she would say, ‘ I’m going all out on the young, they’ll be needed to breed from.’ She was very extreme, her perspective had been upset by the air raids. Raids frightened her as did the thought of starvation, and when frightened she was apt to grow rather sadistic, so that now she would want to rush off and inspect every ruin left by the German marauders. She had also been the first to applaud the dreadful descent of a burning Zeppelin. She bored Stephen intensely with her ceaseless prattle about Alec, who was one of London’s defenders, about Roger, who had got the Military Cross and was just on the eve of becoming a THE WELL OF LONELINESS 313 major, about the wounded whose faces she sponged every morn- ing, and who seemed so pathetically grateful. From Morton came occasional letters for Puddle; they were more in the nature of reports now these letters. Anna had such and such a number of cases; the gardeners had been replaced by young women; Mr. Percival was proving very devoted, he and Anna were holding the estate well together; Williams had been seriously ill with pneumonia. Then a long list of humble names from the farms, from among Anna’s staff or from cottage home- steads, together with those from such houses as Morton — for the rich and the poor were in death united. Stephen would read that long list of names, so many of which she had known since het childhood, and would realize that the stark arm of war had struck deep at the quiet heart of the Midlands. BOOK FOUR CHAPTER 35 I sTUMP of candle in the neck of a bottle flickered once or A twice and threatened to go out. Getting up, Stephen found a fresh candle and lit it, then she returned to her packing-case upon which had been placed the remnants of a chair minus its legs and arms.

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

  Hence it is said: He shall be slain who offers sacrifice to any gods but to the Lord alone (Exod. xxii, 20): The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve (Deut. vi, 13). And because it is an undue thing for the worship of latria to be paid to any other than the first principle of all things, and only an evil-minded rational creature will incite others to undue acts; evidently men have been set on to the aforesaid undue worships by the instigation of devils, who have presented themselves to men to be adored in place of God, seeking divine honour. Hence it is said: All the gods of the heathen are devils (Ps. xcv, 5): The things which the heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God (1 Cor. x, 20). CHAPTER CXXI THAT THE DIVINE LAW DIRECTS MAN TO A RATIONAL USE OF CORPOREAL AND SENSIBLE THINGSAS man’s mind may be raised to God by corporeal and sensible things, provided that they are duly used to show reverence to God, so also the undue use of them either totally withdraws the mind from God, fixing the final intention of the will upon inferior things, or clogs the mind’s aspiration after God, making it take unnecessary interest in such things. Now the divine law is given for this end chiefly, to lead man to cling to God. It is a function therefore of divine law to direct man in his affection for and use of corporeal and sensible things. 2. As man’s mind is subordinate to God, so his body is subordinate to his soul, and his lower powers to his reason. It belongs therefore to divine providence, the plan of which, as proposed by God to man, is the divine law, to see that all things keep their order. Therefore that divine law must so direct man as that his lower powers shall be subject to his reason, and his body to his soul, and exterior things shall serve his necessity. 4. Every lawgiver must comprise in his legislation those enactments without which the law could not be observed. Now law being set over reason, man could not follow the law unless all other things belonging to man were subjected to reason. Hence it is said: Your reasonable service (Rom. xii, i); and, This is the will of God, your sanctification (1 Thess. iv, 9). Hereby is excluded the error of such as say that those acts alone are sinful, whereby our neighbour is either hurt or shocked. CHAPTER CXXII

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  I had an uncomfortable suspicion that Nature had come to reconquer the earth for herself. Certainly there was something unusual about this spring's brilliance. The yellow of the rape blossoms, the green of the young grass, the fresh-looking black trunks of the cherry trees, the canopy of heavy blossoms that bent the branches low —all these were reflected in my eyes as vivid colors tinged with malevolence. It seemed to be a conflagration of colors. One day several of us walked along on the grass between the rows of cherry trees and the banks of the pond, arguing some nonsensical legal theory as we went. At the time I was fond of the irony of Professor Y's lectures on international law. In the very midst of the air raids, there the professor was, broad-mindedly continuing his seemingly endless lectures about the League of Nations. I felt as though I were listening to lectures on mahjong or chess. Peace! peace!—I could not believe that this bell-like sound which was perpetually tolling in the distance was anything more than a ringing in my ears. "But isn't it a question of the absolute nature of real-property claims?" suggested A, continuing our discussion. Although this countrified student seemed to be a strapping fellow with a healthy complexion, an advanced case of lung seepage had saved him from being drafted. "Let's cut out such foolish talk," broke in B. He was a pale student and, as could be told at a glance, was suffering from tuberculosis. "In the air enemy planes, on the ground law-humph!" I laughed scornfully. "Is this what you mean by glory in the heavens and peace on earth?" I was the only one who did not have genuine lung trouble. I was pretending instead that I had a bad heart. In those days one had to have either medals or illness. Suddenly we were brought to a halt by the sound of someone walking nearby in the grass under the cherry trees. That person also seemed to have been startled by our approach. It was a young man wearing soiled work clothes and wooden clogs. One could tell he was young only from the color of the close-cropped hair that could be seen beneath his field cap; his muddy complexion, his sparse beard, his oil-smeared hands and feet, and his grimy neck, all indicated a wretched tiredness unsuitable to his years. Obliquely behind the boy there stood a girl, who stared at the ground and seemed to be sulking.

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

  Porphyry tells in his Letter to Anebo that there is a certain kind of spirits who make it their business to listen to magicians, a kind naturally deceitful, assuming every form, personating gods [angels] and men and souls of the departed; and that this kind of being it is which makes all these appearances for better or for worse: for the rest, that this kind of spirit renders no assistance towards anything that is really good, but on the contrary is the author of evil counsel, and accuses and hampers and envies the earnest votaries of virtue, and is full of hastiness and pride, rejoices in the smell of burnt meats, and is captivated by flatteries. The only thing to quarrel with in this account is his saying that such malice is in these spirits “naturally.” CHAPTER CIX

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  Considering the Cultic Mind-set People who are in cults often develop what appears to be an alternate personality or mind-set, which is the result of group influence. The cult member may mimic certain behavior consistent with the qualities or attributes the group or leaders value. However, this isn’t proof that a genuinely unique or different personality exists. It is rather a reflection of the undue influence of the group, which produces its preferred mind-set. Often a particular leader may serve as a model or prototype of the ideal person. Members of a group may try to emulate the leader’s perceived positive characteristics. This emulation might include certain verbiage, idiosyncratic expressions, and mannerisms. The cult member may behave oddly; this behavior might be confusing and perhaps unpleasant. But by recognizing that this affectation is the result of a group process rather than an independent individual choice, those who are concerned can put this behavior in its proper context. Understanding this can help the family and old friends of a cult member to be more tolerant and inform their responses. Keeping in mind that the cult member’s innate individual personality has only become obscured can enable family and friends to more easily avoid angry responses, unproductive emotional outbursts, and confrontations. For example, a cult member may be hypercritical, offer harsh judgments, or act negative or seemingly petty. Cult members in some groups may also seem insensitive or emotionally disconnected. These traits should most often be understood as the result of undue influence and not as an independent decision to deliberately hurt family and old friends. Knowledge about the group’s particular beliefs, demands, and practices in this context is very important. This awareness can provide the sensitivity necessary to avoid arguments and needless confrontation. For example, if cult members have a rigid diet, clothing requirements, or prohibitions against certain activities, such as watching television or reading newspapers, don’t do anything to offend them. Insensitivity toward such issues may stimulate unreasonable fears instilled by the group and might abruptly end a visit, conversation, or general communication. If at all possible, it is also important to develop some sensitivity to certain terms, phrases, or words a certain group or leader may teach. This is what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton has labeled “loaded language” or “thought-terminating clichés.”722 Certain words or references may be twisted and reinterpreted in some way to have special meaning or significance. For example, Scientologists often call those who are critical of Scientology “suppressive persons” (SPs). Amway frequently defines its critics as “dream stealers.” Learning this language is important. You can accomplish this by reading articles and books about the group or reviewing the group’s literature and materials. Be sensitive to the group vocabulary and the implications of its use. Conversation Whenever one converses with a cult member, it is very important to ask open-ended and thought-provoking questions without being accusatory or argumentative.

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

  The last literary antagonist of Christianity in our period is Hierocles, who, while governor of Bythynia, and afterwards of Alexandria under Diocletian, persecuted that religion also with the sword, and exposed Christian maidens to a worse fate than death. His "Truth-loving Words to the Christians" has been destroyed, like Porphyry’s work, by the mistaken zeal of Christian emperors, and is known to us only through the answer of Eusebius of Caesarea.88 He appears to have merely repeated the objections of Celsus and Porphyry, and to have drawn a comparison between Christ and Apollonius of Tyana, which resulted in favor of the latter. The Christians says he, consider Jesus a God, on account of some insignificant miracles falsely colored up by his apostles; but the heathens far more justly declare the greater wonder-worker Apollonius, as well as an Aristeas and a Pythagoras, simply a favorite of the gods and a benefactor of men. § 36. Summary of the Objections to Christianity. In general the leading arguments of the Judaism and heathenism of this period against the new religion are the following: 1. Against Christ: his illegitimate birth; his association with poor, unlettered fishermen, and rude publicans: his form of a servant, and his ignominious death. But the opposition to him gradually ceased. While Celsus called him a downright impostor, the Syncretists and Neo-Platonists were disposed to regard him as at least a distinguished sage. 2. Against Christianity: its novelty; its barbarian origin; its want of a national basis; the alleged absurdity of some of its facts and doctrines, particularly of regeneration and the resurrection; contradictions between the Old and New Testaments, among the Gospels, and between Paul and Peter; the demand for a blind, irrational faith. 3. Against the Christians: atheism, or hatred of the gods; the worship of a crucified malefactor; poverty, and want of culture and standing; desire of innovation; division and sectarianism; want of patriotism; gloomy seriousness; credulity; superstition, and fanaticism. Sometimes they were charged even with unnatural crimes, like those related in the pagan mythology of Oedipus and his mother Jocaste (concubitus Oedipodei), and of Thyestes and Atreus (epulae Thyesteae). Perhaps some Gnostic sects ran into scandalous excesses; but as against the Christians in general this charge was so clearly unfounded, that it is not noticed even by Celsus and Lucian. The senseless accusation, that they worshipped an ass’s head, may have arisen, as Tertullian already intimates,89 from a story of Tacitus, respecting some Jews, who were once directed by a wild ass to fresh water, and thus relieved from the torture of thirst; and it is worth mentioning, only to show how passionate and blind was the opposition with which Christianity in this period of persecution had to contend. § 37. The Apologetic Literature of Christianity. Comp. Lit. in § 1 and 12.

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

  More earnest and dignified, but for this very reason more lasting and dangerous, was the opposition which proceeded directly and indirectly from Neo-Platonism. This system presents the last phase, the evening red, so to speak, of the Grecian philosophy; a fruitless effort of dying heathenism to revive itself against the irresistible progress of Christianity in its freshness and vigor. It was a pantheistic eclecticism and a philosophico-religious syncretism, which sought to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy with Oriental religion and theosophy, polytheism with monotheism, superstition with culture, and to hold, as with convulsive grasp, the old popular religion in a refined and idealized form. Some scattered Christian ideas also were unconsciously let in; Christianity already filled the atmosphere of the age too much, to be wholly shut out. As might be expected, this compound of philosophy and religion was an extravagant, fantastic, heterogeneous affair, like its contemporary, Gnosticism, which differed from it by formally recognising Christianity in its syncretism. Most of the NeoPlatonists, Jamblichus in particular, were as much hierophants and theurgists as philosophers, devoted themselves to divination and magic, and boasted of divine inspirations and visions. Their literature is not an original, healthy natural product, but an abnormal after-growth. In a time of inward distraction and dissolution the human mind hunts up old and obsolete systems and notions, or resorts to magical and theurgic arts. Superstition follows on the heels of unbelief, and atheism often stands closely connected with the fear of ghosts and the worship of demons. The enlightened emperor Augustus was troubled, if he put on his left shoe first in the morning, instead of the right; and the accomplished elder Pliny wore amulets as protection from thunder and lightning. In their day the long-forgotten Pythagoreanism was conjured from the grave and idealized. Sorcerers like Simon Magus, Elymas, Alexander of Abonoteichos, and Apollonius of Tyana (d. A.D. 96), found great favor even with the higher classes, who laughed at the fables of the gods. Men turned wishfully to the past, especially to the mysterious East, the land of primitive wisdom and religion. The Syrian cultus was sought out; and all sorts of religions, all the sense and all the nonsense of antiquity found a rendezvous in Rome. Even a succession of Roman emperors, from Septimius Severus, at the close of the second century, to Alexander Severus, embraced this religious syncretism, which, instead of supporting the old Roman state religion, helped to undermine it.83

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

  The Reformers aimed to reform the old Church by the Bible; the Radicals attempted to build a new Church from the Bible. The former maintained the historic continuity; the latter went directly to the apostolic age, and ignored the intervening centuries as an apostasy. The Reformers founded a popular state-church, including all citizens with their families; the Anabaptists organized on the voluntary principle select congregations of baptized believers, separated from the world and from the State. Nothing is more characteristic of radicalism and sectarianism than an utter want of historical sense and respect for the past. In its extreme form it rejects even the Bible as an external authority, and relies on inward inspiration. This was the case with the Zwickau Prophets who threatened to break up Luther’s work at Wittenberg. The Radicals made use of the right of protest against the Reformation, which the Reformers so effectually exercised against popery. They raised a protest against Protestantism. They charged the Reformers with inconsistency and semipopery; yea, with the worst kind of popery. They denounced the state-church as worldly and corrupt, and its ministers as mercenaries. They were charged in turn with pharisaical pride, with revolutionary and socialistic tendencies. They were cruelly persecuted by imprisonment, exile, torture, fire and sword, and almost totally suppressed in Protestant as well as in Roman Catholic countries. The age was not ripe for unlimited religious liberty and congregational self-government. The Anabaptists perished bravely as martyrs of conscience.123