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 Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)

  We cannot be unmindful that without any design on our part the war has brought us new responsibilities and duties which we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has plainly written the high command and pledge of civilisation.” {66} When after a great deal of negotiation among the commissioners and much debate between imperialists and anti-imperialists in America it was finally decided to ask for all of the Philippines, Secretary Hay wrote to the commissioners: “You are instructed to insist on the cession of the whole of the Philippines....The questions of duty and humanity appeal to the President so strongly that he can find no appropriate answer but the one he has marked out.” {67} There were American citizens, of course, who saw through all of this hypocrisy. “Why,” declared Mr. Moorfield Storey, one of the great liberal spirits of that day, “should Cuba with 1,600,000 people have a right to freedom and self-government and the 8,000,000 people who dwell in the Philippines be denied the same right?” {68} But these critics were not strong enough to prevail against the will-to-power of a vigorous young nation. The instructions to the army, after Spain finally ceded the islands and the peace treaty was signed, complete the chapter in hypocrisy with an almost perfect touch of dishonesty: “It will be the duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner possible that we have come not as invaders or as conquerors but as friends.” {69} Later Mr. McKinley explained to a group of clergymen just how he arrived at his decision on American policy: “I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you gentlemen that I went on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night it came to me this way—that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilise and Christianise them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly.” {70} America has not been altogether disobedient to Mr. McKinley’s heavenly vision, for it has done a rather creditable job of education and sanitation in the islands. Nevertheless a modern observer of western imperialism in the orient, Nathaniel Peffer, gives a truer estimate than Mr. McKinley of the real motives of imperialism when he observes cynically: “Much might be said of their fitness for self-government, but why? What does it matter? The Filipinos will seize the government and proclaim themselves independent tomorrow if they had the power, And if and when they have the power, they will, whether fit for self-government or not.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Later that night, Harry Browne discovered simultaneous orgasm. Although it disproved his Libertarian theory of sex for his next book, it made him obsessed with me. He just couldn’t believe that I wanted him to leave after it, but I had to get up to study for my test. He started phoning me the next morning, wanting to see me that evening, and when I said no, he wanted to take me to the Hotel del Coronado the following weekend. I had no interest in ever seeing him again. I felt victorious for having disproved his Libertarian theory of sex but also chilled at how impersonal the experience had been for me. It bothered me that I’d wielded my acquired ease with seduction as a weapon, leaving him wounded and me indifferent. Anaïs was the only person I knew who would understand the cold satisfaction I’d felt, for it was what she had described in her character of Sabina. I needed to talk with Anaïs again, but first I’d have to get past Renate, her gatekeeper.

• From Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)

  The powers that be are ordained of God.” Even before the American Revolution class interest expressed itself in American politics, and the privileged class resisted revolutionary sentiment by appeals to law and order. Speaking of the American Tories, Parrington declares: “Compressed in a sentence it (Tory philosophy) was the expression of the will to power. Its motive was economic class interest and its object the exploitation of society through the instrumentality of the state. Stated thus, the philosophy does not appear to advantage; it lays itself open to unpleasant criticism by those who are not its beneficiaries. In consequence much ingenuity in tailoring was necessary to provide it with garments to cover its nakedness. Embroidered with patriotism, loyalty, law and order, it made a very respectable appearance and when it put on the stately robes of the British constitution it was enormously impressive.” {95} Jonathan Boucher, one of the most prominent of the Tories, priest of the Anglican church, presents us witness a veritable mine of Tory hypocrisy in his various writings. “Obedience to government is every man’s duty as it is every man’s interest; but it is particularly incumbent upon Christians because it is enjoined by the positive commands of God.” Or again, “To respect the laws is to respect liberty in the only rational sense in which the term can be used; for liberty consists in subservience to law.” In speaking of the workers he added to the dishonesty of ascribing their discontent to their lack of virtue, to the hypocrisy of identifying law and liberty: “and the laboring classes, instead of regarding the rich as their guardians, patrons and benefactors, now look upon them as so many overgrown colossuses whom it is no demerit in them to wrong. A still more general topic of complaint is that the lower classes, instead of being industrious, frugal and orderly (virtues so peculiarly becoming to their station in life), are becoming idle, improvident and dissolute.” {96} If we turn to a later period of American history, the period in which the farmers of the west revolted against the exploitation of the government by the eastern commercial classes, finding their creed in populism and their champion in Bryan, we discover as intelligent and as liberal an observer of political life as Godkin, founder and editor of The Nation, turning vehemently against the disaffected agrarians and accusing them of anarchy. His critical attitude toward the nefarious political practices of the apostles of the gilded age did not help him to understand the revolt of the farmers as a legitimate protest against injustice.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It doesn’t worry them in the least that they appear so fat and bloated, that a bright red glow suffuses their cheeks, that their clothes are smooth as velvet, and that in all their dealings they are so effeminate; yet they are anything but dovelike, for they strut about like so many proud peacocks with all their feathers on display. Furthermore, their cells are stuffed with jars filled with unguents and electuaries, with boxes full of various sweetmeats, with phials and bottles containing oils and liquid essences, and with casks brimming over with Malmsey and Greek and other precious wines, so that to any impartial observer they look more like scent shops or grocery stores than the cells of friars. But what is worse, they are not ashamed to admit that they suffer from gout, as though it were not widely known and recognized that regular fasting, a meagre and simple diet, and a sober way of life make people lean and slender, and for the most part healthy. Or at least, if they produce infirmity, this does not take the form of gout, for which the remedy usually prescribed is continence and all the other features of a humble friar’s existence. Moreover, they think we are too stupid to realize that a frugal life, lengthy vigils, prayer and self-restraint ought to give to people a pale and drawn appearance, and that neither Saint Dominic nor Saint Francis had four cloaks apiece, or swaggered about in habits that were elegantly tailored and finely woven, but clad themselves in coarse woollen garments of a natural colour, made to keep out the cold. However, God will doubtless see that they, and the simple souls who keep them supplied with all these things, receive their just deserts. As I was saying, then, Friar Rinaldo was filled once more with all his earlier cravings, and began to pay regular visits to the mother of his godchild. And having become more self-confident, he entreated her to grant his wishes with greater persistence than ever. One day, Friar Rinaldo importuned her so repeatedly that the good lady, finding herself under so much pressure and thinking him more handsome, perhaps, than he had seemed to her in the past, resorted to the expedient that all women fall back upon when they are itching to concede what is being asked of them, and said: ‘Come now, Friar Rinaldo! Do you mean to say that friars indulge in that sort of thing?’ ‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘from the moment I am rid of this habit, which I can slip off with the greatest of ease, I shall no longer seem a friar to you, but a man who is made no differently from the rest.’ The lady puckered her lips in a smile, and said: ‘Heaven help me, you are my child’s godfather; how could you suggest such a thing?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  SIXTH STORY With a clever remark, an honest man exposes the wicked hypocrisy of the religious . All the ladies applauded the courage of the Marchioness and the cloquent rebuff she had given to the King of France. Then in deference to the wishes of the queen, Emilia, who was seated next to Fiammetta, started boldly to speak: I likewise will describe a stinging rebuke, but one which was administered by an honest layman to a grasping friar, with a gibe no less amusing than it was laudable. Not long ago then, dear young ladies, there was in our city a Franciscan, an inquisitor 1 on the look-out for filthy heretics, who whilst trying very hard, as they all do, to preserve an appearance of saintly and tender devotion to the Christian faith, was no less expert at tracking down people with bulging purses than at seeking out those whom he deemed to be lacking in faith. His diligence chanced to put him on the trail of a certain law-abiding citizen, endowed with far more money than common sense, who one day, not from any lack of faith but simply in the course of an innocent conversation with his friends, came out with the remark that he had a wine of such a quality that Christ himself would have drunk it. The worthy soul had been drinking too much perhaps, or possibly he was over-excited, but unfortunately his words were reported to the inquisitor, who on hearing that the man had large estates and a tidy sum of money, hastily proceeded cum gtadiis et fustibus 2 to draw up serious charges against him. This, he thought, would have the effect, not so much of lessening his victim’s impiety, as of lining his own pockets with florins, which was what in fact happened. Having issued a summons, he asked the man whether the charges against him were correct. The good man admitted that they were, and explained the circumstances, whereupon this devout and venerable inquisitor of Saint John Golden-Mouth 3 said: ‘So you turned Christ into a drinker, did you, and a connoisseur of choice wines, as if he were some tosspot or drunken tavern-crawler like one of yourselves? And now you eat humble-pie, and try to pass the whole thing off as something very trifling. But that is where you are mistaken. The fire is what you deserve when we come to take action against you, as indeed we must.’ The friar addressed these words to him, and a great many more, with a menacing look all over his features, as though the fellow were an Epicurean 4 denying the immortality of the soul.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As all of you will doubtless have heard, the chief magistrates of our city very often come from the Marches,1 and tend as a rule to be mean-hearted men, who lead such a frugal and beggarly sort of life that anyone would think they hadn’t a penny to bless themselves with. And because of their inborn miserliness and avarice, they bring with them judges and notaries who seem to have been brought up behind a plough or recruited from a cobbler’s shop rather than from any of the schools of law. Now, one of these March-men came here once to take up his appointment as podestà, and among the numerous judges he brought with him, there was one called Messer Niccola da San Lepidio, who looked more like a coppersmith than anything else, and he was assigned to the panel of judges that tried criminal cases. Now it frequently happens that people go to the law-courts who have no business to be there at all, and this was the case with Maso del Saggio, who had gone there one morning to look for a friend. His gaze being attracted to the place where this Messer Niccola was sitting, he was struck by the man’s curious and witless appearance, and began to scrutinize him carefully. And amongst the many strange features that he noted, unbecoming in any person of tidy habits and gentle breeding, he saw that die fur of his judge’s cap was thick with grime, that he had a quill-case dangling from his waist, and that his gown was longer than his robe. But the most remarkable thing of all, to Maso’s way of thinking, was a pair of breeches, the crotch of which, when the judge was sitting down and his clothes gaped open in front owing to their skimpiness, appeared to come halfway down his legs. Having seen all he wanted to see of the judge’s breeches, he abandoned the search for his friend and set off on a different quest, this time for two companions of his called Ribi and Matteuzzo, who were no less high-spirited than Maso himself. And when he had tracked them down, he said to them: ‘If my friendship means anything to you, come along with me to the law-courts, and I’ll show you the most priceless booby you ever saw.’ So off he went with Ribi and Matteuzzo to the law-courts, where he showed them the judge and his breeches. Viewing this spectacle from the back of the court, they began to laugh, and on coming closer to the platform on which Master Judge was seated, they saw that it would be very easy for a person to conceal himself underneath it. Moreover the plank on which the judge’s feet were resting had a large hole in it, through which a hand and an arm could be thrust with the greatest of ease. Maso therefore turned to his companions, and said:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The sun is becoming unbearably hot, and just as I suffered from the intense cold during the night, so now does the heat begin to distress me exceedingly.’ ‘Madam,’ replied the scholar, who was only too delighted to converse with her, ‘it was not because you loved me that you took me into your confidence, but to recover the love that you had lost, and hence you deserve to be treated even more harshly. Moreover you are out of your mind if you suppose that this was the only way I had of obtaining the revenge that I coveted. I had a thousand others, and I had placed a thousand snares around your feet whilst pretending to love you, so that even if this one had failed, you would inevitably have stumbled into another before very long. True, you could not have chosen to fall into a trap which would bring you greater shame and suffering than this, but then I laid it in this way, not in order to spare your pain, but to enhance my pleasure. And even supposing that all my little schemes had failed, I should still have had my pen, with which I should have lampooned you so mercilessly, and with so much eloquence, that when my writings came to your notice (as they certainly would), you would have wished, a thousand times a day, that you had never been born. ‘The power of the pen is far greater than those people suppose who have not proved it by experience. I swear to God (and may He grant that my revenge will continue to be as sweet from now until its end as it has been in its beginning), that you yourself, to say nothing of others, would have been so mortified by the things I had written that you would have put out your eyes rather than look upon yourself ever again. It’s no use reproaching the sea for having grown from a tiny stream. ‘As for your love, or that you should belong to me, these are matters towards which, as I said before, I am utterly indifferent. Go on belonging, if you can, to the man you belonged to before, whom I now love as much as I formerly hated, considering the pretty pass to which you have been brought on his account. You women are always falling in love with younger men, and yearning for them to love you in return, because of their fresher complexions and darker beards, their jaunty gait, their dancing and their jousting; but when a man is properly mature, he has put such matters as these behind him, and knows a thing or two that these young fellows have yet to learn. ‘Moreover, because a young man will cover more miles in a single day, he seems to you a better rider.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  NINTH STORY Being eager to ‘go the course’ with a company of revellers, Master Simone, a physician, is prevailed upon by Bruno and Buffalmacco to proceed by night to a certain spot, where he is thrown by Buffalmacco into a ditch and left to wallow in its filth. When the ladies had quite finished commenting upon the two Sienese and their wife-sharing, the queen, who short of offending Dioneo was the only one left to address them, began as follows: When you consider, fond ladies, how richly Spinelloccio deserved the trick played upon him by Zeppa, you will I think agree with what Pampinea was saying earlier, when she tried to show that one should not judge a person too harshly for playing a trick on another, if the victim is being hoist with his own petard, or if he is simply asking to be made a fool of. The case of Spinelloccio belongs to the first of these categories, and I now propose to tell you of a man who belonged to the second, for I consider that those who played the trick upon him are worthy rather of praise than of blame. The man to whom I refer was a physician, who came to Florence from Bologna, like the ass that he was, covered in vair 1 from head to tail. We are constantly seeing fellow-citizens of ours returning from Bologna as judges or physicians or lawyers, tricked out in long flowing robes of scarlet and vair, looking very grand and impressive, but failing to live up to their splendid appearance. Master Simone da Villa was a man of this sort, for his patrimony was far more substantial than his learning, and when, a few years ago, he came to Florence dressed in scarlet robes with a fine-looking hood, and calling himself a doctor of medicine, he set up house in the street we now call Via del Cocomero. 2 Being, as we have said, newly arrived in Florence, this Master Simone made it a practice, among his other eccentricities, to ask whoever he happened to be with at the time about all the people he saw passing down the street; and he duly noted and remembered everything he was told about them, as though this information was essential in prescribing the right medicine for his patients. Among the people who aroused his greatest curiosity were the two painters already mentioned twice here today, 3 Bruno and Buffalmacco, who were neighbours of his and never out of one another’s company. Since they seemed to him the jolliest and most carefree fellows in the world, as was indeed the case, he made various inquiries about their social condition, and everyone told him that these two men were painters, who hadn’t a penny to bless themselves with.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Having thus cemented his love for the lady by means of these verbal protestations, Salabaetto began once more to play the gallant with her, whilst for her part she entertained and solaced him for all she was worth, pretending to love him to the point of distraction. However, Salabaetto was determined that his own duplicity should punish hers, and one evening, having received an invitation from her earlier in the day to sup and spend the night with her, he turned up at her house looking so distraught and miserable that it seemed he was about to die at any moment. Jancofiore, hugging and kissing him, began to question him about the reasons for his sadness, and after allowing her to wheedle him for a while, he replied: ‘I am utterly ruined, for the ship carrying the goods I was expecting has been seized by Monegasque pirates.6 They are demanding a ransom of ten thousand gold florins, of which I have to pay a thousand, and I haven’t a penny to my name, because as soon as you paid me back those five hundred florins, I sent them to Naples to be invested in a consignment of linen which is now on its way to Palermo. If I were to sell the goods I have in store here at the moment, I should lose half their true value, because it’s the wrong time to sell. On the other hand, I can’t find anyone here to lend me the money, because I am still not well enough known in the city. Hence I have no idea what to do or what to say; if I don’t send the money soon, my merchandise will be shipped to Monaco and I shall never see it again.’ These tidings were highly irritating to the lady, for it seemed she was about to lose everything; but perceiving what she must do to prevent the goods going to Monaco, she said: ‘God knows I love you so dearly that I am very sorry to hear of your misfortune. But what’s the use of becoming so upset about it? If I had the money to lend you, God knows that I should let you have it here and now, but I haven’t got it. It’s true that I know of someone who might help – the person who lent me the remaining five hundred florins I needed the other month – but he charges a high rate of interest. You’d have to pay him at least thirty per cent if you were to borrow the money from him, and he would want something substantial by way of security. Now I personally would be prepared for your sake to offer him all I possess, myself included, as security for whatever sum he will lend, but how are you going to guarantee the rest of the loan?’

• From Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)

  In a message to Congress before the outbreak of hostilities, he declared: “If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilisation and humanity to intervene with force it shall be done without fault on our part and only because the necessity for such action will be so clear as to command the support and the approval of the civilised world.” He added: “I speak not of forcible annexation for that cannot be thought of. That by our code of morals would be criminal aggression.” {63} When the amiable President was finally pushed into the war by our passionate patriots, though Spain yielded to all of our demands, he answered a “pressing appeal to the feelings of humanity and moderation in the President and people of the United States” from the powers of Europe which sought to avert war by conciliation, by expressing the hope “that equal appreciation will be shown for our own earnest efforts and unselfish endeavors to fulfill a duty to humanity by ending a situation, the indefinite prolongation of which has become insufferable.” {64} The war was launched on a wave of patriotic sentimentality in which both the religious idealists and the humanitarians went into ecstasies over our heroic defense of the Cuban people, forgetting that many American statesmen, beginning with the anti-imperialist Thomas Jefferson, had regarded the Spanish hold upon so proximate an island as Cuba as ultimately untenable. The actual annexation of Cuba was prevented only by the fact that the Teller Amendment, disavowing such an aim, was slipped unobserved into the Senate resolution which authorised hostilities. {65} Since no promises were made in regard to the Philippines, the hypocrisy of a nation could express itself most unrestrainedly in the policies dealing with them. Though the little junta, of which Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Lodge were the leaders, had carefully planned the campaign of war so that the Philippines would become ours, the fiction that the fortunes of war had made us the unwilling recipients and custodians of the Philippine Islands was quickly fabricated and exists to this day. We decided to keep the Philippines against their will at the conclusion of a war ostensibly begun to free the Cubans. The President charged the peace commission which was to negotiate the peace treaty with Spain that it “should be as scrupulous and magnanimous in the concluding settlement as the nation had been just and humane in the original action.” Since we constantly increased our demands during the session of the peace conference, the Spaniards must have gained a curious impression of the meaning of magnanimity. In regard to the Philippines the President charged the commissioners: “The march of events rules and overrules human action.

• From Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (1932)

  Experience had taught him that there are limits to the policy of “liquidating” the foes of the new order. No community, whether class or nation, can build a society by destroying everything outside itself. It must finally yield to the complexities of society and hope to win its foes to co-operation rather than to destroy them, or to trust that force will coerce a doubtful allegiance. The patriots and nationalists who condemn the exaltation of class as immoral merely because it is in conflict with national loyalties do not present a serious moral problem. Their condemnations rest upon prejudices and traditional sentiments rather than upon reason. For there is nothing inherently more sacrosanct about a territorial than a functional community; nor are the claims of the nation, that it embodies values which transcend its own interests, any better than those of a class which dreams of an ideal commonwealth. The rational legitimacy of the claims of the proletarian class does not, of course, guarantee the complete victory over the nation which it expects. Wherever the nation does not totally disinherit its proletarians, they tend to qualify their class loyalty with a measure of national loyalty and to interpret their mission as one of national regeneration. They see themselves as a redemptive community within the nation, rather than as a community standing outside of the nation; and they call upon all those who understand the peril in which the national community stands, to make common cause with them, irrespective of class. This has been the trend particularly in British socialism. {117} Whether this type of socialism sacrifices too much to the national feeling and sacrifices it too prematurely is a question which we must consider later. The moral cynicism of the worker, which expresses itself in discounting all moral pretensions of bourgeois culture and politics and in disavowing the means of moral suasion, or even political pressure, as adequate for the creation of a new society, is paradoxically relieved by the uncompromising character of his socio-ethical ideal. The proletarian is a rigorous equalitarian. The victory of his class is to usher in a classless society. If his equalitarianism is too absolute to meet the needs of a complex society and the weaknesses of human nature, it has at least the merit of offering a wholesome and necessary antidote to all the specious justifications of inequality, in which the history of human thought abounds, and of projecting a social goal which must always be regarded as the ultimate rational ideal of society.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Friar Cipolla had a servant, variously known as Guccio Balena, or Guccio Imbratta, or Guccio Porco, 7 who was such a coarse fellow that he could have given lessons in vulgarity to Lippo Topo 8 himself, and whom Friar Cipolla frequently used to make fun of in conversation with his cronies, saying: ‘My servant has nine failings, any one of which, had it been found in Solomon or Aristotle or Seneca, would have sufficed to vitiate all the ingenuity, all the wisdom, and all the saintliness they ever possessed. So you can imagine what this fellow must be like, considering that he hasn’t a scrap of ingenuity, wisdom or saintliness, and possesses all nine.’ Friar Cipolla had put these nine failings into rhyme, so that whenever he was asked what they were, he replied: ‘I’ll tell you: he’s untruthful, distasteful and slothful; negligent, disobedient, and truculent; careless, witless and graceless. Apart from this, he has one or two other little foibles, that are best passed over in silence. But the funniest thing about him is that wherever he goes, he’s always wanting to find himself a wife and rent a house; and because he has a big, black, greasy beard, he thinks he’s very handsome and seductive, and that every woman he meets is desperately in love with him; and if he were left to his own devices, he’d be so busy chasing the girls that he could lose his breeches and be none the wiser. All the same I must confess that he’s a great help to me, because he won’t allow me to be burdened with anybody’s secrets, but always insists on sharing them with me; and if anyone asks me a question, he’s so afraid I won’t be able to answer that he does it for me, putting in a quick “yes” or a quick “no” as the occasion appears to merit.’ This, then, was the man Friar Cipolla had left behind at the inn, with strict instructions not to allow anyone to touch his belongings, in particular his saddlebags, which contained his sacred bits and pieces. But no nightingale was ever as happy on the branch of a tree as Guccio Imbratta in the kitchen of an inn, especially if there happened to be a serving- wench in the offing. And having caught a glimpse of a stocky little kitchen-maid, who was plump and coarse and bowlegged, with a pair of paps like a couple of dung-baskets and a face like a Baronci, her skin plastered in sweat, grease and soot, he left Friar Cipolla’s things to take care of themselves, and, like a vulture descending on carrion, down he swooped.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  When Clement attacks ascetic interpretations of Paul’s message, he finds in the deutero-Pauline letters all the ammunition he needs. For example, “to those who slander marriage,” he replies by quoting the antiascetic Paul of 1 Timothy.50 But when he confronts the authentic letters, Clement finds his task much harder. Insisting, however, that the same man wrote both groups of letters, Clement skillfully interweaves passages from the authentic and the deutero-Pauline letters. Thus Clement, and the majority of Christians ever since, can claim that Paul endorses both marriage and celibacy: In general, all the letters of the apostle teach self-control and continence, and contain numerous instructions about marriage, begetting children, and domestic life, but they nowhere exclude self-controlled marriage.51 Clement rejects, above all, the claim that Adam and Eve’s sin was to engage in sexual intercourse—a view common among such Christian teachers as Tatian the Syrian, who taught that the fruit of the tree of knowledge conveyed carnal knowledge. Tatian had pointed out that after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they became sexually aware: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). Other interpreters agreed that the accuracy of this interpretation is proved in Genesis 4:1, where the Hebrew verb “to know” (‘yada) connotes sexual intercourse: “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived, and bore a son.” Tatian blamed Adam for inventing marriage, believing that for this sin God expelled Adam and his partner in crime from Paradise.52 The distinguished ascetic Julius Cassianus instead blamed Satan, not Adam, for inventing sexual intercourse. According to Cassianus, Satan “borrowed this practice from the irrational animals, and persuaded Adam to have sexual union with Eve.”53 But Clement denounces all such views. Sexual intercourse, he declares, was not sinful, but part of God’s original—and “good”—creation: “Nature led [Adam and Eve], like the irrational animals, to procreate”;54 “and,” Clement might well have added, “when I say nature, I mean God.” Clement says that those who engage in procreation are not sinning but “cooperating with God in his work of creation.”55 Thus Clement confirms the traditional Jewish conviction, expressed in the deutero-Pauline letters, that legitimate procreation is a good work, blessed by God from the day of human creation.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘He ascertained which road he should take, but since nobody else appeared to be going there, he was afraid that he might be unlucky enough to lose his way, and arrive at some spot where a meal would not be so easy to come by. So in order to be on the safe side, he decided, by way of insuring himself against total lack of sustenance, to take along three loaves, reflecting at the same time that he would always be able to find water to drink, although this commodity was not much to his taste. And so he set out, with the loaves stuffed inside his tunic, and made such excellent progress that he arrived before breakfast at the place where the Abbot was living. Once inside, he took a good look round, and saw that a great number of tables had been set, the kitchen was a hive of activity, and various other dining arrangements had been put in hand, whereupon he thought to himself: “This man is truly as excellent as people say.” He spent a little more time surveying the scene, and then, since the meal was now ready, the Abbot’s steward ordered in the water for them to wash their hands, after which he seated them all at table. By a pure coincidence, the place where Primas was seated happened to be directly opposite the door of the room from which the Abbot would emerge as he came into the hall to dine. ‘It was a custom of the house that neither wine nor bread nor any other food or drink was ever placed on the tables till the Abbot came and occupied his seat. So when the steward had got everybody settled, he sent word to the Abbot that the meal was ready and they were awaiting his pleasure. ‘The Abbot ordered a servant to open the door of his room so that he could proceed into the hall, but as he was on his way in, he looked straight ahead, and the first man he happened to catch sight of was Primas, who was very scruffily dressed and unknown to him by sight. No sooner did the Abbot see him, than a malicious thought suddenly crossed his mind, of a sort he had never entertained before, and he said to himself: “Why should I give my hospitality to the likes of this fellow?” And turning on his heel, he ordered the door of his room to be shut, and asked his attendants whether any of them knew the identity of the uncouth fellow who was seated at table opposite the door of his room. But nobody knew who he was. ‘Primas had worked up an appetite from his walk and was not in the habit of going without food, so after waiting for a while and seeing no sign of the Abbot’s return, he took out one of the three loaves he had brought with him, and started to eat.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On the other hand, he would make a point of visiting taverns and other places of ill repute, and supplying them with his custom. Of women he was as fond as dogs are fond of a good stout stick; in their opposite, he took greater pleasure than the most depraved man on earth. He would rob and pilfer as conscientiously as if he were a saintly man making an offering. He was such a prize glutton and heavy drinker, that he would occasionally suffer for his over-indulgence in a manner that was most unseemly. He was a gambler and a card-sharper of the first order. But why do I lavish so many words upon him? He was perhaps the worst man ever born. Yet for all his villainy, he had long been protected by the power and influence of Messer Musciatto, on whose account he was many a time treated with respect, both by private individuals, whom he frequently abused, and by the courts of law, which he was forever abusing. So that when Musciatto, who was well acquainted with his way of living, called this Ser Ciappelletto to mind, he judged him to be the very man that the perverseness of the Burgundians required. He therefore sent for him and addressed him as follows: ‘Ser Ciappelletto, as you know, I am about to go away from here altogether, but I have some business to settle, amongst others with the Burgundians. These people are full of tricks, and I know of no one better fitted than yourself to recover what they owe me. And so, since you are not otherwise engaged at present, if you will attend to this matter I propose to obtain favours for you at court, and allow you a reasonable portion of the money you recover.’ Ser Ciappelletto, who was out of a job at the time and illsupplied with worldly goods, seeing that the man who had long been his prop and stay was about to depart, made up his mind without delay and said (for he really had no alternative) that he would do it willingly. So that when they had agreed on terms, Ser Ciappelletto received powers of attorney from Musciatto and letters of introduction from the King, and after Musciatto’s departure he went to Burgundy, where scarcely anybody knew him. And there, in a gentle and amiable fashion that ran contrary to his nature, as though he were holding his anger in reserve as a last resort, he issued his first demands and began to do what he had gone there to do. Before long, however, while lodging in the house of two Florentine brothers who ran a money-lending business there and did him great honour out of their respect for Musciatto, he happened to fall ill; whereupon the two brothers promptly summoned doctors and servants to attend him, and provided him with everything he needed to recover his health.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I shall see that he gets it, of course, but first I should like to make sure that it is all here.’ Whereupon she emptied the florins out on to a table, and on finding, to her great satisfaction, that they came to exactly two hundred, she put them away in a safe place. She then went back to Gulfardo and conveyed him to her bedroom, where, not only on that occasion but on many others before her husband’s return from Genoa, she placed her person freely at his disposal. No sooner did Guasparruolo return from Genoa than Gulfardo, having made certain that his wife would be with him, called upon him with his companion, and said to him in the lady’s presence: ‘Guasparruolo, those two hundred gold florins you lent me the other day were not needed after all, as I was unable to complete the transaction. So I brought them straight back and handed them over to your wife. Do remember to cancel my debt, won’t you?’ Turning to his wife, Guasparruolo asked her whether she had received the money, and since she could hardly deny the fact when the witness was staring her in the face, she said: ‘Yes, I did indeed receive the money, but forgot to tell you about it.’ ‘That settles it, then. Don’t worry, Gulfardo, I shall make quite sure that it’s entered up in the books.’ Having made a fool of the lady, Gulfardo took his leave, and she gave her husband the ill-gotten proceeds of her depravity; and thus the sagacious lover had enjoyed the favours of his rapacious lady free of charge. SECOND STORYThe priest of Varlungo goes to bed with Monna Belcolore, leaving her his cloak by way of payment; then, having borrowed a mortar from her, he sends it back and asks her to return the cloak which he had left with her as a pledge. The good woman hands it over, and gives him a piece of her mind. The gentlemen and ladies alike were still applauding Gulfardo’s treatment of the covetous Milanese lady when the queen turned, smiling, to Panfilo, and enjoined him to follow; so Panfilo began:

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

  In 1479, Wesel was arraigned for heresy before the Inquisition at Mainz.1169 Among the charges were that the Scriptures are alone a trustworthy source of authority; the names of the predestinate are written in the book of life and cannot be erased by a priestly ban; indulgences do not profit; Christ is not pleased with festivals of fasting, pilgrimages or priestly celibacy; Christ’s body can be in the bread without any change of the bread’s substance: pope and councils are not to be obeyed if they are out of accord with the Scriptures; he whom God chooses will be saved irrespective of pope and priests, and all who have faith will enjoy as much blessedness as prelates. Wesel also made the distinction between the visible and the invisible Church and defined the Church as the aggregation of all the faithful who are bound together by love—collectio omnium fidelium caritate copulatorum. In his trial, he was accused of having had communication with the Hussites. In matters of historical criticism, he was also in advance of his age, casting doubt upon some of the statements of the Athanasian Creed, abandoning the application of the term Catholic to the Apostles’ Creed and pronouncing the addition of the filioque clause—and from the Son—unwarranted. The doctrines of indulgences and the fund of merit he pronounced unscriptural and pious frauds. The elect are saved wholly through the grace of God—sola Dei gratia salvantur electi. At the request of Diether of Isenburg, archbishop of Mainz, the Universities of Cologne and Heidelberg sent delegates to the trial. The accused was already an old man, leaning on his staff, when he appeared before the tribunal. Lacking strength to stand by the heretical articles, he agreed to submit "to mother Church and the teachings of the doctors." A public recantation in the cathedral followed, and his books were burnt.1170 These punishments were not sufficient to expiate his offence and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Augustinian convent of Mainz, where he died. Among Wesel’s reported sayings, which must have seemed most blasphemous to the devout churchman of the time, are the following: "The consecrated oil is not better than the oil used for your cakes in the kitchen." "If you are hungry, eat. You may eat a good capon on Friday." "If Peter established fasting, it was in order that he might get more for his fish" on fast days. To certain monastics, he said, "Not religion" (that is, monastic vows) "but God’s grace saves," religio nullum salvat sed gratia Dei.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It doesn’t worry them in the least that they appear so fat and bloated, that a bright red glow suffuses their cheeks, that their clothes are smooth as velvet, and that in all their dealings they are so effeminate; yet they are anything but dovelike, for they strut about like so many proud peacocks with all their feathers on display. Furthermore, their cells are stuffed with jars filled with unguents and electuaries, with boxes full of various sweetmeats, with phials and bottles containing oils and liquid essences, and with casks brimming over with Malmsey and Greek and other precious wines, so that to any impartial observer they look more like scent shops or grocery stores than the cells of friars. But what is worse, they are not ashamed to admit that they suffer from gout, as though it were not widely known and recognized that regular fasting, a meagre and simple diet, and a sober way of life make people lean and slender, and for the most part healthy. Or at least, if they produce infirmity, this does not take the form of gout, for which the remedy usually prescribed is continence and all the other features of a humble friar’s existence. Moreover, they think we are too stupid to realize that a frugal life, lengthy vigils, prayer and self-restraint ought to give to people a pale and drawn appearance, and that neither Saint Dominic nor Saint Francis had four cloaks apiece, or swaggered about in habits that were elegantly tailored and finely woven, but clad themselves in coarse woollen garments of a natural colour, made to keep out the cold. However, God will doubtless see that they, and the simple souls who keep them supplied with all these things, receive their just deserts. As I was saying, then, Friar Rinaldo was filled once more with all his earlier cravings, and began to pay regular visits to the mother of his godchild. And having become more self-confident, he entreated her to grant his wishes with greater persistence than ever. One day, Friar Rinaldo importuned her so repeatedly that the good lady, finding herself under so much pressure and thinking him more handsome, perhaps, than he had seemed to her in the past, resorted to the expedient that all women fall back upon when they are itching to concede what is being asked of them, and said: ‘Come now, Friar Rinaldo! Do you mean to say that friars indulge in that sort of thing?’ ‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘from the moment I am rid of this habit, which I can slip off with the greatest of ease, I shall no longer seem a friar to you, but a man who is made no differently from the rest.’ The lady puckered her lips in a smile, and said: ‘Heaven help me, you are my child’s godfather; how could you suggest such a thing?

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

  The custom of reserving the higher offices of the Church for the aristocracy was widely sanctioned by law. As early as 1281 in Worms and 1294 in Osnabruck, no one could be dean who was not of noble lineage. The office of bishop and prebend stalls were limited to men of noble birth by Basel, 1474, Augsburg, 1475, Münster and Paderborn, 1480, and Osnabruck, 1517. The same rule prevailed in Mainz, Halberstadt, Meissen, Merseburg and other dioceses. At the beginning of the 16th century, it was the established custom in Germany that no one should be admitted to a cathedral chapter who could not show 16 ancestors who had joined in the tournament and, as early as 1474, the condition of admission to the chapter of Cologne was that the candidate should show 32 members of his family of noble birth. Of the 228 bishops who successively occupied the 32 German sees from 1400–1517, all but 13 were noblemen. The eight occupants of the see of Münster, 1424–1508, were all counts or dukes. So it was with 10 archbishops of Mainz, 1419–1514, the 7 bishops of Halberstadt, 1407–1513, and the 5 archbishops of Cologne, 1414–1515.1136 This custom of keeping the high places for men of noble birth was smartly condemned by Geiler of Strassburg and other contemporaries. Geiler declared that Germany was soaked with the folly that to the bishoprics, not the more pious and learned should be promoted but only those who, "as they say, belong to good families." It remained for the Protestant Reformation to reassert the democratic character of the ministry. A high standard could not be expected of the lower ranks of the clergy where the incumbents of the high positions held them, not by reason of piety or intellectual attainments but as the prize of birth and favoritism. The wonder is, that there was any genuine devotion left among the lower priesthood. Its ranks were greatly overstocked. Every family with several sons expected to find a clerical position for one of them and often the member of the family, least fitted by physical qualifications to make his way in the world, was set apart for religion. Here again Geiler of Strassburg applied his lash of indignation, declaring that, as people set apart for St. Velten the chicken that had the pox and for St. Anthony the pig that was affected with disease, so they devoted the least likely of their children to the holy office. The German village clergy of the period were as a rule not university bred. The chronicler, Felix Faber of Ulm, in 1490 declared that out of 1000 priests scarcely one had ever seen a university town and a baccalaureate or master was a rarity seldom met with. With a sigh, people of that age spoke of the well-equipped priest of, the good old times."

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

  But the toleration of the Independents, especially after they obtained the ascendancy under Cromwell’s protectorate differed very little from that of the Presbyterians. They were spoiled by success.99 They excluded from their program Popery, Prelacy, and Socinianism. Dr. Owen, their most distinguished divine, who preached by command a sermon before Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I., entitled "Righteous Zeal encouraged by Divine Protection" (Jer. 15:19, 20), and accepted the appointment as Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University at Oxford, laid down no less than sixteen fundamentals as conditions of toleration.100 He and Dr. Goodwin served on the Commission of the forty-three Triers which, under Cromwell’s protectorate, took the place of the Westminster Assembly. Cromwell himself, though the most liberal among the English rulers and the boldest protector of Protestantism abroad, limited toleration to Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, all of whom recognized the sacred Scriptures and the fundamental articles of Christianity; but he had no toleration for Romanists and Episcopal Royalists, who endangered his reign and who were suspected of tolerating none but themselves. His great foreign secretary, John Milton, the most eloquent advocate of liberty in the English language, defended the execution of the king, and was intolerant to popery and prelacy. Had Cromwell reigned longer, the Triers and the Savoy Conference which he reluctantly appointed, would probably have repeated the vain attempt of the Westminster Assembly to impose a uniform creed upon the nation, only with a little more liberal "accommodation" for orthodox dissenters except "papists" and "prelatists"). Their brethren in New England where they had full sway, established a Congregational theocracy which had no room even for Baptists and Quakers. 7. Cromwell’s reign was a brief experiment. His son was incompetent to continue it. Puritanism had not won the heart of England, but prepared its own tomb by its excesses and blunders. Royalty and Episcopacy, which struck their roots deep in the past, were restored with the powerful aid of the Presbyterians. And now followed a reaction in favor of political and ecclesiastical despotism, and public and private immorality, which for a time ruined all the good which Puritanism had done.