Contempt

Passages

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

Page 245 of 253 · 20 per page

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

  Band I. Heft. 1 and 2 (1882), and Schwartz in his ed. (1888). On Tatian see § 131, p. 493–496. Tatian of Assyria (110–172) was a pupil of Justin Martyr whom he calls a most admirable man ( ), and like him an itinerant Christian philosopher; but unlike him he seems to have afterwards wandered to the borders of heretical Gnosticism, or at least to an extreme type of asceticism. He is charged with having condemned marriage as a corruption and denied that Adam was saved, because Paul says: "We all die in Adam." He was an independent, vigorous and earnest man, but restless, austere, and sarcastic.1359 In both respects he somewhat resembles Tertullian. Before his conversion he had studied mythology, history, poetry, and chronology, attended the theatre and athletic games, became disgusted with the world, and was led by the Hebrew Scriptures to the Christian faith.1360 We have from him an apologetic work addressed To the Greeks.1361 It was written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, probably in Rome, and shows no traces of heresy. He vindicates Christianity as the "philosophy of the barbarians," and exposes the contradictions, absurdities, and immoralities of the Greek mythology from actual knowledge and with much spirit and acuteness but with vehement contempt and bitterness. He proves that Moses and the prophets were older and wiser than the Greek philosophers, and gives much information on the antiquity of the Jews. Eusebius calls this "the best and most useful of his writings," and gives many extracts in his Praeparatio Evangelica. The following specimens show his power of ridicule and his radical antagonism to Greek mythology and philosophy: Ch. 21.—Doctrines of the Christians and Greeks respecting God compared. We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man. (ejn ). I call on you who reproach us to compare your mythical accounts with our narrations. Athene, as they say, took the form of Deiphobus for the sake of Hector, and the unshorn Phoebus for the sake of Admetus fed the trailing-footed oxen, and the spouse of Zeus came as an old woman to Semélé. But, while you treat seriously such things, how can you deride us? Your Asclepios died, and he who ravished fifty virgins in one night at Thespiae, lost his life by delivering himself to the devouring flame. Prometheus, fastened to Caucasus, suffered punishment for his good deeds to men. According to you, Zeus is envious, and hides the dream from men, wishing their destruction. Wherefore, looking at your own memorials, vouchsafe us your approval, though it were only as dealing in legends similar to your own. We, however, do not deal in folly, but your legends are only idle tales. If you speak of the origin of the gods, you also declare them to be mortal. For what reason is Hera now never pregnant? Has she grown old? or is there no one to give you information?

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

  Soon after the synod, Alexander was again driven into exile by the Roman republic. He died at Cività Castellana, Aug. 30, 1181, having reigned longer than any pope before or after him, except Sylvester I., 314–385, Adrian I., 772–795, Pius VII., 1800–1823, Pius IX., 1846–1878, and Leo XIII., 1878– 1903. When Alexander’s remains were being carried to Rome for burial, the populace insulted his memory by pelting the coffin with stones and mud.147 Alexander had with signal constancy and devotion to the Gregorian principles maintained the conflict with Barbarossa. He supported Thomas à Becket in his memorable conflict with Henry II. In 1181 he laid the interdict upon Scotland because of the refusal of its king, William, to acknowledge the canonical election of John to the see of St. Andrews. Upon Louis VII. of France he conferred the Red Rose for the support he had received from that sovereign in the days of his early exile. He presided over the Third Lateran Council and prepared the way for the crusade against the Cathari and Albigenses. His aged and feeble successor, Lucius III., was elected, Sept. 1, 1181, by the cardinals alone. The Romans, deprived of their former share in the election, treated him with barbarous cruelty; they captured twenty or twenty-six of his partisans at Tusculum, blinded them, except one, crowned them with paper mitres inscribed with the names of cardinals, mounted them on asses, and forced the priest whom they had spared to lead them in this condition to "Lucius, the wicked simoniac." He died in exile at Verona where he held an important synod. It is a remarkable fact that some of the greatest popes—as Gregory VII., Urban II., Innocent II., Eugene III., Adrian IV., Alexander III., and three of his successors—could not secure the loyalty of their own subjects, and were besieged in Rome or compelled to flee. Adrian IV. said to his countryman and friend, John of Salisbury, "Rome is not the mother, but the stepmother of the Churches." The Romans were always fluctuating between memories of the old republic and memories of the empire; now setting up a consul, a senator, a tribune; now welcoming the German emperor as the true Augustus Caesar; now loyal to the pope, now driving him into exile, and ever selling themselves to the highest bidder. The papal court was very consistent in its principles and aims, but as to the choice of means for its end it was subject to the same charge of avarice and venality, whether at Rome or in exile. Even Thomas Becket, the staunchest adherent of Alexander III., indignantly rebuked the cardinals for their love of gold. Emperor Frederick survived his great rival nearly ten years, and died by drowning in a little river of Asia Minor, 1190, while marching on the third crusade.

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

  Brant spoke strongly in this vein and so did Geiler of Strassburg, who asserted that putting the Scriptures into the hands of laymen was like putting a knife into the hands of children to cut bread. He added that it "was almost a wicked thing to print the sacred text in German."1239 Archbishop Bertholdt’s fulmination against German versions of the Bible and their circulation among the people no doubt expressed the general mind of the hierarchy in Germany and all Europe.1240 In this celebrated edict, the German primate pronounced the German language too barbarous a tongue to reproduce the high thoughts expressed by Greek and Latin writers, writing of the Christian religion. The Scriptures are not to be given to simple and unlearned men and, above all, are not to be put into the hands of women.1241 He spoke of the fools who were using the divine gift of printing to send forth things proscribed to the public and declared, that the printers of the sacred text were moved by the vain love of fame or by greed. In his zeal, the archbishop went so far as to forbid the translation of all works whatsoever, of Greek and Latin authorship, or their sale without the sanction of the doctors of the Universities of Mainz or Erfurt. The punishment for the violation of the edict was excommunication, confiscation of books and a fine of 100 gulden. The decree was so effective that, after 1488, only four editions of the German Bible appeared until 1522, when Luther issued his New Testament, when the old German translations seemed to be suddenly laid aside.1242 In England, Arundel’s inhibition so fully expressed the mind of the nation that for a full century no attempt was made to translate the Bible into English and it was not till after 1530 that the first copy of the English Scriptures was published on English soil.1243 Sir Thomas More, it is true, writing on the threshold of the English Reformation, interpreted Arundel’s decree as directed against corrupt translations and sought to make it appear that it was on account of errors that Wyclif’s version had been condemned. He was striving to parry the charge that the Church had withheld the Bible from popular use, but, whatever the interpretation put upon his words may be (see this volume, p. 348), the fact remains that the English were slow in getting any printed version of their own and that the Catholic party issued none till the close of the 16th century.

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

  He denied the personality of the Logos and of the Holy Spirit, and considered them merely powers of God, like reason and mind in man; but granted that the Logos dwelt in Christ in larger measure than in any former messenger of God, and taught, like the Socinians in later times, a gradual elevation of Christ, determined by his own moral development, to divine dignity.1060 He admitted that Christ remained free from sin, conquered the sin of our forefathers, and then became the Saviour of the race. To introduce his Christology into the mind of the people, he undertook to alter the church hymns, but was shrewd enough to accommodate himself to the orthodox formulas, calling Christ, for example, "God from the Virgin,"1061 and ascribing to him even homo-ousia with the Father, but of course in his own sense.1062 The bishops under him in Syria accused him not only of heresy but also of extreme vanity, arrogance, pompousness, avarice, and undue concern with secular business; and at a third synod held in Antioch A.D. 269 or 268, they pronounced his deposition. The number of bishops present is variously reported (70, 80, 180). Dominus was appointed successor. The result was communicated to the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and to all the churches. But as Paul was favored by the queen Zenobia of Palmyra, the deposition could not be executed till after her subjection by the emperor Aurelian in 272, and after consultation with the Italian bishops.1063 His overthrow decided the fall of the Monarchians; though they still appear at the end of the fourth century as condemned heretics, under the name of Samosatians, Paulianists, and Sabellians. § 151. Second Class of Antitrinitarians: Praxeas, Noëtus, Callistus, Berryllus. The second class of Monarchians, called by Tertullian "Patripassians" (as afterwards a branch of the Monophysites was called "Theopaschites"),1064 together with their unitarian zeal felt the deeper Christian impulse to hold fast the divinity of Christ; but they sacrificed to it his independent personality, which they merged in the essence of the Father. They taught that the one supreme God by his own free will, and by an act of self-limitation became man, so that the Son is the Father veiled in the flesh. They knew no other God but the one manifested in Christ, and charged their opponents with ditheism. They were more dangerous than the rationalistic Unitarians, and for a number of years had even the sympathy and support of the papal chair. They had a succession of teachers in Rome, and were numerous there even at the time of Epiphanius towards the close of the fourth century. 1. The first prominent advocate of the Patripassian heresy was Praxeas of Asia Minor.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  139 world. As the known world became larger, the sphere of influence for their national god also increased. o After conquest and deportation, this process of expanding one’s worldview only accelerated. Ezekiel, as we’ve noted, responded to this geographic displacement by making the Israelite god mobile. The Prophet of Monotheism • Second Isaiah is known as the prophet of monotheism. He probably lived in Babylonia during the closing decades of the Babylonian Exile, and his writings introduce several new ideas concerning the Israelite god. Although the Israelite god had already begun to operate on an international scale in the writings of earlier prophets, Second Isaiah conceives of the Israelite god on a cosmic and universal scale. • Another catalyst for change in the Judeans’ religious beliefs was the up-close experience of Babylonian religious practices. Second Isaiah describes the Babylonians’ process of making and worshipping idols (Isa. 44), and in his description, he shows himself to be an outsider to this culture, looking in with a good deal of disdain for what he sees. o In many places in the Bible, the Israelites mock the gods of their enemies, but the tenor of that mocking generally concerns weakness on the part of an enemy’s god. o What’s new in Second Isaiah is the description of the Babylonian gods as fakes. Because they are so clearly the work of human hands, Isaiah reasons, they cannot be divinities. o In Isaiah 45:5, we read, “I am Yahweh, and there is no other, besides me there is no god.” The suggestion here is that Yahweh is the only true god, all others are “no gods” or fakes, and the worship of these other gods is delusional.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  139 world. As the known world became larger, the sphere of influence for their national god also increased. o After conquest and deportation, this process of expanding one’s worldview only accelerated. Ezekiel, as we’ve noted, responded to this geographic displacement by making the Israelite god mobile. The Prophet of Monotheism • Second Isaiah is known as the prophet of monotheism. He probably lived in Babylonia during the closing decades of the Babylonian Exile, and his writings introduce several new ideas concerning the Israelite god. Although the Israelite god had already begun to operate on an international scale in the writings of earlier prophets, Second Isaiah conceives of the Israelite god on a cosmic and universal scale. • Another catalyst for change in the Judeans’ religious beliefs was the up-close experience of Babylonian religious practices. Second Isaiah describes the Babylonians’ process of making and worshipping idols (Isa. 44), and in his description, he shows himself to be an outsider to this culture, looking in with a good deal of disdain for what he sees. o In many places in the Bible, the Israelites mock the gods of their enemies, but the tenor of that mocking generally concerns weakness on the part of an enemy’s god. o What’s new in Second Isaiah is the description of the Babylonian gods as fakes. Because they are so clearly the work of human hands, Isaiah reasons, they cannot be divinities. o In Isaiah 45:5, we read, “I am Yahweh, and there is no other, besides me there is no god.” The suggestion here is that Yahweh is the only true god, all others are “no gods” or fakes, and the worship of these other gods is delusional.

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

  No wonder that many cardinals and priests followed the scandalous example of the popes, and weakened the respect of the laity for the clergy. The writings of contemporary scholars, preachers and satirists are full of complaints and exposures of the ignorance, vulgarity and immorality of priests and monks. Simony and nepotism were shamefully practiced. Celibacy was a foul fountain of unchastity and uncleanness. The bishoprics were monopolized by the youngest sons of princes and nobles without regard to qualification. Geiler of Kaisersberg, a stern preacher of moral reform at Strassburg (d. 1510), charges all Germany with promoting ignorant and worldly men to the chief dignities, simply on account of their high connections. Thomas Murner complains that the devil had introduced the nobility into the clergy, and monopolized for them the bishoprics.2 Plurality of office and absence from the diocese were common. Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz was at the same time archbishop of Magdeburg and bishop of Halberstadt. Cardinal Wolsey was archbishop of York while chancellor of England, received stipends from the kings of France and Spain and the doge of Venice, and had a train of five hundred servants. James V. of Scotland (1528–1542) provided for his illegitimate children by making them abbots of Holyrood House, Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham and St. Andrews, and intrusted royal favorites with bishoprics. Discipline was nearly ruined. Whole monastic establishments and orders had become nurseries of ignorance and superstition, idleness and dissipation, and were the objects of contempt and ridicule, as may be seen from the controversy of Reuchlin with the Dominicans, the writings of Erasmus, and the Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum. Theology was a maze of scholastic subtleties, Aristotelian dialectics and idle speculations, but ignored the great doctrines of the gospel. Carlstadt, the older colleague of Luther, confessed that he had been doctor of divinity before he had seen a complete copy of the Bible. Education was confined to priests and nobles. The mass of the laity could neither read nor write, and had no access to the word of God except the Scripture lessons from the pulpit. The priest’s chief duty was to perform, by his magic words, the miracle of transubstantiation, and to offer the sacrifice of the mass for the living and the dead in a foreign tongue. Many did it mechanically, or with a skeptical reservation, especially in Italy. Preaching was neglected, and had reference, mostly, to indulgences, alms, pilgrimages and processions. The churches were overloaded with good and bad pictures, with real and fictitious relics. Saint-worship and image-worship, superstitious rites and ceremonies obstructed the direct worship of God in spirit and in truth.

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

  This literary Knight and German patriot was descended from an ancient but impoverished noble family of Franconia. He was born April 21, 1488, and began life, like Erasmus, as an involuntary monk; but he escaped from Fulda in his sixteenth year, studied humanities in the universities of Erfurt, Cologne, and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, law at Pavia and Bologna, traveled extensively, corresponded with the most prominent men of letters, was crowned as poet by the Emperor Maximilian at Augsburg (1517), and occupied an influential position at the court of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (1517–1520), who had charge of the sale of indulgences in Germany. He took a lively part in Reuchlin’s conflict with the obscurantism of the Dominicans of Cologne.233 He is, next to his friend Crotus of Erfurt, the chief author of the Epistolae obscurorum Virorum, that barbarous ridicule of barbarism, in which the ignorance, stupidity, bigotry, and vulgarity of the monks are exposed by factitious letters in their own wretched Latin with such success that they accepted them at first as genuine, and bought a number of copies for distribution.234 He vigorously attacked the abuses and corruptions of the Church, in Latin and German pamphlets, in poetry and prose, with all the weapons of learning, common-sense, wit, and satire. He was, next to Luther, the boldest and most effective polemical writer of that period, and was called the German Demosthenes on account of his philippics against Rome. His Latin is better than Luther’s, but his German far inferior. In wit and power of ridicule he resembles Lucian; at times he reminds one of Voltaire and Heine. He had a burning love of German liberty and independence. This was his chief motive for attacking Rome. He laid the axe at the root of the tree of tyranny. His motto was, "Iacta est alea. Ich hab’s gewagt."235 He republished in 1518 the tract of Laurentius Valla on the Donation of Constantine, with an embarrassing dedication to Pope Leo X., and exposed on German soil that gigantic fraud on which the temporal power of the papacy over all Christian Europe was made to rest. But his chief and most violent manifesto against Rome is a dialogue which he published under the name "Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity," in April, 1520, a few months before Luther’s "Address to the German Nobility" (July) and his "Babylonian Captivity" (October). He here groups his experiences in Rome under several triads of what abounds in Rome, of what is lacking in Rome, of what is forbidden in Rome, of what one brings home from Rome, etc. He puts them into the mouth of a Roman consul, Vadiscus, and makes variations on them. Here are some specimens:236 — "Three things keep Rome in power: the authority of the Pope, the bones of the saints, and the traffic in indulgences. "Three things are in Rome without number: strumpets, priests, and scribes. "Three things abound in Rome: antiquities, poison, and ruins.

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

  He affected compassion for the "poor, blind, deluded Galileans, who forsook the most glorious privilege of man, the worship of the immortal gods, and instead of them worshipped dead men and dead men’s bones." He once even suffered himself to be insulted by a blind bishop, Maris of Chalcedon, who, when reminded by him, that the Galilean God could not restore his eyesight, answered: "I thank my God for my blindness, which spares me the painful sight of such an impious Apostate as thou." He afterwards, however, caused the bishop to be severely punished.70 So in Antioch, also, he bore with philosophic equanimity the ridicule of the Christian populace, but avenged himself on the inhabitants of the city by unsparing satire in the Misopogon. His whole bearing towards the Christians was instinct with bitter hatred and accompanied with sarcastic mockery.71 This betrays itself even in the contemptuous term, Galileans, which he constantly applies to them after the fashion of the Jews, and which he probably also commanded to be given them by others.72 He considered them a sect of fanatics contemptible to men and hateful to the gods, and as atheists in open war with all that was sacred and divine in the world.73 He sometimes had representatives of different parties dispute in his presence, and then exclaimed: "No wild beasts are so fierce and irreconcilable as the Galilean sectarians." When he found that toleration was rather profitable than hurtful to the church, and tended to soften the vehemence of doctrinal controversies, he proceeded, for example, to banish Athanasius, who was particularly offensive to him, from Alexandria, and even from Egypt, calling this greatest man of his age an insignificant manikin,74 and reviling him with vulgar language, because through his influence many prominent heathens, especially heathen women, passed over to Christianity. His toleration, therefore, was neither that of genuine humanity, nor that of religious indifferentism, but a hypocritical mask for a fanatical love of heathenism and a bitter hatred of Christianity. This appears in his open partiality and injustice against the Christians. His liberal patronage of heathenism was in itself an injury to Christianity. Nothing gave him greater joy than an apostasy, and he held out the temptation of splendid reward; thus himself employing the impure means of proselyting, for which he reproached the Christians. Once he even advocated conversion by violent measures. While he called heathens to all the higher offices, and, in case of their palpable disobedience, inflicted very mild punishment, if any at all, the Christians came to be everywhere disregarded, and their complaints dismissed from the tribunal with a mocking reference to their Master’s precept, to give their enemy their cloak also with their coat, and turn the other cheek to his blows.75 They were removed from military and civil office, deprived of all their former privileges, oppressed with taxes, and compelled to restore without indemnity the temple property, with all their own improvements on it, and to contribute to the support of the public idolatry.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But finding that his affairs, as is usually the case with merchants, were entangled here, there, and everywhere, and being unable quickly or easily to unravel them, he decided to place them in the hands of a number of different people. All this he succeeded in arranging, except that he was left with the problem of finding someone capable of recovering certain loans which he had made to various people in Burgundy. The reason for his dilemma was that he had been told the Burgundians were a quarrelsome, thoroughly bad and unprincipled set of people; and he was quite unable to think of anyone he could trust, who was at the same time sufficiently villainous to match the villainy of the Burgundians. After devoting much thought to this problem, he suddenly recalled a man known as Ser Cepperello, of Prato, who had been a frequent visitor to his house in Paris. This man was short in stature and used to dress very neatly, and the French, who did not know the meaning of the word Cepperello, thinking that it signified chapel, which in their language means ‘garland’, and because as we have said he was a little man, used to call him, not Ciappello, but Ciappelletto: and everywhere in that part of the world, where few people knew him as Ser Cepperello, he was known as Ciappelletto. 2 This Ciappelletto was a man of the following sort: a notary by profession, he would have taken it as a slight upon his honour if one of his legal deeds (and he drew up very few of them) were discovered to be other than false. In fact, he would have drawn up free of charge as many false documents as were requested of him, and done it more willingly than one who was highly paid for his services. He would take great delight in giving false testimony, whether asked for it or not. In those days, great reliance was placed in France upon sworn declarations, and since he had no scruples about swearing falsely, he used to win, by these nefarious means, every case in which he was required to swear upon his faith to tell the truth. He would take particular pleasure, and a great amount of trouble, in stirring up enmity, discord and bad blood between friends, relatives and anybody else; and the more calamities that ensued, the greater would be his rapture. If he were invited to witness a murder or any other criminal act, he would never refuse, but willingly go along; and he often found himself cheerfully assaulting or killing people with his own hands. He was a mighty blasphemer of God and His Saints, losing his temper on the tiniest pretext, as if he were the most hot-blooded man alive. He never went to church, and he would use foul language to pour scorn on all of her sacraments, declaring them repugnant.

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

  Here we are again reminded of Luther; though the reformer had nothing of the ascetic gloom and rigor of the African father, and exhibits instead with all his gigantic energy, a kindly serenity and childlike simplicity altogether foreign to the latter. Tertullian dwells enthusiastically on the divine foolishness of the gospel, and has a sublime contempt for the world, for its science and its art; and yet his writings are a mine of antiquarian knowledge, and novel, striking, and fruitful ideas. He calls the Grecian philosophers the patriarchs of all heresies, and scornfully asks: "What has the academy to do with the church? what has Christ to do with Plato—Jerusalem with Athens?" He did not shrink from insulting the greatest natural gift of God to man by his "Credo quia absurdum est." And yet reason does him invaluable service against his antagonists.1524 He vindicates the principle of church authority and tradition with great force and ingenuity against all heresy; yet, when a Montanist, he claims for himself with equal energy the right of private judgment and of individual protest.1525 He has a vivid sense of the corruption of human nature and the absolute need of moral regeneration; yet he declares the soul to be born Christian, and unable to find rest except in Christ. "The testimonies of the soul, says he, "are as true as they are simple; as simple as they are popular; as popular as they are natural; as natural as they are divine." He is just the opposite of the genial, less vigorous, but more learned and comprehensive Origen. He adopts the strictest supranatural principles; and yet he is a most decided realist, and attributes body, that is, as it were, a corporeal, tangible substantiality, even to God and to the soul; while the idealistic Alexandrian cannot speak spiritually enough of God, and can conceive the human soul without and before the existence of the body. Tertullian’s theology revolves about the great Pauline antithesis of sin and grace, and breaks the road to the Latin anthropology and soteriology afterwards developed by his like-minded, but clearer, calmer, and more considerate countryman, Augustin. For his opponents, be they heathens, Jews, heretics, or Catholics, he has as little indulgence and regard as Luther. With the adroitness of a special pleader he entangles them in self-contradictions, pursues them into every nook and corner, overwhelms them with arguments, sophisms, apophthegms, and sarcasms, drives them before him with unmerciful lashings, and almost always makes them ridiculous and contemptible. His polemics everywhere leave marks of blood. It is a wonder that he was not killed by the heathens, or excommunicated by the Catholics. His style is exceedingly characteristic, and corresponds with his thought.

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

  As to the social position of monasticism in the system of ecclesiastical life: it was at first, in East and West, even so late as the council of Chalcedon, regarded as a lay institution; but the monks were distinguished as religiosi from the seculares, and formed thus a middle grade between the ordinary laity and the clergy. They constituted the spiritual nobility, but not the ruling class; the aristocracy, but not the hierarchy of the church. "A monk," says Jerome, "has not the office of a teacher, but of a penitent, who endures suffering either for himself or for the world." Many monks considered ecclesiastical office incompatible with their effort after perfection. It was a proverb, traced to Pachomius: "A monk should especially shun women and bishops, for neither will let him have peace."301 Ammonius, who accompanied Athanasius to Rome, cut off his own ear, and threatened to cut out his own tongue, when it was proposed to make him a bishop.302 Martin of Tours thought his miraculous power deserted him on his transition from the cloister to the bishopric. Others, on the contrary, were ambitious for the episcopal chair, or were promoted to it against their will, as early as the fourth century. The abbots of monasteries were usually ordained priests, and administered the sacraments among the brethren, but were subject to the bishop of the diocese. Subsequently the cloisters managed, through special papal grants, to make themselves independent of the episcopal jurisdiction. From the tenth century the clerical character was attached to the monks. In a certain sense, they stood, from the beginning, even above the clergy; considered themselves preëminently conversi and religiosi, and their life vita religiosa; looked down with contempt upon the secular clergy; and often encroached on their province in troublesome ways. On the other hand, the cloisters began, as early as the fourth century, to be most fruitful seminaries of clergy, and furnished, especially in the East, by far the greater number of bishops. The sixth novel of Justinian provides that the bishops shall be chosen from the clergy, or from the monastery. In dress, the monks at first adhered to the costume of the country, but chose the simplest and coarsest material. Subsequently, they adopted the tonsure and a distinctive uniform. § 34. Influence and Effect of Monasticism. The influence of monasticism upon the world, from Anthony and Benedict to Luther and Loyola, is deeply marked in all branches of the history of the church. Here, too, we must distinguish light and shade. The operation of the monastic institution has been to some extent of diametrically opposite kinds, and has accordingly elicited the most diverse judgments. "It is impossible," says Dean Milman,303 "to survey monachism in its general influence, from the earliest period of its inworking into Christianity, without being astonished and perplexed with its diametrically opposite effects.

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

  He wore common clothing, usually slept on the floor, let his beard and nails grow, and, like the strict anachorets of Egypt, neglected the laws of decency and cleanliness.65 This cynic eccentricity and vain ostentation certainly spoiled his reputation for simplicity and self-denial, and made him ridiculous. It evinced, also, not so much the boldness and wisdom of a reformer, as the pedantry and folly of a reactionist. In military and executive talent and personal bravery he was not inferior to Constantine; while in mind and literary culture he far excelled him, as well as in energy and moral self-control; and, doubtless to his own credit, he closed his public career at the age at which his uncle’s began; but he entirely lacked the clear, sound common sense of his great predecessor, and that practical statesmanship, which discerns the wants of the age, and acts according to them. He had more uncommon sense than common sense, and the latter is often even more important than the former, and indispensable to a good practical statesman. But his greatest fault as a ruler was his utterly false position towards the paramount question of his time: that of religion. This was the cause of that complete failure which made his reign as trackless as a meteor. The ruling passion of Julian, and the soul of his short but most active, remarkable, and in its negative results instructive reign, was fanatical love of the pagan religion and bitter hatred of the Christian, at a time when the former had already forever given up to the latter the reins of government in the world. He considered it the great mission of his life to restore the worship of the gods, and to reduce the religion of Jesus first to a contemptible sect, and at last, if possible, to utter extinction from the earth. To this he believed himself called by the gods themselves, and in this faith he was confirmed by theurgic arts, visions, and dreams. To this end all the means, which talent, zeal, and power could command, were applied; and the failure must be attributed solely to the intrinsic folly and impracticability of the end itself. I. To look, first, at the positive side of his plan, the restoration and reformation of heathenism: He reinstated, in its ancient splendor, the worship of the gods at the public expense; called forth hosts of priests from concealment; conferred upon them all their former privileges, and showed them every honor; enjoined upon the soldiers and civil officers attendance at the forsaken temples and altars; forgot no god or goddess, though himself specially devoted to the worship of Apollo, or the sun; and notwithstanding his parsimony in other respects, caused the rarest birds and whole herds of bulls and lambs to be sacrificed, until the continuance of the species became a subject of concern.66 He removed the cross and the monogram of Christ from the coins and standards, and replaced the former pagan symbols.

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

  the worship of saints and relics, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, prayers and masses for the dead, works of supererogation, purgatory, indulgences, the system of monasticism with its perpetual vows and ascetic practices, besides many superstitious rites and ceremonies. Protestantism, on the other hand, revived and developed the Augustinian doctrines of sin and grace; it proclaimed the sovereignty of divine mercy in man’s salvation, the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule of faith, and the sufficiency of Christ’s merit as a source of justification; it asserted the right of direct access to the Word of God and the throne of grace, without human mediators; it secured Christian freedom from bondage; it substituted social morality for monkish asceticism, and a simple, spiritual worship for an imposing ceremonialism that addresses the senses and imagination rather than the intellect and the heart. The difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches was typically foreshadowed by the difference between Jewish and Gentile Christianity in the apostolic age, which anticipated, as it were, the whole future course of church history. The question of circumcision or the keeping of the Mosaic law, as a condition of church membership, threatened a split at the Council of Jerusalem, but was solved by the wisdom and charity of the apostles, who agreed that Jews and Gentiles alike are "saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 15:11). Yet even after the settlement of the controversy by the Jerusalem compromise Paul got into a sharp conflict with Peter at Antioch on the same question, and protested against his older colleague for denying by his timid conduct his better conviction, and disowning the Gentile brethren. It is not accidental that the Roman Church professes to be built on Peter and regards him as the first pope; while the Reformers appealed chiefly to Paul and found in his epistles to the Galatians and Romans the bulwark of their anthropology and soteriology, and their doctrine of Christian freedom. The collision between Paul and Peter was only temporary; and so the war between Protestantism and Romanism will ultimately pass away in God’s own good time. The Reformation began simultaneously in Germany and Switzerland, and swept with astonishing rapidity over France, Holland, Scandinavia, Bohemia, Hungary, England and Scotland; since the seventeenth century it has spread by emigration to North America, and by commercial and missionary enterprises to every Dutch and English colony, and every heathen land. It carried away the majority of the Teutonic and a part of the Latin nations, and for a while threatened to overthrow the papal church. But towards the close of the sixteenth century the triumphant march of the Reformation was suddenly arrested. Romanism rose like a wounded giant, and made the most vigorous efforts to reconquer the lost territory in Europe, and to extend its dominion in Asia and South America. Since that time the numerical relation of the two churches has undergone little change.

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

  we have the spectacle of the pope solemnly renewing the claim to have rule over both spheres, civil and ecclesiastical, and to hold in his hand the salvation of all mankind, yea, and actually supporting the extravagant luxuries of his worldly court with moneys drawn from the trade in sacred things. How deep- seated the pernicious principle had become was made manifest in the bull which Leo issued, Nov. 9,1518, a full year after the nailing of the Theses on the church door at Wittenberg, in which all were threatened with excommunication who failed to preach and believe that the pope has the right to grant indulgences.1336

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

  His dying words, as reported by Ratzeburger, his physician, were a prediction of the approaching death of the papacy: — "Pestis eram vivus, moriens tua mors ero Papa." From the standpoint of his age, Luther regarded the Pope and the Turk as "the two arch-enemies of Christ and his Church," and embodied this view in a hymn which begins, — "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort Und steur’ des Papst’s und Türken Mord."296 This line, like the famous eightieth question of the Heidelberg Catechism which denounces the popish mass as an "accursed idolatry," gave much trouble in mixed communities, and in some it was forbidden by Roman-Catholic magistrates. Modern German hymn-books wisely substitute "all enemies," or "enemies of Christ," for the Pope and the Turk. In order to form a just estimate of Luther’s views on the papacy, it must not be forgotten that they were uttered in the furnace-heat of controversy, and with all the violence of his violent temper. They have no more weight than his equally sweeping condemnation of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. § 49. The Reformation and the Papacy. Here is the place to interrupt the progress of events, and to reflect on the right or wrong of the attitude of Luther and the Reformation to the papacy. The Reformers held the opinion that the papacy was an antichristian institution, and some of the Protestant confessions of faith have given symbolical sanction to this theory. They did not mean, of course, that every individual Pope was an Antichrist (Luther spoke respectfully of Leo X.), nor that the papacy as such was antichristian: Melanchthon, at least, conceived of the possibility of a Christian papacy, or a general superintendence of the Church for the preservation of order and unity.297 They had in view simply the institution as it was at their time, when it stood in open and deadly opposition to what they regarded as the truth of the gospel of Christ, and the free preaching of the same. Their theory does not necessarily exclude a liberal and just appreciation of the papacy before and after the Reformation. And in this respect a great change has taken place among Protestant scholars, with the progress of exegesis and the knowledge of church history. 1. The prophetic Scripture texts to which the Reformers and early Protestant divines used to appeal for their theory of the papacy, must be understood in

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  53 o Unlike Sarai, Hagar immediately conceives, and then, “she looked with contempt on her mistress.” o Sarai feels betrayed by her slave-girl and by Abram. But when she complains, Abram lets her know that she is the one in control of this aspect of the household. He says, “Look, your slave-girl is in your power, do to her as you please” (Gen. 16:6). o We then read that Sarai dealt harshly with Hagar, and Hagar fled the house into the wilderness. • Again, we note several differences in the marriage of Hagar and Abraham from that of Isaac and Rebekah. Hagar’s family is not involved in the marriage negotiations, and therefore, Hagar’s interests are not protected. Sarai negotiates Hagar’s change in status from slave-girl to wife, and she does this so that she, not Hagar, can be “built up” in Abram’s household. Even after Hagar conceives, she remains a foreign slave under the power of Sarai. • Later, in Genesis 21, Sarai miraculously conceives and bears her own son, Isaac. As soon as she weans Isaac, she expels Hagar and her son, Ishmael, from Abraham’s household. Hagar has no rights to Abraham’s estate. Deuteronomy 21:15 provides a law that seems designed to deal with disputes involving two wives and two firstborn sons, but it may address a situation in which the wives are of equal status. Dinah: Marriage by Abduction • In Genesis 34, we read, “Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land.” While she was out, Shechem, the prince of the land, “saw her, seized her, and lay with her by force.” He then apparently takes her back to his house before initiating negotiations with her family to make her his wife. • Note that this marriage is not endogamous; Shechem is of another nation. Note, too, that the marriage is not negotiated in a way that allows the daughter’s interests to be protected. Instead, after

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And like the fisherman who tries to take a number of fish from the river with a single throw of his casting-net, so these fellows, as they wrap themselves in the capacious folds of their habits, endeavour to take in many an over-pious lady, many a widow, and many another simpleton of either sex, this being their one overriding concern. It would therefore be more exact for me to say that these fellows do not wear friars’ habits, but merely the colours of their habits. ‘Moreover, whereas their predecessors desired the salvation of men, the friars of today desire riches and women. They have taken great pains, and still do, to strike terror into simple people’s hearts with their loud harangues and specious parables, and to show that sins may be purged through almsgiving and mass-offerings. In this way, having taken refuge in the priesthood more out of cowardice than piety and in order to escape hard work, they are supplied with bread by one man and wine by another, whilst a third is persuaded to part with donations for the souls of his departed ones. ‘It is of course true that prayers and almsgiving purge sins. But if only the donors were familiar with the sort of people to whom they were handing over their money, they would either keep it for themselves or cast it before a herd of swine. These so-called friars are well aware that the fewer the people who share a great treasure, the better off they are, and so each of them strives by blustering and intimidation to exclude others from whatever he is anxious to retain for his own exclusive use. They denounce men’s lust, so that when the denounced are out of the way, their women will be left to the denouncers. They condemn usury and ill-gotten gains, so that people will entrust them with their restitution, and this enables them to make their habits more capacious and procure bishoprics and the other major offices of the Church, using the very money which, according to them, would have led its owners to perdition. ‘Whenever anyone reproaches them with these and countless other wicked ways of theirs, they consider themselves acquitted from every charge, however serious, simply by replying: “Do as we say, not as we do” To hear them talk, one would think it was easier for the sheep to be strong-willed and law-abiding than it is for the shepherds. But this specious answer of theirs does not fool everyone by any means, and a great many of them know it. ‘The friars of today want you to do as they say, or in other words fill their purses with money, confide your secrets to them, remain chaste, practise patience, forgive all wrongs, and take care to speak no evil, all of which are good, seemly and edifying goals to pursue. But why?

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

  Tertullian protests to the heathens:616 "We are no Brahmins nor Indian gymnosophists, no hermits, no exiles from life.617 We are mindful of the thanks we owe to God, our Lord and Creator; we despise not the enjoyment of his works; we only temper it, that we may avoid excess and abuse. We dwell, therefore, with you in this world, not without markets and fairs, not without baths, inns, shops, and every kind of intercourse. We carry on commerce and war,618 agriculture and trade with you. We take part in your pursuits, and give our labor for your use." But there were at that time some callings which either ministered solely to sinful gratification, like that, of the stage-player, or were intimately connected with the prevailing idolatry, like the manufacture, decoration, and sale of mythological images and symbols, the divination of astrologers, and all species of

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

  indulge in abuse, for philosophy is with you the art of getting money. You follow the doctrines of Plato, and a disciple of Epicurus lifts up his voice to oppose you. Again, you wish to be a disciple of Aristotle, and a follower of Democritus rails at you. Pythagoras says that he was Euphorbus, and he is the heir of the doctrine of Pherecydes, but Aristotle impugns the immortality of the soul. You who receive from your predecessors doctrines which clash with one another, you the inharmonious, are fighting against the harmonious. One of you asserts "that God is body," but I assert that He is without body; "that the world is indestructible," but I assert that it is to be destroyed; "that a conflagration will take place at various times," but I say that it will come to pass once for all; "that Minos and Rhadamanthus are judges," but I say that God Himself is Judge; "that the soul alone is endowed with immortality," but I say that the flesh also is endowed with it. What injury do we inflict upon you, O Greeks? Why do you hate those who follow the word of God, as if they were the vilest of mankind? It is not we who eat human flesh—they among you who assert such a thing have been suborned as false witnesses; it is among you that Pelops is made a supper for the gods, although beloved by Poseidon; and Kronos devours his children, and Zeus swallows Metis." Of great importance for the history of the canon and of exegesis is Tatian’s Diatessaron or Harmony of the Four Gospels, once widely circulated, then lost, but now measurably recovered.1362 Theodoret found more than two hundred copies of it in his diocese. Ephraem the Syrian wrote a commentary on it which was preserved in an Armenian translation by the Mechitarists at Venice, translated into Latin by Aucher (1841), and published with a learned introduction by Mösinger (1876). From this commentary Zahn has restored the text (1881). Since then an Arabic translation of the Diatessaron itself has been discovered and published by Ciasca (1888). The Diatessaron begins with the Prologue of John (In principio erat Verbum, etc.), follows his order of the festivals, assuming a two years’ ministry, and makes a connected account of the life of Christ from the four Evangelists. There is no heretical tendency, except perhaps in the omission of Christ’s human genealogies in Matthew and Luke, which may have been due to the influence of a docetic spirit. This Diatessaron conclusively proves the existence and ecclesiastical use of the four Gospels, no more and no less, in the middle of the second century. § 175. Athenagoras. Otto, Vol. VII.; Migne, VI. 890–1023. Am. ed. by W. B. Owen, N. Y., 1875. Clarisse: De Athenagorae vita, scriptis doctrina (Lugd. Bat. 1819); Donaldson, III. 107–178; Harnack, Texte, I. 176 sqq., and his art. "Athen." in Herzog2 I. 748–750; Spencer Mansel in Smith and Wace, 1.