Contempt

Passages

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

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• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Arm in arm they passed out through the heavy swing doors and into Stephen’s waiting motor. Burton smiled above the white favour in his coat; the crowd, craning their necks, were also smiling. Arrived back at the house, Stephen, Mary, and Burton must drink the health of the bride and bridegroom. Then Pierre thanked his employer for all she had done in giving his daughter so splendid a wedding. But when that employer was no longer present, when Mary had followed her into the study, the baker’s wife lifted quizzical eyebrows. ‘Quel type! On dirait plutôt un homme; ce n’est pas celle-là qui trouvera un mari!’ The guests laughed. ‘Mais oui, elle est joliment bizarre’; and they started to make little jokes about Stephen. Pierre flushed as he leaped to Stephen’s defence. ‘She is good, she is kind, and I greatly respect her and so does my wife—while as for our daughter, Adèle here has very much cause to be grateful. Moreover she gained the Croix de Guerre through serving our wounded men in the trenches.’ The baker nodded. ‘You are quite right, my friend—precisely what I myself said this morning.’ But Stephen’s appearance was quickly forgotten in the jollification of so much fine feasting—a feasting for which her money had paid, for which her thoughtfulness had provided. Jokes there were, but no longer directed at her—they were harmless, well meant if slightly broad jokes made at the expense of the bashful bridegroom. Then before even Pauline had realized the time, there was Burton strolling into the kitchen, and Adèle must rush off to change her dress, while Jean must change also, but in the pantry. Burton glanced at the clock. ‘Faut dépêcher vous, ’urry, if you’re going to catch that chemin de fer,’ he announced as one having authority. ‘It’s a goodish way to the Guard de Lions.’

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  84 Lecture 12: Lives of the Rich, Lives of the poor Lives of the Rich, Lives of the poor Lecture 12 T his lecture brings our unit on kingdoms and king making to a close. We have seen how monarchic states developed gradually in ancient Israel and Judah. We’ve learned about the royal ideology that claimed divine sponsorship for kings. We’ve investigated the Jerusalem temple as a site of pilgrimage for average people and a site of economic power for the king. In this lecture, we will examine the beginnings of a socially stratified society during the time of the divided monarchy and the emergence of a new type of “rich” and a new type of “poor.” We’ll also see how village and family structures and ideals continued to exist, even as the monarchy grew more powerful. Naboth’s Vineyard • The story of Naboth’s Vineyard is set in the 9 th century in the northern kingdom of Israel, during the reign of Ahab. The story is found in 1 Kings 21. • In this story, we see the expansion of the royal palace’s power and arrogance. The story begins with Ahab demanding that Naboth turn over his vineyard to be used for a vegetable garden; in exchange, Ahab offers either a better vineyard or cash. To an ancient hearer, several details of this story would seem appalling. o Because it takes years to mature, a vineyard was a valuable, long-term family investment. The idea that Ahab wants the vineyard for a vegetable garden would strike ancient hearers as wasteful, arrogant, and foolish. o Israel was also in the midst of a prolonged famine at this time, and despite this famine, Jezebel and Ahab regularly held lavish feasts. o Further, in ancient Israel, land was not considered an economic asset that one could buy and sell at will. The Israelite god

• From Trash (1988)

  I never hated my stepfather half as much for the beatings he gave me as for those stolen moments when I could have been holding Mama’s feet in my hands. Pulled away from Mama’s side to run get him a pillow or change the television channel and forced to stand and wait until he was sure there was nothing else he wanted me to do, I entertained myself with visions of his sudden death. Motorcycle outlaws would come to the door, mistaking him for a Drug Enforcement Officer, and blow his head off with a sawed-off shotgun just like the one my Uncle Bo kept under the front seat in his truck. The lawn mower would explode, cutting him into scattered separate pieces the emergency squad would have to collect in plastic bags. Standing and waiting for his orders while staring at the thin black hairs on his balding head, I would imagine his scalp seen through bloodstained plastic, and smile wide and happy while I thought out how I would tell that one to my sister in our dark room at night, when she would whisper back to me her own version of our private morality play. When my stepfather beat me I did not think, did not imagine stories of either escape or revenge. When my stepfather beat me I pulled so deeply into myself I lived only in my eyes, my eyes that watched the shower sweat on the bathroom walls, the pipes under the sink, my blood on the porcelain toilet seat, and the buckle of his belt as it moved through the air. My ears were disconnected so I could understand nothing—neither his shouts, my own hoarse shameful strangled pleas, nor my mother’s screams from the other side of the door he locked. I would not come back to myself until the beating was ended and the door was opened and I saw my mother’s face, her hands shaking as she reached for me. Even then, I would not be able to understand what she was yelling at him, or he was yelling at both of us. Mama would take me into the bedroom and wash my face with a cold rag, wipe my legs and, using the same lotion I had rubbed into her feet, try to soothe my pain. Only when she had stopped crying would my hearing come back, and I would lie still and listen to her voice saying my name—soft and tender, like her hand on my back. There were no stories in my head then, no hatred, only an enormous gratitude to be lying still with her hand on me and, for once, the door locked against him.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In the town of Imola, excellent ladies, there once lived a depraved and wicked fellow by the name of Berto della Massa. The townspeople learned from experience that his dealings were crooked, and he brought himself into so much disrepute that there was not a single person in the whole of Imola who was prepared to believe a word he uttered, no matter whether he was speaking the truth or telling a lie. He therefore perceived that Imola no longer afforded him any outlet for his roguery, and as a last resort he moved to Venice,1 where the scum of the earth can always find a welcome. There he decided to go in for some different kind of fraud from those he had practised elsewhere, and from the moment of his arrival, as though conscience-stricken by the crimes he had committed in the past, he gave people the impression that he was a man of quite extraordinary humility. What was more, having transformed himself into the most Catholic man who ever lived, he went and became a Franciscan, and styled himself Friar Alberto of Imola. Having donned the habit of his Order, he gave every appearance of leading a harsh, frugal existence, began to preach the virtues of repentance and abstinence, and never allowed a morsel of meat or a drop of wine to pass his lips unless they came up to his exacting standards. Nobody suspected for a moment that he had been a thief, pander, swindler and murderer before suddenly blossoming into a great preacher; nor had he abandoned any of these vices, for he was simply biding his time until an opportunity arose for him to practise them in secret. His crowning achievement was to get himself ordained as a priest, and whenever he was celebrating mass in the presence of a large congregation, he would shed copious tears for the Passion of the Saviour, being the sort of man who could weep as much as he pleased at little cost to himself. In short, what with his sermons and shedding of tears, he managed to hoodwink the Venetians so successfully that hardly anyone there made a will without depositing it with him and making him the trustee. Many people handed over their money to him for safe keeping, and he became the father-confessor and confidential adviser to the vast majority of the men and women of the city. Having thus been transformed from a wolf into a shepherd, he acquired a reputation for saintliness far greater than any Saint Francis had ever enjoyed in Assisi.

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

  He displays all his power of solid argument, subtle sophistry, ridicule and sarcasm, and exhausts his vocabulary of vituperation. He is more severe upon heretics than Jews or Gentiles. He begins with a graphic description of all the physical abnormities of Pontus, the native province of Marcion, and the gloomy temper, wild passions, and ferocious habits of its people, and then goes on to say: "Nothing in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler than any Scythian, more roving than the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud of the Euxine, colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus. Nay, more, the true Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled by Marcion’s blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator than he who has abolished the nuptial bond? What Pontic mouse ever had such gnawing powers as he who has gnawed the Gospel to pieces? Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at mid-day, to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God whom he had found." The tracts "On Baptism" "On the Soul," "On the Flesh of Christ," "On the Resurrection of the Flesh" "Against Hermogenes," "Against Praxeas," are concerned with particular errors, and are important to the doctrine of baptism, to Christian psychology, to eschatology, and christology. 3. His numerous Practical or Ascetic treatises throw much light on the moral life of the early church, as contrasted with the immorality of the heathen world. Among these belong the books "On Prayer" "On Penance" "On Patience,"—a virtue, which he extols with honest confession of his own natural impatience and passionate temper, and which he urges upon himself as well as others,—the consolation of the confessors in prison (Ad Martyres), and the admonition against visiting theatres (De Spectaculis), which he classes with the pomp of the devil, and against all share, direct or indirect, in the worship of idols (De Idololatria). 4. His strictly Montanistic or anti-catholic writings, in which the peculiarities of this sect are not only incidentally touched, as in many of the works named above, but vindicated expressly and at large, are likewise of a practical nature, and contend, in fanatical rigor, against the restoration of the lapsed (De Pudicitia), flight in persecutions, second marriage (De Monogamia, and De Exhortatione Castitatis), display of dress in females (De Cultu Feminarum), and other customs of the "Psychicals," as he commonly calls the Catholics in distinction from the sectarian Pneumatics. His plea, also, for excessive fasting (De Jejuniis), and his justification of a Christian soldier, who was discharged for refusing to crown his head (De Corona Militis), belong here.

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

  Canon, the critical Introductions, and especially Volkmar: Das Evangelium Marcions, Text und Kritik (Leipz. 1852), and Sanday: The Gospels in the Second Century (London, 1876). The last two have conclusively proved (against the earlier view of Baur, Ritschl, and the author of "Supernat. Rel.") the priority of the canonical Luke. Comp. vol. I. 668. Marcion was the most earnest, the most practical, and the most dangerous among the Gnostics, full of energy and zeal for reforming, but restless rough and eccentric. He has a remote connection with modern questions of biblical criticism and the canon. He anticipated the rationalistic opposition to the Old Testament and to the Pastoral Epistles, but in a very arbitrary and unscrupulous way. He could see only superficial differences in the Bible, not the deeper harmony. He rejected the heathen mythology of the other Gnostics, and adhered to Christianity as the only true religion; he was less speculative, and gave a higher place to faith. But he was utterly destitute of historical sense, and put Christianity into a radical conflict with all previous revelations of God; as if God had neglected the world for thousands of years until he suddenly appeared in Christ. He represents an extreme anti-Jewish and pseudo-Pauline tendency, and a magical supranaturalism, which, in fanatical zeal for a pure primitive Christianity, nullifies all history, and turns the gospel into an abrupt, unnatural, phantomlike appearance. Marcion was the son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus, and gave in his first fervor his property to the church, but was excommunicated by his own father, probably on account of his heretical opinions and contempt of authority.886 He betook himself, about the middle of the second century, to Rome (140– 155), which originated none of the Gnostic systems, but attracted them all. There he joined the Syrian Gnostic, Cerdo, who gave him some speculative foundation for his practical dualism. He disseminated his doctrine by travels, and made many disciples from different nations. He is said to have intended to apply at last for restoration to the communion of the Catholic Church, when his death intervened.887 The time and place of his death are unknown. He wrote a recension of the Gospel of Luke and the Pauline Epistles, and a work on the contradictions between the Old anad New Testaments. Justin Martyr regarded him as the most formidable heretic of his day. The abhorrence of the Catholics for him is expressed in the report of Irenaeus, that Polycarp of Smyrna, meeting with Marcion in Rome, and being asked by him: "Dost thou know me?" answered: "I know the first-born of Satan."888 Marcion supposed two or three primal forces (ajrcaiv): the good or gracious God (qeo;" ajgaqov"), whom Christ first made known; the evil matter (u{lh) ruled by the devil, to which heathenism belongs; and the righteous world-maker (dhmiourgo;" divkaio"), who is the finite, imperfect, angry Jehovah of the Jews. Some writers reduce his principles to two; but he did not identify the demiurge with the hyle.

• From Carmina (-50)

  Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, renidet usque quaque: sei ad rei uentum est subsellium, cum orator excitat fletum, renidet ille: si ad pii rogum fili lugetur, orba cum flet unicum mater, 5 renidet ille: quidquid est, ubicumque est, quodcumque agit, renidet: hunc habet morbum, neque elegantem, ut arbitror, neque urbanum. quare monendum test mihi, bone Egnati. si urbanus esses aut Sabinus aut Tiburs, 10 aut parcus Vmber aut obesus Etruscus, aut Lanuinus ater atque dentatus, aut Transpadanus, ut meos quoque attingam, aut qui lubet, qui puriter lauit dentes, tamen renidere usque quaque te nollem: 15 nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est. nunc Celtiber es: Celtiberia in terra, quod quisque minxit, hoc sibi solet mane dentem atque russam defricare gingiuam, ut quo iste uester expolitior dens est, 20 hoc te amplius bibisse praedicet loti. XL Quaenam te mala mens, miselle Rauide, agit praecipitem in meos iambos? quis deus tibi non bene aduocatus uecordem parat excitare rixam? an ut peruenias in ora uulgi? 5 quid uis? qua lubet esse notus optas? eris, quandoquidem meos amores cum longa uoluisti amare poena. XLI Ameana puella defututa tota milia me decem poposcit, ista turpiculo puella naso, decoctoris amica Formiani. propinqui, quibus est puella curae, 5 amicos medicosque conuocate: non est sana puella, nec rogare qualis sit solet aes imaginosum. XLII Adeste, hendecasyllabi, quot estis omnes undique, quotquot estis omnes. iocum me putat esse moecha turpis, et negat mihi uestra reddituram pugillaria, si pati potestis. 5 persequamur eam, et reflagitemus. quae sit, quaeritis. illa, quam uidetis turpe incedere, mimice ac moleste ridentem catuli ore Gallicani. circumsistite eam, et reflagitate, 10 'moecha putida, redde codicillos, redde, putida moecha, codicillos.' non assis facis? o lutum, lupanar, aut si perditius potes quid esse. sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum. 15 quod si non aliud potest, ruborem ferreo canis exprimamus ore. conclamate iterum altiore uoce 'moecha putida, redde codicillos, redde, putida moecha codicillos,' 20 sed nil proficimus, nihil mouetur. mutanda est ratio modusque uobis, siquid proficere amplius potestis, 'pudica et proba, redde codicillos.' XLIII Salue, nec minimo puella naso, nec bello pede nec nigris ocellis, nec longis digitis nec ore sicco, nec sane nimis elegante lingua, decoctoris amica Formiani. 5 ten prouincia narrat esse bellam? tecum Lesbia nostra comparatur? o saeclum insapiens et infacetum! XLIV

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  They will boldly ridicule the idea of calling them sincerely in their hearts lords and masters. But God has positively required this of them. . . . Here, the wife is pronounced the husband’s property, as much so as his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, or his horse. . . . It is evident that by [abandoning the sacred principle of plural marriage], an endless catalogue of crime has been created that otherwise could never have existed; and that does exist at this moment in these States. Husbands forsake their wives, and often brutally abuse them. Fathers forsake their children; young maidens are seduced and abandoned by the deceiver; wives are poisoned and put to death by their husbands; husbands are murdered by their wives; new born babes are cruelly murdered to hide the false shame created by the false, and wicked, and tyrannical law against polygamy. . . . While on the other hand polygamy regulated by the law of God as illustrated in this book could not possibly produce one crime; neither could it injure any human being. The stupidity of modern Christian nations upon this subject is horribly astonishing. . . . The question is not now to be debated whether these things are so: neither is it a question of much importance who wrote this book! But the question, the momentous question is: will you now restore the law of God on this important subject, and keep it? Remember that the law of God is given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Speak not a word against it at your peril. Because Joseph Smith was listed on the title page as the printer of The Peace Maker, because the treatise precisely reflected many of his teachings—and because it concluded with the cryptic declaration that it was not “a question of much importance who wrote this book!”—scholars and others have long speculated that Joseph was the author. Determining who wrote The Peace Maker was important to Dan Lafferty. “I really wanted to know if this was Joseph Smith’s writing,” he says. “So I studied, and prayed, and after a period of time the Lord gave me enough knowledge to become quite satisfied that Joseph Smith wrote it. . . . I don’t know for sure that it’s Joseph Smith, but I’ll be surprised if it wasn’t.” The fact that The Peace Maker was apparently the work of the prophet made Dan especially receptive to the ideas expounded in its pages. With all the zeal one would expect from a “hundred-and-ten-percenter,” he wasted no time in applying the book’s fundamentalist strictures to his household, which had by then grown to include Matilda, her two daughters from a previous marriage, and four children she and Dan had conceived together. Under the new rules, Matilda was no longer allowed to drive, handle money, or talk to anyone outside the family when Dan wasn’t present, and she had to wear a dress at all times.

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

  At the very beginning of the Diet a new papal brief called upon the Emperor to give, by an imperial edict, legal force to the bull of January 3, by which Luther was finally excommunicated, and his books condemned to the flames. The Pope urged him to prove his zeal for the unity of the Church. God had girded him with supreme earthly power, that he might use it against heretics who were much worse than infidels.338 On Maundy Thursday, March 28, the Pope, in proclaiming the terrible bull In Coena Domini, which is annually read at Rome, expressly condemned, among other heretics, Martin Luther by name with all his adherents. This was the third or fourth excommunication, but produced little effect.339 The Pope was ably represented by two Italian legates, who were afterwards created cardinals, -Marino Caracciolo (1459–1538) for the political affairs, and Jerome Aleander (1480–1542) for the ecclesiastical interests. Aleander was at that time librarian of the Vatican, and enjoyed great reputation as a Greek scholar. He had lectured at Paris before two thousand bearers of all classes. He stood in friendly relations to Erasmus; but when the latter showed sympathy with the Reformation, be denounced him as the chief founder of the Lutheran heresy. He was an intense papist, and skilled in all the arts of diplomacy. His religious wants were not very pressing. During the Diet of Worms he scarcely found time, in the holy week, "to occupy himself a little with Christ and his conscience." His sole object was to maintain the power of the Pope, and to annihilate the new heresy. In his letters he calls Luther a fool, a dog, a basilisk, a ribald. He urged everywhere the wholesale burning of his books.340 He employed argument, persuasion, promises, threats, spies, and bribes. He complained that he could not get money enough from Rome for greedy officials. He labored day and night with the Emperor, his confessor, and the members of the privy council. He played on their fears of a popular revolution, and reminded them of the example of the Bohemians, the worst and most troublesome of heretics. He did not shrink from the terrible threat, "If ye Germans who pay least into the Pope’s treasury shake off his yoke, we shall take care that ye mutually kill yourselves, and wade in your own blood." He addressed the Diet, Feb. 13, in a speech of three hours, and contended that Luther’s final condemnation left no room for a further hearing of the heretic, but imposed upon the Emperor and the Estates the simple duty to execute the requirements of the papal bull.

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

  With this view, the theologians coincided. Peter the Venerable, a half-century before Innocent, presented the case in the same aspect as did the great pope, and launched a fearful denunciation against the Jews. In a letter to Louis VII. of France, he exclaimed, "What would it profit to fight against enemies of the cross in remote lands, while the wicked Jews, who blaspheme Christ, and who are much worse than the Saracens, go free and unpunished. Much more are the Jews to be execrated and hated than the Saracens; for the latter accept the birth from the Virgin, but the Jews deny it, and blaspheme that doctrine and all Christian mysteries. God does not want them to be wholly exterminated, but to be kept, like the fratricide Cain, for still more severe torment and disgrace. In this way God’s most just severity has dealt with the Jews from the time of Christ’s passion, and will continue to deal with them to the end of the world, for they are accursed, and deserve to be."918 He counselled that they be spoiled of their ill-gotten gains and the money derived from their spoliation be applied to wrest the holy places from the Saracens. Of a different mind was Bernard. When the preparations were being made for the Second Crusade, and the monk Radulf went up and down the Rhine, inflaming the people against the Jews, the abbot of Clairvaux set himself against the "demagogue," as Neander called Radulf.919 He wrote a burning epistle to the archbishop of Mainz, reminding him that the Lord is gracious towards him who returns good for evil. "Does not the Church," he exclaimed, "triumph more fully over the Jews by convincing and converting them from day to day than if she once and for all should slay them by the edge of the sword!" How bitter the prejudice was is seen in the fact that when Bernard met Radulf face to face, it required all his reputation for sanctity to allay the turbulence at Mainz.920 Turning to England we find William of Newburgh, Roger de Hoveden, and other chroniclers. approving the Jewish persecutions. Richard of Devizes921 speaks of "sacrificing the Jews to their father, the devil," and of sending "the bloodsuckers with blood to hell." Matthew Paris, in some of his references, seems not to have been in full sympathy with the popular animosity.

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

  Believe me now, O Greeks, and do not resolve your myths and gods into allegory. If you attempt to do this, the divine nature as held by you is overthrown by your own selves; for, if the demons with you are such as they are said to be, they are worthless as to character; or, if regarded as symbols of the powers of nature, they are not what they are called. But I cannot be persuaded to pay religious homage to the natural elements, nor can I undertake to persuade my neighbor. And Metrodorus of Lampsacus, in his treatise concerning Homer, has argued very foolishly, turning everything into allegory. For he says that neither Hera, nor Athene, nor Zeus are what those persons suppose who consecrate to them sacred enclosures and groves, but parts of nature and certain arrangements of the elements. Hector also, and Achilles, and Agamemnon, and all the Greeks in general, and the Barbarians with Helen and Paris, being of the same nature, you will of course say are introduced merely for the sake of the machinery of the poem, not one of these personages having really existed. But these things we have put forth only for argument’s sake; for it is not allowable even to compare our notions of God with those who are wallowing in matter and mud." Ch. 25.—Boastings and quarrels of the philosophers. What great and wonderful things have your philosophers effected? They leave uncovered one of their shoulders; they let their hair grow long; they cultivate their beards; their nails are like the claws of wild beasts. Though they say that they want nothing, yet, like Proteus [the Cynic, Proteus Peregrinus known to us from Lucian], they need a currier for their wallet, and a weaver for their mantle, and a woodcutter for their staff, and they need the rich [to invite them to banquets], and a cook also for their gluttony. O man competing with the dog [cynic philosopher], you know not God, and so have turned to the imitation of an irrational animal. You cry out in public with an assumption of authority, and take upon you to avenge your own self; and if you receive nothing, you

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

  duchy of Hesse.336 It is famous in German song as the scene of the Niebelungenlied, which opens with King Günther of Worms and his sister Chriemhild, the world’s wonder for grace and beauty. It is equally famous in ecclesiastical history for "the Concordat of Worms," which brought to an end the long contest between the Emperor and the Pope about investiture (Sept. 23, 1122). But its greatest fame the city acquired by Luther’s heroic stand on the word of God and the rights of conscience, which made the Diet of 1521 one of the most important in the history of German Diets. After that event two conferences of Protestant and Roman-Catholic leaders were held in Worms, to heal the breach of the Reformation,—one in 1541, and one in 1557; but both failed of their object. In 1868 (June 25) a splendid monument to Luther and his fellow-laborers by Rietschel was erected at Worms, and dedicated with great national enthusiasm.337 The religious question threw all the political and financial questions into the background, and absorbed the attention of the public mind. At the very beginning of the Diet a new papal brief called upon the Emperor to give, by an imperial edict, legal force to the bull of January 3, by which Luther was finally excommunicated, and his books condemned to the flames. The Pope urged him to prove his zeal for the unity of the Church. God had girded him with supreme earthly power, that he might use it against heretics who were much worse than infidels.338 On Maundy Thursday, March 28, the Pope, in proclaiming the terrible bull In Coena Domini, which is annually read at Rome, expressly condemned, among other heretics, Martin Luther by name with all his adherents. This was the third or fourth excommunication, but produced little effect.339 The Pope was ably represented by two Italian legates, who were afterwards created cardinals, -Marino Caracciolo (1459–1538) for the political affairs, and Jerome Aleander (1480–1542) for the ecclesiastical interests. Aleander was at that time librarian of the Vatican, and enjoyed great reputation as a Greek scholar. He had lectured at Paris before two thousand bearers of all classes. He stood in friendly relations to Erasmus; but when the latter showed sympathy with the Reformation, be denounced him as the chief founder of the Lutheran heresy. He was an intense papist, and skilled in all the arts of diplomacy. His religious wants were not very pressing. During the Diet of Worms he scarcely found time, in the holy week, "to occupy himself a little with Christ and his conscience." His sole object was to maintain the power of the Pope, and to annihilate the new heresy. In his letters he calls Luther a fool, a dog, a basilisk, a ribald. He urged everywhere the wholesale burning of his books.340 He employed argument, persuasion, promises, threats, spies, and bribes. He complained that he could not get money enough from Rome for greedy officials.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There is a popular proverb which runs as follows: ‘He who is wicked and held to be good, can cheat because no one imagines he would.’ This saying offers me ample scope to tell you a story on the topic that has been prescribed, and it also enables me to illustrate the extraordinary and perverse hypocrisy of the members of religious orders. They go about in those long, flowing robes of theirs, and when they are asking for alms, they deliberately put on a forlorn expression and are all humility and sweetness; but when they are reproaching you with their own vices, or showing how the laity achieve salvation by almsgiving and the clerics by almsgrabbing, they positively deafen you with their loud and arrogant voices. To hear them talk, one would think they were excused, unlike the rest of us, from working their way to Heaven on their merits, for they behave as though they actually own and govern the place, assigning to every man who dies a position of greater or lesser magnificence there according to the quantity of money he has bequeathed to them in his will. Hence they are pulling a massive confidence trick, of which they themselves, if they really believe what they say, are the earliest victims; but the chief sufferers are the people who take these claims of theirs at their face value. If only I were allowed to go into the necessary details, I would soon open many a simpleton’s eyes to the sort of thing these fellows conceal beneath the ample folds of their habits. However, for the time being we must hope that God will punish their lies by granting to each and every one of them a fate similar to that which befell a certain Franciscan, by no means young in years, who was reputed in Venice to be one of the finest that Assisi had ever attracted to its cause. His story is one that I am especially pleased to relate, because you are all feeling saddened by hearing of Ghismonda’s death, and perhaps I can restore your spirits a little by persuading you to laugh and be merry.

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

  found it necessary to oppose the legacy-hunting of the clergy, particularly in Rome, with a law of the year 370,141 and Jerome acknowledges there was good reason for it.142 The wealth of the church was converted mostly into real estate, or at least secured by it. And the church soon came to own the tenth part of all the landed property. This land, to be sure, had long been worthless or neglected, but under favorable conditions rose in value with uncommon rapidity. At the time of Chrysostom, towards the close of the fourth century, the church of Antioch was strong enough to maintain entirely or in part three thousand widows and consecrated virgins besides many poor, sick, and strangers.143 The metropolitan churches of Rome and Alexandria were the most wealthy. The various churches of Rome in the sixth century, besides enormous treasures in money and gold and silver vases, owned many houses and lands not only in Italy and Sicily, but even in Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt.144 And when John, who bears the honorable distinction of the Almsgiver for his unlimited liberality to the poor, became patriarch of Alexandria (606), he found in the church treasury eight thousand pounds of gold, and himself received ten thousand, though be retained hardly an ordinary blanket for himself, and is said on one occasion to have fed seven thousand five hundred poor at once.145 The control of the ecclesiastical revenues vested in the bishops. The bishops distributed the funds according, to the prevailing custom into three or four parts: for themselves, for their clergy, for the current expenses of worship, and for the poor. They frequently exposed themselves to the suspicion of avarice and nepotism. The best of them, like Chrysostom and Augustine, were averse to this concernment with earthly property, since it often conflicted with their higher duties; and they preferred the poverty of earlier times, because the present abundant revenues diminished private beneficence. And most certainly this opulence had two sides. It was a source both of profit and of loss to the church. According to the spirit of its proprietors and its controllers, it might be used for the furtherance of the kingdom of God, the building of churches, the support of the needy, and the founding of charitable institutions for the poor, the sick, for widows and orphans, for destitute strangers and aged persons,146 or perverted to the fostering of indolence and luxury, and thus promote moral corruption and decay. This was felt by serious minds even in the palmy days of the external power of the hierarchy. Dante, believing Constantine to be the author of the pope’s temporal sovereignty, on the ground of the fictitious donation to Sylvester, bitterly exclaimed: "Your gods ye make of silver and of gold; And wherein differ from idolaters, Save that their god is one—yours hundred fold? Ah, Constantine! what evils caused to flow, Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower Thou on the first rich Father didst bestow!"147 § 15.

• From Trash (1988)

  “You got a lot in that face for nothing to say. Mabel Moseley told me she saw you out behind the mill talking to that Gibson boy day before yesterday. She said you were shaking your ass and swinging your hair like some kind of harlot.” Mattie scooped up more rice and stuffed her mouth so that her cheeks bulged out. She looked at her mother steadily, seeing for the first time not only the thin lips but also the corded neck muscles, and the high red spots on the cheeks. She is ugly, Mattie thought. Seriously ugly. Shirley frowned. Something was going on, and she did not understand it. Mattie let her eyes wander up to her mother’s pupils, the hard hazel color that reflected her own. You are ugly and old, she thought to herself. Her teeth went on chewing steadily. Her eyes did not blink. “Now, now.” Tucker pushed his plate forward out of his way. “You know Mabel Moseley an’t quite right in her head. Mattie Lee’s a good girl.” “She’s trash. She’s nothing but trash, and you know it.” Calmly, Shirley set the full plate in front of her youngest and started to fill another for herself. “Don’t matter what I do. I can’t make nothing out of these brats. Seems like they’re all bound to grow up to be trash.” Tucker closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m tired,” he whispered. “I’m gonna lay me down for a while.” “An’t no food gonna be kept warm for you.” “Don’t want it no way.” Mattie spooned more rice, and chewed slowly. She watched her mother watch her father as he walked away, shuffling his feet on the floorboards. There were wide gaps between most of the floorboards, and Shirley was always stuffing them with one thing or another. What would it be like, Mattie wondered, to live in a house with dirt floors? “You know that union man?” she heard herself say, and her heart seemed to pause briefly in shock. Her mama was looking at her again. Shirley’s mouth was hanging open. Past her shoulder, Bo had stopped in the doorway, wiping his hands on his shirtfront. “Union?” “Trade union.” Mattie filled her fork again and then looked right past her mama to Bo. “You think we ought to sign up?” “You’ve gone crazy.” Shirley dropped the spoon into the beans. “You’ve gone absolutely white-eyed crazy. There an’t no union in the mill. There an’t gonna be no union in the mill. And I wouldn’t let you join one if some fool was to bring one in.” “You couldn’t stop me.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Another of the Decameron’s recurrent motifs, and one which has been analysed in some detail by Branca,59 is the entrepreneurial spirit that was so important a factor in establishing the economic prosperity of fourteenth-century Florence, and that seems to motivate a number of the characters in Boccaccio’s stories, or at least to form part of the background to many of the narratives. The more obvious examples of this are to be found in the Second Day, where the topic for discussion (‘those who after suffering a series of misfortunes are brought to a state of unexpected happiness’) is itself conducive to the telling of stories set in the business and mercantile world, with its attendant hazards and opportunities, its see-saw movements between the extremes of ruinous loss and prodigious profit. But the motif of commercial enterprise (in Branca’s phrase, the ragion di mercatura, which he sees as the dominant force of fourteenth-century Italy, as distinct from the ragion di stato of the Renaissance) is by no means confined to the stories of the Second Day. It is an important element in at least a score of the other novelle, and the Decameron as a whole, including the framework, reflects the mores and aspirations of the enterprising and industrious Florentine middle class which succeeded the feudal aristocracy of medieval Italy, and to which the author himself decidedly belonged. The ragion di mercatura provides a sort of key to the interpretation of many of the stories, but it requires to be used with discretion. In the case of Ciappelletto, for example, it has been suggested, by Branca, that Boccaccio is here expressing his distaste for the inhumane and unscrupulous practices through which vast private fortunes were frequently accumulated,60 or, to use a modern expression, what the author is doing is condemning the unacceptable face of capitalism. But an interpretation along these lines can be valid only if the narrator’s prefatory and concluding remarks are read as reliable pointers to the writer’s own opinion of Ciappelletto (instead of as the tongue-in-cheek declarations of piety that they patently are), and if moral as distinct from narrative significance is attached to certain passages, such as the one describing the main character as ‘perhaps the worst man ever born’ and the quite literally rhetorical question of the two money-lenders: ‘What manner of man is this, whom neither old age nor illness, nor fear of the death which he sees so close at hand, nor even the fear of God, before whose judgement he knows he must shortly appear, have managed to turn away from his evil ways, or persuade to die any differently from the way he has lived?’61

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘As you know, not a day passes without my being plagued and tormented from morning till night with the attentions of those two Florentines, Rinuccio and Alessandro. I have no intention of conceding my love to either of the two, and in order to be rid of them, I have made up my mind, since they are always so free with their promises, to test their sincerity by setting them both a task which I am certain they will fail to accomplish, and thus I shall put an end to their pestering. ‘Now this is how I shall go about it. As you know, this morning at the convent of the Franciscans, the burial took place of Scannadio4 (such was the name of the villain in question), the sight of whom was sufficient, when he was still alive, let alone now that he is dead, to frighten the bravest men in the land. So I want you first of all to go secretly to Alessandro, and say to him: “Madonna Francesca sends me to tell you that the time has come when you may have the love for which you have been craving, and that if you so desire you can go to her in the manner I shall now explain. For reasons you will be told about later, a kinsman of hers is obliged to convey to her house, tonight, the body of Scannadio, who was buried this morning. And since she is utterly repelled by the thought of harbouring this man’s corpse under her own roof, she implores you to do her a great favour, namely that when darkness has fallen, you should enter Scannadio’s tomb, put on his clothes, and lie there impersonating him till her kinsman comes to fetch you. Without saying a word or uttering any sound, you are to allow yourself to be taken from the tomb and brought to her house. She will be waiting there to receive you, and you will be able to stay with her for as long as you like, leaving everything else to her” If he agrees to do this, all well and good; but if he refuses, you are to tell him from me that I never want to set eyes on him again, and that if he values his life he will take good care not to send me any more of his messages or entreaties.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The battle for the control of domestic space is vividly illustrated in the story (VII, 4) of the wife who, having put her husband to bed thinking him drunk and incapable, finds herself locked out of the house on returning in pitch darkness from an assignation with her young lover. The husband, who on this occasion has merely pretended to be drunk so as to discover his wife’s reasons for packing him off to bed, tells her to go away, and threatens to make an example of her in front of her neighbours and kinsfolk. Having pleaded in vain to be let into the house, the woman, who ‘had all her wits about her’, picks up an enormous stone and flings it down a nearby well, giving her husband the impression that she is committing suicide. He rushes from the house to rescue her, where upon she seizes her opportunity to dash into the house, bolt the door, and subject him to such a torrent of abuse about his drinking habits that she arouses all the neighbours. When word of the incident reaches the ears of her kinsfolk, they hasten to the scene and give the husband a severe hiding before taking away his wife and all of her belongings. He is able to retrieve her only by surrendering total control of domestic space, giving his wife leave to amuse herself at will, provided that she does it discreetly and without his knowledge. The woman is described as semplicetta, or not unduly intelligent, her ingenious stratagem for regaining entry to the house being attributed to the power of Love. Intelligence is not in fact a quality that is always admired in the women characters of the Decameron, as can be seen from the narrator’s portrayal of Ghismonda (IV, 1) as one who ‘possessed rather more intelligence than a woman needs’.69 But in the story of the werewolf (VII, 1), Lotteringhi’s wife is described as a woman ‘of great intelligence and perspicacity’ (‘savia e avveduta molto’), qualities that she exhibits to the full in her hour of need, not only by inventing a plausible tale to allay her husband’s suspicions, but by extemporizing a rhyming prayer to ‘exorcize’ the nocturnal visitor. The resourcefulness shown by Monna Sismonda (VII, 8), when her husband discovers the length of string that she uses to communicate with her lover, is no less impressive. The story is one that highlights incidentally the tensions that arose from mixed marriages between the daughters of older patrician families and representatives of the newer Florentine social order, the affluent merchant class. The husband is presented as one who ‘foolishly decided to marry into the aristocracy, and took to wife a young gentlewoman, quite unsuited to him’, and towards the end of the story he is subjected to a barrage of violent and vulgar abuse by his mother-in-law, who roundly expresses her contempt for his origins and social pretensions.

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

  While the negotiations in Worms were going on, he used incessantly his voice and his pen, and alternated between devotional and controversial exercises. He often preached twice a day, wrote commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, and the Magnificat (the last he finished in March), and published the first part of his Postil (Sermons on the Gospels and Epistles), a defense of his propositions condemned by Rome, and fierce polemical books against Hieronymus Emser, Ambrose Catharinus, and other papal opponents. Emser, a learned Romanist, and secretary of Duke George of Saxony, had first attacked Luther after the Leipzig disputation, at which he was present. A bitter controversy followed, in which both forgot dignity and charity. Luther called Emser "the Goat of Leipzig" (in reference to the escutcheon of his family), and Emser called Luther in turn, the Capricorn of Wittenberg." Luther’s Antwort auf das überchristliche, übergeistliche, und überkünstliche Buch Bock Emser’s, appeared in March, 1521, and defends his doctrine of the general priesthood of believers.348 Emser afterwards severely criticised Luther’s translation of the Bible, and published his own version of the New Testament shortly before his death (1527). Catharinus,349 an eminent Dominican at Rome, had attacked Luther toward the end of December, 1520. Luther in his Latin reply tried to prove from Dan. 8:25 sqq.; 2 Thess. 2:3 sqq.; 2 Tim. 4:3 sqq.; 2 Pet. 2:1 sqq.; and the Epistle of Jude, that popery was the Antichrist predicted in the Scriptures, and would soon be annihilated by the Lord himself at his second coming, which he thought to be near at hand. It is astonishing that in the midst of the war of theological passions, he could prepare such devotional books as his commentaries and sermons, which are full of faith and practical comfort. He lived and moved in the heart of the Scriptures; and this was the secret of his strength and success. On the second of April, Luther left Wittenberg, accompanied by Amsdorf, his friend and colleague, Peter Swaven, a Danish student, and Johann Pezensteiner, an Augustinian brother. Thus the faculty, the students, and his monastic order were represented. They rode in an open farmer’s wagon, provided by the magistrate of the city. The imperial herald in his coat-of-arms preceded on horseback. Melanchthon wished to accompany his friend, but he was needed at home. "If I do not return," said Luther in taking leave of him, "and my enemies murder me, I conjure thee, dear brother, to persevere in teaching the truth. Do my work during my absence: you can do it better than I. If you remain, I can well be spared. In thee the Lord has a more learned champion."

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

  Melanchthon had no popular talent, but he employed his scholarly pen in a Latin apology for Luther, against the furious decree of the Parisian theologasters."404 The Sorbonne, hitherto the most famous theological faculty, which in the days of the reformatory Councils had stood up for the cause of reform, followed the example of the universities of Louvain and Cologne, and denounced Luther during the sessions of the Diet of Worms, April 15, 1521, as an arch-heretic who had renewed and intensified the blasphemous errors of the Manichaeans, Hussites, Beghards, Cathari, Waldenses, Ebionites, Arians, etc., and who should be destroyed by fire rather than refuted by arguments.405 Eck translated the decision at once into German. Melanchthon dared to charge the faculty of Paris with apostasy from Christ to Aristotle, and from biblical theology to scholastic sophistry. Luther translated the Apology into German at the Wartburg, and, finding it too mild, he added to it some strokes of his "peasant’s axe."406