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 6 of 253 · 20 per page

• From An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (2016)

  The people of Israel and Israel’s king relied on Israel's God to deliver them from the peril of the pagan kings, who looked to their own gods for victory. The exodus is the story of God rescuing the Israelites from Pharaoh and from Egypt's gods (Exod 7-12). The Shema— the bedrock confession of Israel's faith—contained a forthright denunciation of idolatry and called for steadfast devotion in the one true God of Israel (Deut 6:4-6). In the confrontation story about Elijah the prophet versus the Baal prophets on Mount Carmel, Yahweh proves overwhelmingly superior (1 Kgs 18). In Isaiah a prophecy concerning the destruction of the nations with their pantheon occurs along with a mocking treatment of idol worship (e.g., Isa 13-24; 44:9-20). In addition, in Jewish apocalyptic literature there is a strong focus on God’s eschatological act, his kingdom, eclipsing the Baby- lonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman kingdoms (e.g., Dan 2; 4; 7). Some Jewish authors could even identify Rome as the ultimate enemy of God's people (e.g., 92. If Paul wrote his letters to people who were part of “Caesar’s household” (Phil 4:22) and in prominent Roman households (Rom 16:10-11), then their familiarity with Roman imperial rhetoric seems beyond question. 93. See Deissmann, LAE, 340; Heilig, “Counter-Imperial ‘Echoes’ in Pauline Literature,’ 91; idem, Hidden Criticism?, 28-33, 158-59. 227 AN ANOMALOUS JEW 1QM; 1QpHab 2.10-13; 6.1-8; 4 Ezra 11.1-14). More specifically, the memory of Pompey’s seizure of Jerusalem did not fade,”* and Caligula’s attempt to have a statue of himself placed in the temple highlighted the intrusive and predatory nature of imperial religion.’° Josephus noted how constant banditry in Judea was caused in part by anti-Roman sentiment.”° The Israelite religion, when faced with invading empires with ruler cults and idol-worship, was always anti-imperial.?” We should not be surprised, then, if a Christ-believing Jewish author like Paul—invested with a strong theocentric, apocalyptic, and messi- anic theology—shared a similar worldview that believed in the eventual down- fall of pagan power and the victory of the God of Israel through his Messiah.”* Romans 1:1-4 Jewish sociologist of religion Jacob Taubes saw in Rom 1:3-4 a subversive and anti-Caesar gambit by Paul in his opening words. Taubes declares, “I want to stress that this is a political declaration of war, when a letter introducing using these words, and not others, is sent to the congregation in Rome to be read aloud. One doesn't know into whose hands it will fall, and the censors weren't idiots. One could, after all, have introduced it pietistically quietistically, neu- trally, or however else; but there is none of that here. That is why my thesis is that in this sense the Epistle to the Romans is a political theology, a political 94. See Pss. Sol. 2.1-2; 8.19-21; 17.11-14. 95. Josephus, Ant. 18.261-309; 19.300-312; Philo, Legat., esp. 188, 208, 238, 265, 292. 96. Josephus, War 2.264-65; Ant. 17.285. 97.

• From The City of God

  145 Lecture 7 Transcript—Augustine’s Political Vision (Book 4) For pre-modern states, the solution to their weakness, to their limited power, was ideology and spectacle. They spent a fair amount of money trying to show that the state in general was worth supporting, and the emperor in particular was majestic, truly someone to be regarded as legitimate, honorable, god-worthy. Indeed, such states typically spent much more on propaganda, such as statues and monuments and feasts and civic rituals, than they did on public works—and what public works they did do were covered in propaganda. For example, throughout Europe even today you can still see versions of the letters SPQR—Senatus Populusque Romanus, “By the Senate and the People of Rome”—adorning buildings. That’s propaganda, you realize, trying to remind everyone in the empire that their tax dollars were at work. Now there’s a gruesome side to this as well, analogous to our speeding tickets. Horrific punishments were carried out in public— execution by torture, flogging, many other things—often with an audience compelled to watch. They were so gruesome not because people then naturally enjoyed such brutality more than today—just watch our movies for evidence to the contrary—but because the state had to rely more on deterrence than on the idea that police could be everywhere watching. Indeed, by and large, the role of the policing forces—not that there were many of them—was different. In Rome, they were not there to stop crime from happening, but more simply to catch the perpetrators and punish them. That’s a big difference. And the power of images and examples and spectacle were very important, by necessity. Third, and finally, a centerpiece of this ideology, the rationale for the state, was freedom: libertas. The greatness of the imperium was that it made its inhabitants free men. Now, part of this was simply giving lip service to a holdover from the ideology of ancient republican Rome, before the empire. But another part seems to have been sincerely believed by the people of the time.

• From The City of God

  179 Lecture 9—Public Religion in Imperial Rome (Books 6–7) the central purpose of ordering and legitimating the customs of human society. According to Varro, the gods are most plausibly long-ago humans whose memory the ceaseless waves of history have worn down into heroes, then legends, then gods. „Yet, despite this skeptical demolition of the Roman pantheon, Varro placidly assumes that the gods should still be revered and worshipped by the populace at large, and that the intellectuals should relate to them with gloriously ambiguous silence. He tries to warrant this viewpoint with two different strategies, neither of which, in Augustine’s assessment, works. „In the primary strategy, Varro distinguishes between three kinds of theology that describe three ways that religion is used in Roman society: ›First is the “fabulous” theology displayed in the stories of the poets, particularly on the stage, which Varro severely opposed. ›Second is “natural” theology explained in the work of natural philosophers about the world, with which Varro avoids engaging. ›Third is “civic” theology deployed by political thinkers and actors to discipline the city, which Varro allows while distinguishing it from the other two. ›In other words, religion’s cultural function serves only to mislead those who take it seriously; but its political function has many valid uses, and its basic metaphysical function as Augustine launches his response through his first serious engagement with a serious intellectual rival, Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC), one of the greatest of Roman minds. 180 Books That Matter: The City of God orienting us rightly to the nature and destiny of the cosmos is more valid still. „Augustine pounces on Varro’s exposition, asking on what basis the three theologies are distinguishable from one another. In fact, he thinks they three bleed into one another: ›The lustful gods of the fables warp our political piety and pollute our natural sanctity. ›The savagery of civic piety gives us a dangerous taste for domination in all spheres of life. ›The hierarchical austerities of natural theology provide pathetic support to the violence and lusts of civic and cultural life and mislead us as to both our real situation and the steps that God is taking to save us. „As Augustine puts it, “both civil and fabulous theologies are alike fabulous and civil”: The city has fallen in love with dangerous myths, self-created, and worked those myths into its self- understanding. But neither of these theologies can grant eternal life or otherwise deliver on their promises. „In his second strategy, Varro makes a distinction between the “general pantheon” of all the gods that Rome has honored and a group of “select gods.” ›In other words, Varro can imagine that some selection of the gods should be worshipped in the city, while the rest can be discarded or ignored. ›Thus, philosophers can respect the common belief in these gods while not letting on to the crowd that they understand them to be something very different than what the common folk take them to be.

• From The City of God

  But what kind of distinction is this which he makes between the religious and the superstitious man, saying that the gods are feared [243] by the superstitious man, but are reverenced [244] as parents by the religious man, not feared as enemies; and that they are all so good that they will more readily spare those who are impious than hurt one who is innocent? And yet he tells us that three gods are assigned as guardians to a woman after she has been delivered, lest the god Silvanus come in and molest her; and that in order to signify the presence of these protectors, three men go round the house during the night, and first strike the threshold with a hatchet, next with a pestle, and the third time sweep it with a brush, in order that these symbols of agriculture having been exhibited, the god Silvanus might be hindered from entering, because neither are trees cut down or pruned without a hatchet, neither is grain ground without a pestle, nor corn heaped up without a besom. Now from these three things three gods have been named:Intercidona, from the cut [245] made by the hatchet; Pilumnus, from the pestle; Diverra, from the besom;--by which guardian gods the woman who has been de livered is preserved against the power of the god Silvanus. Thus the guardianship of kindly-disposed gods would not avail against the malice of a mischievous god, unless they were three to one, and fought against him, as it were, with the opposing emblems of cultivation, who, being an inhabitant of the woods, is rough, horrible, and uncultivated. Is this the innocence of the gods? Is this their concord? Are these the health-giving deities of the cities, more ridiculous than the things which are laughed at in the theatres?

• From The City of God

  It is of Him, too, that the most famous poet speaks, poetically indeed, since he applies it to the person of another, yet truly, if you refer it to Christ , saying, "Under thine auspices, if any traces of our crimes remain, they shall be obliterated, and earth freed from its perpetual fear. " [428]By which he indicates that, by reason of the infirmity which attaches to this life, the greatest progress in virtue and righteousness leaves room for the existence, if not of crimes, yet of the traces of crimes, which are obliterated only by that Saviour of whom this verse speaks. For that he did not say this at the prompting of his own fancy, Virgil tells us in almost the last verse of that 4th Eclogue, when he says, "The last age predicted by the Cumaean sibyl has now arrived;" whence it plainly appears that this had been dictated by the Cumaean sibyl. But those theurgists, or rather demons, who assume the appearance and form of gods, pollute rather than purify the human spirit by false appearances and the delusive mockery of unsubstantial forms. How can those whose own spirit is unclean cleanse the spirit of man? Were they not unclean, they would not be bound by the incantations of an envious man, and would neither be afraid nor grudge to bestow that hollow boon which they promise. But it is sufficient for our purpose that you acknowledge that the intellectual soul, that is, our mind, cannot be justified by theurgy; and that even the spiritual or inferior part of our soul cannot by this act be made eternal and immortal, though you maintain that it can be purified by it. Christ, however, promises life eternal; and therefore to Him the world flocks, greatly to your indignation, greatly also to your astonishment and confusion. What avails your forced avowal that theurgy leads men astray, and deceives vast numbers by its ignorant and foolish teaching, and that it is the most manifest mistake to have recourse by prayer and sacrifice to angels and principalities, when at the same time, to save yourself from the charge of spending labor in vain on such arts, you direct men to the theurgists, that by their means men, who do not live by the rule of the intellectual soul, may have their spiritual soul purified?

• From The City of God

  148 Books That Matter: The City of God This is a great scene, one of the set pieces of this whole city. The conqueror comes face to face with the pirate, and demands of him an answer to his question: “How dare you molest the seas?” Pirate, who has been around a bit, replies quickly, “How dare you molest the whole earth? We share a common practice. But because I do it with a small boat, I am labeled a pirate and a thief; while you, with a great navy, molest the whole earth and you are labeled an emperor.” In his next chapter—Chapter 5, Book 4—Augustine gives another example, the gladiator revolt of Spartacus, which managed to sustain itself for several years as a hostile community in opposition to the entire Imperium Romanum, right in the heart of Italy itself. Once again, a real political community was formed, though one that was said to be outside the law. In fact, it showed the law itself to be a particular creation, not a natural fact about the cosmos. And then, following both of these examples of non-states acting in ways that troubles the distinction between states and gangs, pirates and gladiators, he turns in Chapter 6 to an example of a state acting in a way that troubles this distinction as well. He speaks of Ninus, the mythical founder of Nineveh, whom he says was the first to suffer imperii cupiditate—lust of rule; this is kind of a linguistic version, a cousin of libido dominandi—and who made Assyria in its day larger and greater than the Roman Empire itself. Here we have a clear case of a political state, one that no one would question. And yet, Augustine says, Ninus’s motivation was just another version of the highwayman’s greed, the pirate’s appetite, and backed up by the gladiator’s steel. There’s no special qualitative dignity to this cupidity to rule; in fact, it is nothing but another form of theft—or rather, that theft is just another species of conquering. This last equivalence is important. The first thing Augustine establishes in Book 4 is not that politics is crime, not exactly, but rather that politics is not essentially different from crime, and vice versa. To say that politics is nothing but criminal would be a cynical claim, not a realist one; such cynicism is possible only if you imagine that politics

• From The City of God

  121 Lecture 6 Transcript—The Price of Empire (Books 2–3) or his agents. They were republicans in name and mindset, but mostly as hobbyists, like Civil War reenactors today. And Augustine assaulted their self-image and their story about their own history with all the cunning and vigor that the barbarians had shown in warfare. What is the nature of the Roman State, Augustine asks, and how and why should we respect it? What has fallen, he asks, in the sack of Rome? Well, Rome itself. But what, precisely, was Rome? The traditional pagan story offered a very simple answer: glory and justice. In the first book of Cicero’s De re publica, Scipio—the character Scipio in the book—famously describes a commonwealth as an assembly united in fellowship by common agreement as to what is right and a community of interest in keeping the right. Cicero seems to stand behind this definition. Later in the dialogue, he has the character Scipio ask rhetorically: What is a society except a partnership in justice? This should be respected; it should be honored, almost adored. So Rome for Cicero means law; Rome means decency; Rome means justice. Augustine makes a two-pronged attack on this picture of Rome. First of all, he offers a formal definitional attack on its understanding of politics itself. The Romans, and especially Cicero, are mistaken about what constitutes a state. If a polity is defined by a community of justice, and if justice—as all the ancients believed—is a matter of each “being” being given their due, then the first agent to whom justice must be given, for Augustine, by any state, is God, the Creator and ordainer of all things. Therefore, justice demands, he says, the worship of the true God. Since God was not worshipped in Rome, from the beginning, Augustine says, justice never prevailed there. If Cicero is correct to assert that societies are partnerships in justice, then Augustine’s claim implies that Rome was not a society—was not a city. But since it is granted all around that Rome was a society, it follows that Cicero must be wrong. Whatever political societies are, they cannot be, by definition, partnerships in justice. Now, we’ll see much later that Augustine proposes a different picture of the

• From The City of God

  But they are right to inculcate the giving of aims proportioned to past sins; for if they said that any kind of alms could obtain the divine pardon of great sins committed daily and with habitual enormity, if they said that such sins could thus be daily remitted, they would see that their doctrine was absurd and ridiculous. For they would thus be driven to acknowledge that it were possible for a very wealthy man to buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and all manner of wickedness, by paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins. And if it be most absurd and insane to make such an acknowledgment, and if we still ask what are those fitting alms of which even the forerunner of Christ said, "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance," [1584] undoubtedly it will be found that they are not such as are done by men who undermine their life by daily enormities even to the very end. For they suppose that by giving to the poor a small fraction of the wealth they acquire by extortion and spoliation they can propitiate Christ, so that they may with impunity commit the most damnable sins, in the persuasion that they have bought from Him a license to transgress, or rather do buy a daily indulgence. And if they for one crime have distributed all their goods to Christ's needy members, that could profit them nothing unless they desisted from all similar actions, and attained charity which worketh no evil He therefore who does alms-deeds proportioned to his sins must first begin with himself. For it is not reasonable that a man who exercises charity towards his neighbor should not do so towards himself, since he hears the Lord saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," [1585] and again, "Have compassion on thy soul, and please God. " [1586]He then who has not compassion on his own soul that he may please God, how can he be said to do alms-deeds proportioned to his sins? To the same purpose is that written, "He who is bad to himself, to whom can he be good? " [1587]We ought therefore to do alms that we may be heard when we pray that our past sins may be forgiven, not that while we continue in them we may think to provide ourselves with a license for wickedness by alms-deeds.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  πἄνουργέω, pf. πεπανούργηκα Ar. Pl. 368 :—to be πανοῦργος, to play the knave or villain, Eur. Med. 583, Ar. Ach.658, Antipho 137.8; with neut. Adj., ἃ mavoupyeis Ar. Eq. 803, cf. Pl. 368, 876; ὅσια mavoupyn- σασα, an oxymoron, having dared a righteous crime, Soph. Ant. 74; πανουργίας π. περί τι Dem. 943. I. πᾶνούργημα, τό, a knavish trick, villany, Soph. ΕἸ. 1387. πανουργία, 4, wnascrupulous conduct, knavery, roguery, villany, craft, Lat. malitia, Aesch. Theb. 603, Soph. Ph. 915, Lys. 165. 33, Plat. Legg. 747 C, cf. Arist. Eth. N. 6. 12, 9; and in pl., knaveries, villanies, Soph. Ant. 300, Ar. Eq. 684, etc. 2. of animals, Arist. H. A. 8. 1, 2.,9.8,12. πᾶνουργικός, 7, Ov, knavish, Byz. Adv. --κῶς, Schol. Ar. Pl. 1064. πᾶνουργ-ιππαρχίδας, ov, 6, knave-Hipparchides, Ar. Ach. 603. Tavotpyos, ov, ready to do anything, wicked, knavish, roguish, villan- ous, Aesch. Cho. 383, Eur. Alc. 766, etc., and often in Ar.; opp. to εὐήθης, Lys. 100. 17 :—as Subst. a knave, rogue, villain, Eur. Hipp. 1400, Ar. Eq. 249, al.; ὦ mavodpye Eur. Hec. 1257, Ar. Ach. 311; so, τὰ π. the knavish sort, Soph. Ph. 448 ; τὸ π. -- πανουργία, Id. El. 1507: —Comp. -ότερος, Lxx; -ἔστερος, Plut. 2. 395 D: Sup. -ότατος, Ar. Eq. 45. 2. Adv. —yws, Ib. 317, Plat. Soph. 239 C: Sup. -ότατα, Ar. Eq. 66. 3. of animals, as the fox, Arist. H. A. I. 1, 33, cf. 9. 8, 4. ΤΙ. in ἃ less positively bad sense, cunning, crafty, clever, smart, like δεινός, Dem. Io. 2, Polyb. 5. 75, 2., 31. 20, 3, cf. Arist. Eth. N. 6. 12, 9; joined with δεινός, Plat. Theaet. 177 A; π᾿ Te καὶ σοφός Id. Rep. 409 C; κομψὸς καὶ π. Plut. 2. 28 A:—Ady. —yws, Ath. 407 A. πᾶνούριος, ov, (οὖρος) quite fair, of the wind, Hesych. πάν-οψ, 6, all-seeing, a name of Hermes, C. I. 7603. πᾶἄνόψια, τά, ν. πυανέψια. πᾶνόψιος, ον, (ὄψις) all-seen, in the sight of all, πανόψιον ἔγχος ἑλοῦσα Il. 21. 397 (where it may either agree with ἔγχος or be used ad- verbially). II. all-seeing, ὄμμα Nonn. D. 14. 169. πάνριζος, ov, with all its roots, γένος Epigr. Gr. 502. 28. πάνρῦὕτος, ov, (pew) quite liquid, Orph. H. 9. 23. πανσᾶἄγία, ἡ, --πανοπλία, πανσαγίᾳ in full armour, Soph. Ant. 107. πανσεβάσμιος, ον, most august, Eccl. ; also πανσέβαστος, ov, C. I. 8716; used as a title in Byz. writers ;—and πανσεβής, és, Theod. Prodr, πανσεληνιάζω, to be at the full moon, Procl. paraphr. Ptol. 237. πανσεληνιακός, 7, dv, of or at the full moon, Procl. ubi supr.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “Yes; once, while she was staying in this house, I happened to drop in for ten minutes; and I saw quite enough of her. The merest awkward country girl, without style, or elegance, and almost without beauty. I remember her perfectly. Just the kind of girl I should suppose likely to captivate poor Edward. I offered immediately, as soon as my mother related the affair to me, to talk to him myself, and dissuade him from the match; but it was too late then, I found, to do any thing, for unluckily, I was not in the way at first, and knew nothing of it till after the breach had taken place, when it was not for me, you know, to interfere. But had I been informed of it a few hours earlier, I think it is most probable that something might have been hit on. I certainly should have represented it to Edward in a very strong light. ‘My dear fellow,’ I should have said, ‘consider what you are doing. You are making a most disgraceful connection, and such a one as your family are unanimous in disapproving.’ I cannot help thinking, in short, that means might have been found. But now it is all too late. He must be starved, you know, that is certain; absolutely starved.” He had just settled this point with great composure, when the entrance of Mrs. John Dashwood put an end to the subject. But though she never spoke of it out of her own family, Elinor could see its influence on her mind, in the something like confusion of countenance with which she entered, and an attempt at cordiality in her behaviour to herself. She even proceeded so far as to be concerned to find that Elinor and her sister were so soon to leave town, as she had hoped to see more of them;—an exertion in which her husband, who attended her into the room, and hung enamoured over her accents, seemed to distinguish every thing that was most affectionate and graceful. CHAPTER XLII. One other short call in Harley Street, in which Elinor received her brother’s congratulations on their travelling so far towards Barton without any expense, and on Colonel Brandon’s being to follow them to Cleveland in a day or two, completed the intercourse of the brother and sisters in town;—and a faint invitation from Fanny, to come to Norland whenever it should happen to be in their way, which of all things was the most unlikely to occur, with a more warm, though less public, assurance, from John to Elinor, of the promptitude with which he should come to see her at Delaford, was all that foretold any meeting in the country.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing. Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject.” “I insist on you hearing the whole of it,” he replied, “My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of; and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty, which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much,—I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it. But one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I did not then know what it was to love. But have I ever known it? Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers? But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing.” “You did then,” said Elinor, a little softened, “believe yourself at one time attached to her?”

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy had it been for her, if her regard for Edward had depended less on his own merit, than on the merit of his nearest relations! For then his brother’s bow must have given the finishing stroke to what the ill-humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But while she wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that the emptiness and conceit of the one, put her out of all charity with the modesty and worth of the other. Why they were different, Robert explained to her himself in the course of a quarter of an hour’s conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme gaucherie which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education; while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man. “Upon my soul,” he added, “I believe it is nothing more; and so I often tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. ‘My dear Madam,’ I always say to her, ‘you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt’s, all this would have been prevented.’ This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error.” Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be her general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not think of Edward’s abode in Mr. Pratt’s family, with any satisfaction. “You reside in Devonshire, I think,”—was his next observation, “in a cottage near Dawlish.” Elinor set him right as to its situation; and it seemed rather surprising to him that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living near Dawlish. He bestowed his hearty approbation however on their species of house.

• From The City of God

  62 Books That Matter: The City of God almost anything they wanted, as long as they did a number of small things in the Roman way. My use of the phrase 1,000-year Reich was not casual. Ancient Roman rule was very palpably a combination of the most vaporous personal laissez-faire and the tightest political control of Sonoma and Sparta. And it was always justified by the fact that they had civilization and the others did not. They saw the barbarians the way we might see Neanderthals—sharing a great deal with us, of course, but fundamentally another kind of creature altogether, unless we choose to educate them and thereby raise them to our rational heights. But then the barbarians turned out to be other than what the Romans had complacently expected them to be. And so, once the barbarians started moving in during the late 4 th century, the ignorant contempt that the Romans typically felt for all those outside their imperium changed its coloring from mild amusement, such as one would feel toward caged animals in a zoo, to increasingly paranoid alarm, such as one would feel when the animals have escaped their cages and are now prowling outside your front door. Now the roles have been reversed; now it is we who are the enclosed. Consider how an anonymous Roman, writing an anonymous military text from the 360s or 370s, described the barbarians. “Wild nations,” he said, “are pressing upon the Imperium Romanum and howling about it everywhere, and treacherous barbarians, protected by natural defenses, menace every frontier.” This evocative image—an image of people standing around a campfire at night, with wolves howling, prowling around just outside the sphere of dim flickering light— captures well the psychology of Rome when it was on its heels. But it derives from the aggressively ignorant bemusement the Romans felt in an earlier, more confident time. It wasn’t just that the sack of Rome challenged their ideas about who the barbarians were, and who they themselves were. It also challenged their notion of just what a crisis itself was. And this was

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  They had scarcely been two minutes by themselves, before he began to speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the living, and was very inquisitive on the subject. Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as she had given them to John; and their effect on Robert, though very different, was not less striking than it had been on _him_. He laughed most immoderately. The idea of Edward’s being a clergyman, and living in a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;—and when to that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous. Elinor, while she waited in silence and immovable gravity, the conclusion of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed on him with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited. It was a look, however, very well bestowed, for it relieved her own feelings, and gave no intelligence to him. He was recalled from wit to wisdom, not by any reproof of hers, but by his own sensibility. “We may treat it as a joke,” said he, at last, recovering from the affected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety of the moment; “but, upon my soul, it is a most serious business. Poor Edward! he is ruined for ever. I am extremely sorry for it; for I know him to be a very good-hearted creature; as well-meaning a fellow perhaps, as any in the world. You must not judge of him, Miss Dashwood, from _your_ slight acquaintance. Poor Edward! His manners are certainly not the happiest in nature. But we are not all born, you know, with the same powers,—the same address. Poor fellow! to see him in a circle of strangers! To be sure it was pitiable enough; but upon my soul, I believe he has as good a heart as any in the kingdom; and I declare and protest to you I never was so shocked in my life, as when it all burst forth. I could not believe it. My mother was the first person who told me of it; and I, feeling myself called on to act with resolution, immediately said to her, ‘My dear madam, I do not know what you may intend to do on the occasion, but as for myself, I must say, that if Edward does marry this young woman, _I_ never will see him again.’ That was what I said immediately. I was most uncommonly shocked, indeed! Poor Edward! he has done for himself completely,—shut himself out for ever from all decent society! But, as I directly said to my mother, I am not in the least surprised at it; from his style of education, it was always to be expected. My poor mother was half frantic.” “Have you ever seen the lady?”

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  The carriage was at the door ready to take my poor cousins away, and they were just stepping in as he came off; poor Lucy in such a condition, he says, she could hardly walk; and Nancy, she was almost as bad. I declare, I have no patience with your sister; and I hope, with all my heart, it will be a match in spite of her. Lord! what a taking poor Mr. Edward will be in when he hears of it! To have his love used so scornfully! for they say he is monstrous fond of her, as well he may. I should not wonder, if he was to be in the greatest passion!—and Mr. Donavan thinks just the same. He and I had a great deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is gone back again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs. Ferrars is told of it, for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins left the house, for your sister was sure she would be in hysterics too; and so she may, for what I care. I have no pity for either of them. I have no notion of people’s making such a to-do about money and greatness. There is no reason on earth why Mr. Edward and Lucy should not marry; for I am sure Mrs. Ferrars may afford to do very well by her son, and though Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than any body how to make the most of every thing; I dare say, if Mrs. Ferrars would only allow him five hundred a-year, she would make as good an appearance with it as any body else would with eight. Lord! how snug they might live in such another cottage as yours—or a little bigger—with two maids, and two men; and I believe I could help them to a housemaid, for my Betty has a sister out of place, that would fit them exactly.”

• From The City of God

  51 Lecture 3—The Sack of Rome, 410 A.D. There was in an important sense no boundary to the imperium; there was only the edge of where Rome had deigned to reach. „Furthermore, the imperium was a cosmopolitan empire, enabling travel and encouraging trade across thousands of miles and between wildly different peoples. In an age of very limited travel, the imperium was a community of unprecedentedly diverse ways of being human. „Romans’ humanitarian and cosmopolitan self-understanding was manifest in how they governed conquered peoples with a combination of liberality and brutality. They were religiously and culturally tolerant, but politically fascist. Once conquered, a people could do almost anything they wanted, so long as they did a minimal number of things in the Roman way. „Romans saw the barbarians as we might see Neanderthals— sharing a great deal with us, but fundamentally another kind of creature altogether. But the barbarians turned out to be other than what the Romans had complacently expected them to be, and once they started moving in during the late fourth century, the Romans’ ignorant contempt for all those outside their imperium changed from mild amusement to increasingly paranoid alarm. Change and the Rise of Christianity „It wasn’t just that the sack of Rome challenged ideas throughout the Mediterranean about who the barbarians were and who they themselves were. It also challenged their notion of crisis, for this was a new kind of crisis altogether. „Rome’s history of success had erased the idea of failure. Quite literally, they had no historical analogy for what was coming. Historically, one civilization had replaced another, but there was no memory of any collapse of civilization itself. Thinkers had developed the idea of cyclical visions of civilizational hegemony,

• From The City of God

  194 Books That Matter: The City of God Right away, he pounces on Varro’s exposition. On what basis, he asks, do we distinguish between these three theologies? In fact, he thinks the three kinds bleed into one another: the lustful gods of the fables warp our political piety and pollute our natural sanctity; the savagery of civic piety gives us a dangerous taste, as we’ve seen, for domination in all spheres of life; and the hierarchical austerities of natural theology provide pathetic warrant to the violence and lusts of civic and cultural life, and also mislead us both as to our real situation and as to the steps that God is taking to save us from it. As Augustine puts it, one of the most famous lines for a very nerdy group of theologians like myself from The City of God: “Both civil and fabulous theologies are alike fabulous and civil.” The city has fallen in love with dangerous myths, self-created, and worked those myths into its self-understanding. But neither of these theologies can grant eternal life, or otherwise deliver on their promises. In contrast to Varro, Augustine notes that other pagans, notably Seneca, at least critiqued civil theology, though they too eventually drew back from fully condemning it. The truth, he thinks, is that Varro and all the others knew all this, but he was too afraid to tell the truth about these gods. So the first problem with Varro is his hypocrisy and intellectual cowardice. But Varro makes a second kind of distinction that Augustine also thinks is ridiculous, between the general pantheon of all the gods that Rome has honored—including things like a god of the doorframe—and a group of select gods that Rome really focuses its ritual attention on. Here, Varro’s point seems to be that the general pantheon is a swamp of fervid, superstitious dreams of the mass of ignorant people, while the select gods—selected by philosophers— are really a vulgar and mythologized but still practically accurate way of talking about natural forces, or forces more properly, strictly, and accurately described in terms of some elite philosophical vocabulary. They are a way that the vast mass of illiterate, uneducated, and simple-minded plebs—the common folk of Rome—can comprehend

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “But why should such precaution be used? Though it is not to be supposed that Mrs. Ferrars can have the smallest satisfaction in knowing that her son has money enough to live upon, for that must be quite out of the question; yet why, upon her late behaviour, is she supposed to feel at all? She has done with her son,—she cast him off for ever, and has made all those over whom she had any influence, cast him off likewise. Surely, after doing so, she cannot be imagined liable to any impression of sorrow or of joy on his account: she cannot be interested in any thing that befalls him. She would not be so weak as to throw away the comfort of a child, and yet retain the anxiety of a parent!” “Ah! Elinor,” said John, “your reasoning is very good, but it is founded on ignorance of human nature. When Edward’s unhappy match takes place, depend upon it his mother will feel as much as if she had never discarded him; and, therefore every circumstance that may accelerate that dreadful event, must be concealed from her as much as possible. Mrs. Ferrars can never forget that Edward is her son.” “You surprise me; I should think it must nearly have escaped her memory by this time.” “You wrong her exceedingly. Mrs. Ferrars is one of the most affectionate mothers in the world.” Elinor was silent. “We think now,”—said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, “of Robert’s marrying Miss Morton.” Elinor, smiling at the grave and decisive importance of her brother’s tone, calmly replied,— “The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair.” “Choice!—how do you mean?” “I only mean that I suppose, from your manner of speaking, it must be the same to Miss Morton whether she marry Edward or Robert.” “Certainly, there can be no difference; for Robert will now to all intents and purposes be considered as the eldest son;—and as to any thing else, they are both very agreeable young men: I do not know that one is superior to the other.” Elinor said no more, and John was also for a short time silent.—His reflections ended thus.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “I will not say that I am disappointed, my dear sister,” said John, as they were walking together one morning before the gates of Delaford House, “_that_ would be saying too much, for certainly you have been one of the most fortunate young women in the world, as it is. But, I confess, it would give me great pleasure to call Colonel Brandon brother. His property here, his place, his house, every thing is in such respectable and excellent condition! And his woods,—I have not seen such timber any where in Dorsetshire, as there is now standing in Delaford Hanger! And though, perhaps, Marianne may not seem exactly the person to attract him, yet I think it would altogether be advisable for you to have them now frequently staying with you, for as Colonel Brandon seems a great deal at home, nobody can tell what may happen; for, when people are much thrown together, and see little of anybody else,—and it will always be in your power to set her off to advantage, and so forth. In short, you may as well give her a chance: you understand me.” But though Mrs. Ferrars _did_ come to see them, and always treated them with the make-believe of decent affection, they were never insulted by her real favour and preference. _That_ was due to the folly of Robert, and the cunning of his wife; and it was earned by them before many months had passed away. The selfish sagacity of the latter, which had at first drawn Robert into the scrape, was the principal instrument of his deliverance from it; for her respectful humility, assiduous attentions, and endless flatteries, as soon as the smallest opening was given for their exercise, reconciled Mrs. Ferrars to his choice, and re-established him completely in her favour.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  When they stopped at the door, Mrs. Jennings recollected that there was a lady at the other end of the street on whom she ought to call; and as she had no business at Gray’s, it was resolved, that while her young friends transacted their’s, she should pay her visit and return for them. On ascending the stairs, the Miss Dashwoods found so many people before them in the room, that there was not a person at liberty to tend to their orders; and they were obliged to wait. All that could be done was, to sit down at that end of the counter which seemed to promise the quickest succession; one gentleman only was standing there, and it is probable that Elinor was not without hope of exciting his politeness to a quicker despatch. But the correctness of his eye, and the delicacy of his taste, proved to be beyond his politeness. He was giving orders for a toothpick-case for himself, and till its size, shape, and ornaments were determined, all of which, after examining and debating for a quarter of an hour over every toothpick-case in the shop, were finally arranged by his own inventive fancy, he had no leisure to bestow any other attention on the two ladies, than what was comprised in three or four very broad stares; a kind of notice which served to imprint on Elinor the remembrance of a person and face, of strong, natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of fashion. Marianne was spared from the troublesome feelings of contempt and resentment, on this impertinent examination of their features, and on the puppyism of his manner in deciding on all the different horrors of the different toothpick-cases presented to his inspection, by remaining unconscious of it all; for she was as well able to collect her thoughts within herself, and be as ignorant of what was passing around her, in Mr. Gray’s shop, as in her own bedroom. At last the affair was decided. The ivory, the gold, and the pearls, all received their appointment, and the gentleman having named the last day on which his existence could be continued without the possession of the toothpick-case, drew on his gloves with leisurely care, and bestowing another glance on the Miss Dashwoods, but such a one as seemed rather to demand than express admiration, walked off with a happy air of real conceit and affected indifference. Elinor lost no time in bringing her business forward, was on the point of concluding it, when another gentleman presented himself at her side. She turned her eyes towards his face, and found him with some surprise to be her brother. Their affection and pleasure in meeting was just enough to make a very creditable appearance in Mr. Gray’s shop. John Dashwood was really far from being sorry to see his sisters again; it rather gave them satisfaction; and his inquiries after their mother were respectful and attentive.