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

  Montanism originated in Asia Minor, the theatre of many movements of the church in this period; yet not in Ephesus or any large city, but in some insignificant villages of the province of Phrygia, once the home of a sensuously mystic and dreamy nature-religion, where Paul and his pupils had planted congregations at Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis.759 The movement was started about the middle of the second century during the reign of Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius, by a certain Montanus.760 He was, according to hostile accounts, before his conversion, a mutilated priest of Cybele, with no special talents nor culture, but burning with fanatical zeal. He fell into somnambulistic ecstasies, and considered himself the inspired organ of the promised Paraclete or Advocate, the Helper and Comforter in these last times of distress. His adversaries wrongly inferred from the use of the first person for the Holy Spirit in his oracles, that he made himself directly the Paraclete, or, according to Epiphanius, even God the Father. Connected with him were two prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, who left their husbands. During the bloody persecutions under the Antonines, which raged in Asia Minor, and caused the death of Polycarp (155), all three went forth as prophets and reformers of the Christian life, and proclaimed the near approach of the age of the Holy Spirit and of the millennial reign in Pepuza, a small village of Phrygia, upon which the new Jerusalem was to come down. Scenes took place similar to those under the preaching of the first Quakers, and the glossolalia and prophesying in the Irvingite congregations. The frantic movement soon far exceeded the intention of its authors, spread to Rome and North Africa, and threw the whole church into commotion. It gave rise to the first Synods which are mentioned after the apostolic age. The followers of Montanus were called Montanists, also Phrygians, Cataphrygians (from the province of their origin), Pepuziani, Priscillianists (from Priscilla, not to be confounded with the Priscillianists of the fourth century). They called themselves spiritual Christians (peumatikoiv), in distinction from the psychic or carnal Christians (yucikoiv). The bishops and synods of Asia Minor, though not with one voice, declared the new prophecy the work of demons, applied exorcism, and cut off the Montanists from the fellowship of the church. All agreed that it was supernatural (a natural interpretation of such psychological phenomena being then unknown), and the only alternative was to ascribe it either to God or to his great Adversary. Prejudice and malice invented against Montanus and the two female prophets slanderous charges of immorality, madness and suicide, which were readily believed. Epiphanius and John of Damascus tell the absurd story, that the sacrifice of an infant was a part of the mystic worship of the Montanists, and that they made bread with the blood of murdered infants.761 Among their literary opponents in the East are mentioned Claudius Apolinarius of Hierapolis, Miltiades, Appollonius, Serapion of Antioch, and Clement of Alexandria.

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

  These three classes are frequently identified with the adherents of the three religions respectively; the spiritual with the Christians, the carnal with the heathens, the psychical with the Jews. But they also made the same distinction among the professors of any one religion, particularly among the Christians; and they regarded themselves as the genuine spiritual men in the full sense of the word; while they looked upon the great mass of Christians820 as only psychical, not able to rise from blind faith to true knowledge, too weak for the good, and too tender for the evil, longing for the divine, yet unable to attain it, and thus hovering between the Pleroma of the ideal world and the Kenoma of the sensual. Ingenious as this thought is, it is just the basis of that unchristian distinction of esoteric and exoteric religion, and that pride of knowledge, in which Gnosticism runs directly counter to the Christian virtues of humility and love. § 118. Ethics of Gnosticism. All the Gnostic heretics agree in disparaging the divinely created body, and over-rating the intellect. Beyond this, we perceive among them two opposite tendencies: a gloomy asceticism, and a frivolous antinomianism; both grounded in the dualistic principle, which falsely ascribes evil to matter, and traces nature to the devil. The two extremes frequently met, and the Nicolaitan maxim in regard to the abuse of the flesh821 was made to serve asceticism first, and then libertinism. The ascetic Gnostics, like Marcion, Saturninus, Tatian, and the Manichaeans were pessimists. They felt uncomfortable in the sensuous and perishing world, ruled by the Demiurge, and by Satan; they abhorred the body as formed from Matter, and forbade the use of certain kinds of food and all nuptial intercourse, as an adulteration of themselves with sinful Matter; like the Essenes and the errorists noticed by Paul in the Colossians and Pastoral Epistles. They thus confounded sin with matter, and vainly imagined that, matter being dropped, sin, its accident, would fall with it. Instead of hating sin only, which God has not made, they hated the world, which he has made.

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

  He says even: "Our danger now is, that the holiest of all offices will become the most ridiculous; for the highest clerical places are gained not so much by virtue, as by iniquity; no longer the most worthy, but the most powerful, take the episcopal chair."446 Though his descriptions, especially in the satirical poem "to himself and on the bishops," composed probably after his resignation in Constantinople (A.D. 381), may be in many points exaggerated, yet they were in general drawn from life and from experience.447 Jerome also, in his epistles, unsparingly attacks the clergy of his time, especially the Roman, accusing them of avarice and legacy hunting, and drawing a sarcastic picture of a clerical fop, who, with his fine scented clothes, was more like a bridegroom than a clergyman.448 Of the rural clergy’, however, the heathen Ammianus Marcellinus bears a testimony, which is certainly reliable, to their simplicity, contentment, and virtue.449 Chrysostom, in his celebrated treatise on the priesthood,450 written probably, before his ordination (somewhere between the years 375 and 381), or while he was deacon (between 381 and 386), portrayed the theoretical and practical qualifications, the exalted duties, responsibilities, and honors of this office, with youthful enthusiasm, in the best spirit of his age. He requires of the priest, that he be in every respect better than the monk, though, standing in the world, he have greater dangers and difficulties to contend with.451 He sets up as the highest object of the preacher, the great principle stated by, Paul, that in all his discourses he should seek to please God alone, not men. "He must not indeed despise the approving demonstrations of men; but as little must he court them, nor trouble himself when his hearers withhold them. True and imperturbable comfort in his labors he finds only in the consciousness of having his discourse framed and wrought out to the approval of God."452 Nevertheless the book as a whole is unsatisfactory. A comparison of it with the "Reformed Pastor" of Baxter, which is far deeper and richer in all that pertains to subjective experimental Christianity and the proper care of souls, would result emphatically in favor of the English Protestant church of the seventeenth century.453 We must here particularly notice a point which reflects great discredit on the moral sense of many of the fathers, and shows that they had not wholly freed themselves from the chains of heathen ethics. The occasion of this work of Chrysostom was a ruse, by which he had evaded election to the bishopric, and thrust it upon his friend Basil.454 To justify this conduct, he endeavors at large, in the fifth chapter of the first book, to prove that artifice might be lawful and useful; that is, when used as a means to a good end. "Manifold is the potency of deception, only it must not be employed with knavish intent.

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

  The condemnation, passed by Jerome on the ancient classics, was adopted by Cassian and handed down to the later generations. The obscurantists had the field with little or few exceptions for centuries. It is not to Alcuin’s credit that, in his latter years, he turned away from Virgil as a collection of "lying fables" and, in a letter to a novice, advised him not to assoil his mind with that poet’s rank luxuriance.1187 It was argued by Leo, in his reply to Arnulf of Orleans, 991, that the Apostle Peter was not acquainted with such writers as Plato, Virgil, and Terence, or any of the pseudo-philosophers, and God had from the beginning not chosen orators and philosophers but ignorant and rustic men as His agents.1188 Peter the Venerable raised his voice against them. But such warnings1189 were not sufficient to induce all men to hold themselves aloof from the fascinations of the Latin writers. Gerbert taught Virgil, Statius, Terence, Juvenal, Persius, Horace, and Lucan.1190 From these he passed on to the department of philosophy. Peter Damiani compared the study of the poets and philosophers to the spoiling of the Egyptians. They served to sharpen the understanding; the study of the writers of the Church to build a tabernacle to God. Anselm of Bee recommended the study of Virgil and other classics, counselling the exclusion of such treatises as contained suggestions of evil.1191 John of Salisbury’s teachers were zealous in reading such writings. John, who in the small compass of the Metalogicus quotes no less than seven classical poets, Statius, Martian, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Catullus, and Persius, and some of these a number of times, says that if you search in Virgil and Lucan, you will be sure to find the essence of philosophy, no matter what philosophy you may profess.1192 He complained of the old school who compared the student of the classic poets and historians to the slow-going ass, and laughed at him as duller than a stone.1193 Abaelard gave to Virgil the esteem due a prophet. Peter of Blois, d. 1204, the English archdeacon, quotes Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Curtius, Tacitus, Suetonius, Seneca (Letters), and other writers. Grosseteste was familiar with Ovid, Seneca, Horace, and other classics. But the time for the full Renaissance had not yet come. In the earliest statutes of the University of Paris the classics were excluded from the curriculum of studies. The subtle processes of the Schoolmen, although they did not altogether ignore the classic compositions, could construct the great theological systems without their aid, though they drew largely and confidently upon Aristotle. The Discipline of the schools was severe. A good flogging was considered a wholesome means of educational advancement. It drove out the evil spirits of intellectual dulness and heaviness. Degere sub virga, to pass under the rod, was another expression for getting an education.

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

  VI., VII.— Poole, in Illustr. etc., pp. 201–226, and Dict. of Natl. Biogr., XXIX. 439–446. Among Abaelard’s younger contemporaries and pupils were Gilbert of Poictiers, John of Salisbury, and Robert Pullen, theologians who were more or less influenced by Abaelard’s spirit of free inquiry. Peter the Lombard, d. 1164, also shows strong traces of Abaelard’s teaching, especially in his Christology.1391 Gilbert of Poictiers, 1070–1154, is better known by his public trial than by his writings, or any permanent contributions to theology. Born at Poictiers, he studied under Bernard of Chartres, William of Champeaux, Anselm of Laon, and Abaelard. He stood at the head of the cathedral school in Chartres for ten years, and in 1137 began teaching in Paris. In 1142 he was made bishop of Poictiers. His two principal works are De sex principiis, an exposition of Aristotle’s last six categories, which Aristotle himself left unexplained, and a commentary on the work on the Trinity, ascribed to Boethius. They occupy only a few pages in print. Gilbert’s work on the Trinity involved him in a trial for heresy, in which Bernard was again a leading actor.1392 The case was brought before the synods of Paris, 1147, and Rheims, 1148. According to Otto of Freising, Gilbert was a man of earnest purpose. It was his dark and abstruse mode of statement and intense realism that exposed him to the accusation of unorthodoxy. Some of Gilbert’s pupils were ready to testify against him, but sufficient evidence of tritheism were not forthcoming at Paris and the pope, who presided, adjourned the case to Rheims. At Rheims, Bernard who had been appointed prosecutor offended some of the cardinals by his methods of conducting the prosecution. Both Otto of Freising and John of Salisbury1393 state that a schism was threatened and only averted by the good sense of pope Eugenius. To the pope’s question whether Gilbert believed that the highest essence, by virtue of which, as he asserted, each of the three persons of the Trinity was God, was itself God, Gilbert replied in the negative.1394 Gilbert won the assembly by his thorough acquaintance with the Fathers. The charge was declared unproven and Gilbert was enjoined to correct the questionable statements in the light of the fourth proposition brought in by Bernard. The accused continued to administer his see till his death. Otto of Freising concludes his account by saying, that either Bernard was deceived as to the nature of Gilbert’s teaching as David was deceived by Mephibosheth, 2 Sam. 9:19 sqq., or that Gilbert covered up his real meaning by an adroit use of words to escape the judgment of the Church. With reference to his habit of confusing wisdom with words Walter of St. Victor called Gilbert one of the four labyrinths of France.

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

  from all civil taxation at the hands of laymen, except as it was sanctioned by pope or bishop, and lay patrons were enjoined against withholding or seizing for their own use church livings to which they had the right of appointment.1925 The goods, laid aside by clerics from their livings, were the property of the Church,1926 and in case a priest died intestate, it was, in some parts, the privilege of the bishop to administer his estate. Priests were exempt from personal taxation. For prescribed taxes, free gifts so called, were substituted. Peter of Blois commended the piety of certain princes who declined to levy taxes upon churches and other ecclesiastical institutions, even for necessary expenditures, such as the repair of city walls; but met them, if not from their own resources, from booty taken from enemies.1927 Besides the usual income accruing from landed endowments and tithes, the bishop had other sources of revenue. He might at pleasure levy taxes for the spiritual needs of his see,1928 and appropriate the first year’s income of newly appointed priests. Other additions, from the eleventh century on, came in the way of fees and collections for indulgences and gifts at the dedication of churches and altars, and the benediction of cemeteries. Abaelard speaks of the throngs which assembled on such festal occasions, and the large offerings which were, in part, payments for the relaxation of penances.1929 As for the pastoral fidelity and morals of the bishops, there was much ground for complaint, and there are also records of exemplary prelates. As a whole, the prelates were a militant class. No pope of this age wore armor as did John XII., and, at a later time, Julius II., though there were few if any pontiffs, who did not encourage war under the name of religion. Bishops and abbots were often among the bravest warriors and led their troops into the thickest of the fight both on European soil and under Syrian suns. Monks and priests wore armor and went into battle. When the pope asked for the release of the fighting bishop of Beauvais, whom Richard Coeur de Lion had seized, Richard sent him the bishop’s coat of mail clotted with blood and the words taken from the story of Joseph, "We found this. Is it not thy son’s coat?" Archbishop Christian of Mainz (d. 1183) is said to have felled, with his own hand, nine antagonists in the Lombard war, and to have struck out the teeth of thirty others. Absalom and Andrew of Lund were famous warriors.1930 So were Odo of Bayeux, Roger of York, and Geoffrey, his successor, and many other English prelates. The abbot Henry, afterwards archbishop of Narbonne, went at the head of the armies sent against the Albigenses, and did more, wearing the monk’s garb, to encourage bloodshed than he could have done in military dress. The chastity of the bishops was often open to just suspicion.

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

  These revenues were handled by two treasurers: a papal treasurer, or chamberlain, and a treasurer for the college of cardinals.1905 The latter held his office for life. The two offices were never vested in the same person. Each treasurer, at least from the time of Benedict XII. in the fourteenth century, kept his own set of books and at times copies of the papal ledgers were made and turned over to the cardinals. To such a system had the finances been reduced that, as early as the reign of Boniface VIII., the Registers of preceding pontiffs were consulted.1906 In the period 1295–1298, the college of cardinals received as their share, coin amounting to 85,431 gold florins, a sum equal in face value to $200,000.1907 To the pope’s own exchequer went the additional sums accruing from annates as defined above, the special taxes imposed by the pope at will, and the gifts for special papal favors. The crusades against the Saracens and Frederick II. were an inviting pretext for special taxation. They were the cause of endless friction especially in France and England, where the papal mulcts were most frequent and most bitterly complained of. The first papal levy for revenue in France seems to have been in 1188. As early as 1247 such a levy upon church property was met by a firm protest. In 1269, Louis IX. issued the pragmatic sanction which forbade papal taxes being put on church property in France without the sovereign’s consent. One of the most famous levies of mediaeval England was the Saladin tax, for a crusade against the Saracens. The curia was already, in the time of St. Bernard, notorious for its rapacity. No sums could satisfy its greed, and upon it was heaped the blame for the incessant demands which went out from Rome. Bernard presents a vivid, if perhaps overcolored, picture of this hungry horde of officials and exclaims: "When has Rome refused gold? Rome has been turned from a shrine into a place of traffic. The Germans travel to Rome with their pack animals laden with treasure. Silver has become as plentiful as hay. It is to Eugenius’ credit that he has turned his face against such gifts. The curia is responsible. They have made Rome a place of buying and selling. The ’Romans,’ for this was the distinctive name given to this body of officials, are a pack of shameless beggars and know not how to decline silver and gold. They are dragons and scorpions, not sheep."1908 The English chronicler, Matthew Paris, writing a century later, has on almost every other page of his chronicle a complaint against the exactions of the papal tax gatherers. One might easily get the impression from his annals, that the English Church and people existed chiefly to fill the Roman treasury.

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  Repugnant, yes. Unusual? Not so much. I live in the Bay Area, a bastion of liberalism, where high school boys in the affluent town of Piedmont were busted in 2012 for engaging in a “fantasy slut league” in which female students were “drafted” and boys earned points for “documented engagement in sexual activities” (the practice had been going on for at least five years when it was discovered, and there have since been quashed attempts to revive it). In 2016, students from several Silicon Valley high schools were caught sharing nudes of female classmates without their consent on a public Dropbox account. And in my own uber-leftie town of Berkeley, two separate groups of high school boys—one in 2014 and the other in 2017—posted pictures of their female friends (or girls who believed themselves to be their friends) on social media accounts with captions detailing the sexual acts the girls would perform. A third group, never identified, ran an Instagram account called “THOTs of Berkeley High” (THOT, a synonym for “slut,” is an acronym for That Ho Over There) where pictures of girls of color, some surreptitiously snapped in school hallways, were posted; again, they were captioned with sexual acts the girls reputedly had performed or would perform.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  In the wine-drinking countries wine is praised in poetry and song. The most charming social usages are connected with its use. It is the chief reliance for enter- tainment and plea^:ure. Laughter is supposed to die without it. No disgrace is attached to mild intoxication provided a gentleman carries his drink well and continues to behave politely. Families take more pride in their wine-cellars than in the tombs of their ancestors. Young men are proud of the amount of wine and beer they can imbibe and of the learning which they refuse to imbibe. Until very recent years a total abstainer in middle class European society was regarded with dis- quietude of mind and social impatience, like a person advocating force revolution or political assassination. He was a heretic, and his freedom of conscience had to be won by very real sufferings. This justification and idealization of alcoholism by public opinion made it incomparably harder to save the victims, to prevent the formation of the drinking habits in new cases, and to secure legislation. Governments were, of course, anxious to suppress the disgusting drunkenness of the labouring classes, which interfered 04 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL with their working efficiency, but the taming of the liquor trade was hard to secure as long as men high up in Parliament, the established Church, and Society con- •sidered investments in breweries, distilleries, and public houses a perfectly honourable source of income. The rapid progress in the expulsion of the liquor trade in America would have been impossible if the idealization of the drinking customs had not previously disappeared from public opinion. The chief plea of the brewers now is that beer displaces distilled liquor and promotes temperance. In “ the People’s Sunday Evening,” a popular theatre meeting in Rochester, N. Y., we have for seven years publicly invited and challenged the Brewers’ Exchange and all the liquor trade organizations to discuss the social and moral utility of moderate drink- ing on our platform. They accepted the first time, but had to go to Buffalo for a lawyer to make the speech. After that we were never able to secure a response. The use of liquor is still common in America, but its social authority has been overcome. So far as I can see, this was done by the churches before either business or science lent much aid, and the decisive fact which set the voice of some of the denominations free was their refusal to tolerate in their membership persons financially interested in the liquor business, or to receive contribu- tions from them. In the case of alcoholism we can watch a gradual breaking down of the social authority of a great evil. In the case of militarism we are watching the reverse process. Before the War the military institutions of our nation were weak and public opinion condemned THE TRANSMISSION OF SIN 65

• From Notes of a Native Son (1955)

  It is of quite considerable significance that black men remain, in the imagination, and in overwhelming numbers in fact, beyond the disciplines of salvation; and this despite the fact that the West has been “buying” African natives for centuries. There is, I should hazard, an instantaneous necessity to be divorced from this so visibly unsaved stranger, in whose heart, moreover, one cannot guess what dreams of vengeance are being nourished; and, at the same time, there are few things on earth more attractive than the idea of the unspeakable liberty which is allowed the unredeemed. When, beneath the black mask, a human being begins to make himself felt one cannot escape a certain awful wonder as to what kind of human being it is. What one’s imagination makes of other people is dictated, of course, by the laws of one’s own personality and it is one of the ironies of black-white relations that, by means of what the white man imagines the black man to be, the black man is enabled to know who the white man is. I have said, for example, that I am as much a stranger in this village today as I was the first summer I arrived, but this is not quite true. The villagers wonder less about the texture of my hair than they did then, and wonder rather more about me. And the fact that their wonder now exists on another level is reflected in their attitudes and in their eyes. There are the children who make those delightful, hilarious, sometimes astonishingly grave overtures of friendship in the unpredictable fashion of children; other children, having been taught that the devil is a black man, scream in genuine anguish as I approach. Some of the older women never pass without a friendly greeting, never pass, indeed, if it seems that they will be able to engage me in conversation; other women look down or look away or rather contemptuously smirk. Some of the men drink with me and suggest that I learn how to ski—partly, I gather, because they cannot imagine what I would look like on skis—and want to know if I am married, and ask questions about my métier. But some of the men have accused le sale nègre —behind my back—of stealing wood and there is already in the eyes of some of them that peculiar, intent, paranoiac malevolence which one sometimes surprises in the eyes of American white men when, out walking with their Sunday girl, they see a Negro male approach. There is a dreadful abyss between the streets of this village and the streets of the city in which I was born, between the children who shout Neger! today and those who shouted Nigger! yesterday—the abyss is experience, the American experience.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  lowly submission and kick our duty under the bed while God is not looking. The theological definitions of sin have too much the .flavour of the monarchical institutions under the spirit- ual influence of which they were first formed. In an absolute monarchy the first duty is to bow to the royal will. A man may spear peasants or outrage their wives, but crossing the king is another matter. When theo- logical definitions speak of rebellion against God as the common characteristic of all sin, it reminds one of the readiness of despotic governments to treat every offence as treason. Sin is not a private transaction between the sinner and God. Humanity always crowds the audience-room when God holds court. We must democratize the con- ception of God; then the definition of sin will become more realistic. We love and serve God when we love and serve our fellows, whom he loves and in whom he lives. We rebel against God and repudiate his will when we set our profit and ambition above the welfare of our fellows and above the Kingdom of God which binds them together. We rarely sin against God alone. The decalogue gives a simple illustration of this. Theology used to distinguish between the first and second table of the decalogue ; the first enumerated the sins against God and the second the sins against men. Jesus took the Sabbath commandment off the first table and added it to the second; he said the Sabbath is not a taboo day of God, but an institution for the good of man. The command to honour our parents is also ethical. There remain THE NATURE OF SIN the first three commandments, against polytheism, image worship, and the misuse of the holy name. The wor- ship of various gods and the use of idols is no longer one of our dangers. The misuse of the holy name has* lost much of its religious significance since sorcery and magic have moved to the back-streets. On the other hand, the commandments of the second table grow more important all the time. Science supplies the means of killing, finance the methods of stealing, the newspapers have learned how to bear false witness artistically to a globeful of people daily, and covetousness is the moral basis of our civilization.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  With his arrest Jesus fell into the hands of the war system. When the soldiers stripped him, beat his back with the leaded whip, pressed the wreath of thorns into his scalp, draped a purple mantle around him and saluted this amusing king of the Jews, and when they blindfolded and struck him, asking him to prophesy who it was and spitting in his face, — this was the humour of the bar- rack room. This was fun as the professional soldiers of the Roman Empire saw it. The men who drove the spikes through his hands and feet were the equivalent of a firing-squad told off for duty at an execution, and when they gambled for his clothes, they were taking their sol- diers’ perquisites. The last of this group of racial sins is class contempt. Class pride and its obverse passion, class contempt, are the necessary spiritual product of class divisions. They are the direct negation of solidarity and love. They sub- stitute a semi-human, semi-ethical relation for full human fraternity. The class system, therefore, is a sinful de- nial of the Kingdom of God, and one of the character- istic marks and forces of the Kingdom of Evil. It is almost universal. Our capitalistic semi-democ- racy has alleviated it but not overcome it. Indeed, while some other nations are slowly breaking up the class sys- tems erected in the past, the present economic tendencies in our country, if allowed to go on, will inevitably build up a durable class system. Economic facts mock at po- litical theory. Sixty-five per cent of the national prop- THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE ATONEMENT 257 erty before the war was held by two per cent of the popu- lation. The war has contributed enormously to the ag- gregation of great fortunes. ^ Parasitic incomes pro- duce class differences ; class differences create class pride and class contempt. This sin has always rested heavily on the great mass of mankind. It expresses itself in social customs and in the laws of a nation. Where an aristocracy exists, ei- ther its members are formally exempt from the degrad- ing forms of punishment, as in Russia, or they are osten- sibly liable to them but practically exempt by the inability to put them in prison or keep them there. In Roman law crucifixion was a punishment reserved for offenders of the lowest classes. No Roman citizen could be crucified. Cicero flung it at Verres as a culmi- nating accusation in the counts of his misrule that he had crucified a Roman. When Jesus was nailed to the tree, therefore, he bore not only the lightning shoots of physi- cal pain imposed by the cruelties of criminal law, but also that contempt for the lower classes which has always de- humanized the upper classes, numbed and crippled the spiritual self-respect of the lower classes, and set up in- superable barriers to the spirit of the Kingdom of God.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  In the case of the Jewish people, the Romans held the chiej power and collected the main taxes through the concessionaires called the publican! or publicans. But considerable powers were left to the native oligarchy, es- pecially the control of the institutions of religion, and from the loyalty of the Jews to their ancestral and cen- tralized faith a modest income in cash and considerable social prestige could be harvested. Even distant colonies in the pagan cities remitted the annual temple tax, and a poor widow dropped her two farthings. Also it was pleasant to be called Rabbi, and to get the best seats in the synagogue. Their sincere concern for their religion was reinforced by concern for their special privileges as the custodians of the religious institutions and jurisdic- tions. 252 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL Jesus was a prophet of religion ; they were exploiters of religion. This added durable fuel to their bigotry. They assumed that Jesus planned to stir up the revolu- tionary elements, and they feared that a messianic revolt would lose them the remnants of their power. “ What- ever is to be done ? ” the fourth gospel reports them as saying ; “ if we let him alone like this, everybody will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and sup- press our holy Place and our nation.” Caiaphas formu- lated the situation with Machiavellian frankness: “You know nothing about it. You do not understand it is in your interest that one man should die for the People in- stead of the whole nation being destroyed.” * A third historic evil is the corruption of justice. We remember how often the Hebrew prophets denounced the judges who took bribes against the poor. Bearing false witness was so constant an evil that it got a place in the decalogue. Jesus took an illustration of the power of prayer from the case of a widow and a hard judge; though the judge cared neither for religion nor public opinion, she got the better of him by sheer feminine per- sistence. But it was hard for widows who had no pull. Injustice between man and man is inevitable and bad enough. But it is far worse when the social institution set up in the name of justice gives its support to injus- tice. What nation can claim to be free from this? We have thought of the political prisons of autocratic Russia as a remnant of the dark ages, but the War has shown that even in free countries the judicial process can swiftly ijohn xi, 47-50. THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE ATONEMENT 253

• From Notes of a Native Son (1955)

  He has certainly made contact with the French, and isn’t wasting his time in Paris talking to people he might perfectly well have met in America. His friends are French, in the classroom, in the bistro, on the boulevard, and, of course, at home—it is only that one is sometimes driven to wonder what on earth they find to talk about. This wonder is considerably increased when, in the rare conversations he condescends to have in English, one discovers that, certain picturesque details aside, he seems to know no more about life in Paris than everybody knew at home. His friends have, it appears, leaped unscathed from the nineteenth into the twentieth century, entirely undismayed by any of the reverses suffered by their country. This makes them a remarkable band indeed, but it is in vain that one attempts to discover anything more about them—their conversation being limited, one gathers, to remarks about French wine, witticisms concerning l’amour, French history, and the glories of Paris. The remarkably limited range of their minds is matched only by their perplexing definition of friendship, a definition which does not seem to include any suggestion of communication, still less of intimacy. Since, in short, the relationship of this perfectly adapted student to the people he now so strenuously adores is based simply on his unwillingness to allow them any of the human attributes with which his countrymen so confounded him at home, and since his vaunted grasp of their history reveals itself as the merest academic platitude, involving his imagination not at all, the extent of his immersion in French life impresses one finally as the height of artificiality, and, even, of presumption. The most curious thing about the passion with which he has embraced the Continent is that it seems to be nothing more or less than a means of safeguarding his American simplicity. He has placed himself in a kind of strongbox of custom, and refuses to see anything in Paris which can’t be seen through a golden haze. He is thus protected against reality, or experience, or change, and has succeeded in placing beyond the reach of corruption values he prefers not to examine. Even his multitudinous French friends help him to do this, for it is impossible, after all, to be friends with a mob: they are simply a cloud of faces, bearing witness to romance. Between these two extremes, the student who embraces Home, and the student who embraces The Continent—both embraces, as we have tried to indicate, being singularly devoid of contact, to say nothing of love—there are far more gradations than can be suggested here.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  THE CONCEPTION OF GOD 169 back either to Jesus or the prophets. TheHebrew proph- ets wereableto realize God in that way because they were part ofa nation which had preserved the traditions of primitive fraternal democracy. The prophets empha- sized God's interestin righteousness and solidarity be- cause they were making a fight tosavetheir people from the landlordism and oppression under which other peoples have wiltedand degenerated. When, therefore, we to- day feel themoralthrill of Hebrew theism, we are the heirs and beneficiaries of one untamednation ofmoun- tain-dwellers. When sucha conception of God istrans- mitted toother nations or to later times, it is the expor- tation of the most precious commodity a nation can pro- duce. On the other hand, if a conception of God originates among the exploiting classesinan age of despotism, itis almost certaintocontain germs of positive sinfulness which willinfect all to whom itis transmitted. Christianity is an old religion. Its youth was livedin the midst of amaturedand dying imperial despotism. At first it was an illegal organization,suppressedby the Em- pire, and in turn the Empire was described in our Apoca- lypse as " the Beast/*This hostility was a saving ele- ment which made theChurch somewhat immune tothe despotic influences, as long asit lasted. But in time the Church cameunder the control and spiritual influence of the upper classes, and finally oftheRoman State. We know that theeffectsof thissocial environment were wrought intothe constitutional structure of the Church. TheRoman Catholic Church is stillthe religious replica ofthe Roman imperial organization. Harnack thinks

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  Rarely are mobs wholly spontaneous ; usually there is leadership to fanaticize the masses. At this point this sin connects with the sins of selfish leadership which we have analysed before. Sometimes the crowd turns against the oligarchy; usually the oligarchy manipulates the crowd. So it was in the case of Jesus. The mob shouted for the physical force man and against the man who embodied the better spirit of the Jewish nation. There was “ pa- THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE ATONEMENT 255 triotism ’’ in this choice. Pilate realized that, and tried to play on it by calling Jesus the king of the Jews, but the native politicians outplayed him. The choice was pro- phetic. It was the Barabbas type which led the nation to its doom in the Jewish War and the later risings of the Jewish patriots. So this pervasive sin of community life, the intoxica- tion of the social spirit, before which so many prophets and semi-prophets have had to quail, contributed to the death of Jesus. He bore it, not by sympathy or imputa- tion, but by experience. The fifth universal sin of organized society which co- operated in the death of Christ was militarism. So far as we know, Jesus never passed through an actual war. He probably never saw his home burned, his father killed, his sisters ravished, nor was he ever forced to bear arms. But that he had convictions on war is plain from his say- ings. “ He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword,’’ shows clear comprehension of the fact that in war neither side gains, and that the reactions of war are as dangerous as the direct eflfects; of which fact ample demonstrations are before us. If the words spoken in his lament over Jerusalem are authentic, he not only foresaw that the present drift would carry his nation to war and destruction, but he regarded the acceptance of his leadership as the one means by which his people might have escaped their doom: If thou hadst known in this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from thine eyes.” To his mind, then, the Kingdom of God must 256 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL have had a conscious and definite relation to war and force revolution.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  25O A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL Estimate the harm which the exponents of religion have done simply by suppressing the prophetic minds who had received from God fresh thought on spiritual and intel- lectual problems, and by cowing those who might have followedthe prophets. Jesus was killed by ecclesiastical religion. He might have appeared in almost any highly developed nation and suffered the same fate. Certainly after religion bore his name, there were a thousand situations in which he would have been put todeath by those whooffered salva- tion inhis name. Innumerable individuals contribute their little quota tomake up this collective evil, andwhen once the common mindis charged with it, it gets in- numerable outlets. This sin, then, wasborne by Jesus, not by imputation, nor bysympathy, but by direct ex- perience. A second social evil whichcontributed to killhim was thecombination of graft and politicalpower. Those who are in control of the machinery of organized society areableto use itfor selfishand predatory ends, turning into private profit what ought to serve the common good. In the Oberammergau Passion Play the whole plot turns on the cleansing of the temple. This interpretation has found scholarly support. Themarket was originally outsidethe temple gates, A location insidewould bea trading privilege. Did the pious hierarchy take no of- fence atthe chaffering and dickering inside ofthesa- cred enclosure? Or was somebody making something outof it? Knowing what we do of human nature and the versatility of graft, it does notseem likely that the THE SOCIAL GOSPEL ANDTHE ATONEMENT 25! concessionaires got theirinside stands for love. Ifthis conjecture is true, the feeling thatthe Galilaean prophet was on the side of right would explain the ready yielding to his command; andthe activeconcernof the traders and the hierarchy in their commonbusiness would ex- plain the energy with whichthehostile action hencefor- ward moved against him. Weare on sure ground when we realize that the pro- phetic leadership of Jesus endangered the power of the ruling class. There is always an oligarchy, wherever you look; monarchial and republican forms of government areboth protective devicesfor the-group-that-controls- things. This group is the universal government. For every oligarchy political power is convertible into finan- cial incomeand social influence, thus satisfying the pow- erful double instinctfor money and for power. In the case of the Jewish people, theRomans held the chief power and collectedthemain taxes through the concessionaires calledthe publicani or publicans. But considerable powers were left to thenative oligarchy, es- pecially thecontrol ofthe institutions of religion, and fromthe loyalty ofthe Jews totheir ancestraland cen- tralized faitha modest income in cash and considerable social prestige couldbeharvested. Evendistant colonies in the pagan cities remitted the annual temple tax, and a poor widow dropped her two farthings. Alsoit was pleasant to becalled Rabbi, and to get the best seats in the synagogue. Their sincere concern fortheir religion wasreinforced by concern for their special privileges as the custodians of the religious institutions and jurisdic- tions.

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

  To the outside observer the Jews at that time were the most religious people on earth, and in some sense this is true. Never was a nation so ruled by the written law of God; never did a nation so carefully and scrupulously study its sacred books, and pay greater reverence to its priests and teachers. The leaders of the nation looked with horror and contempt upon the unclean, uncircumcised Gentiles, and confirmed the people in their spiritual pride and conceit. No wonder that the Romans charged the Jews with the odium generis humani. Yet, after all, this intense religiosity was but a shadow of true religion. It was a praying corpse rather than a living body. Alas! the Christian Church in some ages and sections presents a similar sad spectacle of the deceptive form of godliness without its power. The rabbinical learning and piety bore the same relation to the living oracles of God as sophistic scholasticism to Scriptural theology, and Jesuitical casuistry to Christian ethics. The Rabbis spent all their energies in "fencing" the law so as to make it inaccessible. They analyzed it to death. They surrounded it with so many hair-splitting distinctions and refinements that the people could not see the forest for the trees or the roof for the tiles, and mistook the shell for the kernel.198 Thus they made void the Word of God by the traditions of men.199 A slavish formalism and mechanical ritualism was substituted for spiritual piety, an ostentatious sanctimoniousness for holiness of character, scrupulous casuistry for genuine morality, the killing letter for the life-giving spirit, and the temple of God was turned into a house of merchandise. The profanation and perversion of the spiritual into the carnal, and of the inward into the outward, invaded even the holy of holies of the religion of Israel, the Messianic promises and hopes which run like a golden thread from the protevangelium in paradise lost to the voice of John the Baptist pointing to the Lamb of God. The idea of a spiritual Messiah who should crush the serpent’s head and redeem Israel from the bondage of sin, was changed into the conception of a political deliverer who should re-establish the throne of David in Jerusalem, and from that centre rule over the Gentiles to the ends of the earth. The Jews of that time could not separate David’s Son, as they called the Messiah, from David’s sword, sceptre and crown. Even the apostles were affected by this false notion, and hoped to secure the chief places of honor in that great revolution; hence they could not understand the Master when he spoke to them of his, approaching passion and death.200

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Capodistria sits remote from it all, in his immaculate shark-skin coat with the coloured silk handkerchief lolling at his breast. His narrow shoes gleam. His friends call him Da Capo because of a sexual prowess reputed to be as great as his fortune — or his ugliness. He is obscurely related to Justine who says of him: ‘I pity him. His heart has withered in him and he has been left with the five senses, like pieces of a broken wineglass.’ However a life of such striking monotony does not seem to depress him. His family is noted for the number of suicides in it, and his psychological inheritance is an unlucky one with its history of mental disturbance and illness. He is unperturbed however and says, touching his temples with a long forefinger: ‘All my ancestors went wrong here in the head. My father also. He was a great womanizer. When he was very old he had a model of the perfect woman built in rubber — life-size. She could be filled with hot water in the winter. She was strikingly beautiful. He called her Sabina after his mother, and took her everywhere. He had a passion for travelling on ocean liners and actually lived on one for the last two years of his life, travelling backwards and forwards to New York. Sabina had a wonderful wardrobe. It was a sight to see them come into the dining-saloon, dressed for dinner. He travelled with his keeper, a manservant called Kelly. Between them, held on either side like a beautiful drunkard, walked Sabina in her marvellous evening clothes. The night he died he said to Kelly: “Send Demetrius a telegram and tell him that Sabina died in my arms tonight without any pain.” She was buried with him off Naples.’ His laughter is the most natural and unfeigned of any I have ever heard.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  Callousness and Lack of EmpathySociopaths readily take advantage of others, expressing utter contempt for the feelings of others. Someone in distress is not important to them. Although intelligent, perceptive, and quite good at sizing people up, they make no real connections with others. They use their "people skills" to exploit, abuse, and wield power. Sociopathic cult leaders are unable to empathize with the pain of their victims. Cult victims engage in denial about this callousness because it's so difficult to believe that someone they love so much could intentionally hurt them. It therefore becomes easier to rationalize the leader's behavior as necessary for the general or individual good. The alternative for the devotee would be to face the sudden and overwhelming awareness of being victimized, deceived, and used. Such a realization would wound the person's deepest sense of self, so as a means of self-protection, the person denies the abuse. When and if the devotee becomes aware of the exploitation, sometimes it feels as though a tremendous evil has been done. 10. Poor Behavioral Controls and Impulsive NatureLike small children, many sociopaths have difficulty regulating their emotions. Adults who have temper tantrums are frightening to be around. Rage and abuse, alternating with token expressions of love and approval, produce an addictive cycle for both abuser and abused (and a sense of hopelessness in the latter). This dynamic has also been recognized in relation to domestic abuse and the battering of women.29 The sociopathic cult leader acts out with some regularity-often privately, sometimes publicly-usually to the embarrassment and dismay of his followers and other observers. He may act out sexually, aggressively, or criminally, frequently with rage. Who could possibly control someone with no sense of personal boundaries or responsibility, who believes he is all powerful, omniscient, and entitled to every wish or whim? Generally such aberrant behavior is a wellkept secret, known only to a few trusted disciples. The others see only perfection. These tendencies are related to the sociopath's need for stimulation and his inability to tolerate frustration, anxiety, or depression. Often a leader's inconsistent behavior needs to be rationalized by either the leader or the followers in order to maintain internal consistency. This inconsistency is often regarded as divinely inspired and further separates the empowered from the powerless. 11. Early Behavior Problems and Juvenile DelinquencySociopaths frequently have a history of behavioral and academic difficulties. They often get by academically, taking advantage of other students and teachers. Encounters with juvenile authorities are frequent. Equally prevalent are difficulties in peer relationships, developing and keeping friends, self-control, and managing aberrant behaviors, such as stealing, arson, and cruelty to others. 12. Irresponsibility and UnreliabilityNot concerned about the consequences of their behavior, sociopaths leave behind them the wreckage of other people's lives and dreams. They may be totally oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they inflict on others, which they regard as neither their problem nor their responsibility. Sociopathic cult leaders rarely accept blame for their failures or mistakes.