Disappointment

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 160 of 189 · 20 per page

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

  In 1384 D’Ailly was made head of the College of Navarre, where he had Gerson for a pupil, and in 1389 chancellor of the university. When Benedict XIII. was chosen successor to Clement VII., he was sent by the French king on a confidential mission to Avignon. Benedict won his allegiance and appointed him successively bishop of Puy, 1395, and bishop of Cambray, 1397. D’Ailly was with Benedict at Genoa, 1405, and Savona, 1407, but by that time seems to have come to the conclusion that Benedict was not sincere in his profession of readiness to resign, and returned to Cambray. In his absence Cambray had decided for the subtraction of its allegiance from Avignon. D’Ailly was seized and taken to Paris, but protected by the king, who was his friend. Thenceforth he favored the assemblage of a general council. At Pisa and at Constance, D’Ailly took the position that a general council is superior to the pope and may depose him. Made a cardinal by John XXIII., 1411, he attended the council held at Rome the following year and in vain tried to have a reform of the calendar put through. At Constance, he took the position that the Pisan council? though it was called by the Spirit and represented the Church universal, might have erred, as did other councils reputed to be general councils. He declared that the three synods of Pisa, Rome and Constance, though not one body, yet were virtually one, even as the stream of the Rhine at different points is one and the same. It was not necessary, so he held, for the Council of Constance to pass acts confirming the Council of Pisa, for the two were on a par.378 In the proceedings against John XXIII., the cardinal took sides against him. He was the head of the commission which tried Huss in matters of faith, June 7, 8, 1415, and was present when the sentence of death was passed upon that Reformer. At the close of the council he appears as one of the three candidates for the office of pope, and his defeat was a disappointment to the French.379 He was appointed legate by Martin V., with his residence at Avignon, and spent his last days there.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “My mother doesn’t accept my pit bulls. Or, she accepts them, but she doesn’t like them. Which is exactly the way she was about me as a child. She just tolerated me. But she didn’t think I was special. Also, now that I’m living at home I obviously can’t start conscious-dating anytime soon.” “Your feelings are certainly understandable. But with regard to the conscious dating, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true,” said Dr. Jude. “Of course it’s true!” neighed Chickenhorse. “You don’t know my mother. She has no boundaries. She’ll want to know exactly what’s going on, who I’m with, what family he is from, and then she’ll find some way to involve herself. So, sorry, now that I’m homeless we will have to put off dating again.” Brianne’s dating life was going no better. “Things have gone a little south with the man from OkCupid,” she murmured, adjusting one knee sock. “He sent me an email the other day letting me know that he couldn’t return to the States yet, because he was waiting for a business deal to close and temporarily was out of funds. Then he asked if I could loan him some funds.” The group gasped in unison. “I’m not sure what to do. One of the items I put on my vision board is that I want a man who is financially stable. I don’t want to compromise my vision board. I’m supposed to be manifesting. My life is simply too abundant to take on someone who is living a life of lack. But at the same time, because of that abundance, I can’t help but think that it might be the kind thing to help him out—especially if it will allow us to go on our date.” “Mmmmmm,” said Dr. Jude. “I would strongly suggest setting a boundary with him.” “Do not send the money,” said Chickenhorse. “He’s probably a catfish!” “A what?” asked Brianne. “A catfish. Like, a scammer. Someone who pretends to be someone he isn’t.” “Oh no, he’s not a scammer. I know that he is who he says he is. We’re very close.” “How long have you known him again?” I asked. “About six days,” said Brianne. We all looked at her. “It’s been a rich and rewarding six days.” Sara looked at her quizzically over the pomegranate she was peeling. But she was in no position to judge. Having almost reached her ninety days of no contact with Stan, she had had a slip. A big one. Now not only were they in contact again but they’d been seeing each other. Stan had reached out with an apologetic one-thousand-word email declaring his love. He also sent her a bouquet of carnations. Of course, Sara was allergic to them and gave them to a neighbor, but that wasn’t the point.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  With God’s will we shall ultimately find the truth.’ Against this friendly background, Contarini and Gropper produced their mediatory compromise (which had already been worked on) of double justification: that is, imputed and inherent justification, faith and love. The Christian man is just in a two-fold way, by faith and grace, and by doing the works of love; the former is more assured, man being imperfect. When this formula was accepted, Pole, who was present, commented: ‘When I observed this union of opinion, I felt a delight such as no harmony of sounds could have inspired me with; not only because I see the approach of peace and concord, but because these articles are the foundation of the whole Christian faith.’ Unfortunately, the colloquy then proceeded to break down on the question of the real presence in the eucharist. Contarini was caught off balance by his own ignorance of Protestant teaching. This is not surprising: Protestant teaching varied. All believed in the real presence in one sense or another. None accepted the technical formulation of transubstantiation, which had been devised by Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Bucer, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli all tended to produce different formulae. Luther taught a real, corporal presence of Christ’s body and blood, ‘in, with and under’ the elements. Zwingli denied the corporal eating and drinking. Calvin was halfway between the two. Luther’s position was essentially that of St Augustine (as on justification); his objection to Aquinas’s formulation was more methodological than substantial. In effect, he accepted the Catholic doctrine; as he put it, ‘I would rather drink blood with the papists than mere wine with the Zwinglians.’ But Luther was not present at Regensburg. He thought the effort to meet Rome halfway useless, and he boycotted the colloquies. Charles V would have been willing to accept a simple declaration that Christ was really and truly present, and leave the technical issue of transubstantiation to a General Council. The centre group of princes were willing to accept what had been agreed, and build on it. But extremists on both sides carried the day. Contarini left Regensburg disappointed and baffled. Political factors – the French, the Bavarian dukes and the papacy on the one hand, Luther’s Schmalkaldic League and the Elector of Saxony on the other – had had as much to do with the breakdown as theology. It was the last chance for a compromise. When the General Council finally met at Trent five years later, Contarini was dead, the moderates were scattered, the Catholic Church was a defiant and intransigent rump, no longer thinking of anything but fire and sword, and Charles V had virtually despaired of unity. Luther died during the first session, and the fact was scarcely noted except for savage expressions of regret that it was no longer possible to burn him. By this time, too, the Protestant movement itself was split beyond redemption: there was no longer a united front with which Catholicism might negotiate.

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

  But in the episcopal constitution the church provided an extremely simple but compact and freely expansible organization, planted foot firmly upon earth, became an institution for the education of her infant people, and, as chiliastic hopes receded, fell into the path of quiet historical development; yet unquestionably she thus incurred also the danger of a secularization which reached its height just when the hierarchy became complete in the Roman church, and which finally necessitated a reformation on the basis of apostolical Christianity. That this secularization began with the growing power of the bishops even before Constantine and the Byzantine court orthodoxy, we perceive, for instance, in the lax penitential discipline, the avarice, and the corruption with which Hippolytus, in the ninth book of his Philosophumena, reproaches Zephyrinus and Callistus, the Roman bishops of his time (202– 223); also in the example of the bishop Paul of Samosata, who was deposed in 269 on almost incredible charges, not only against his doctrine, but still more against his moral character.157 Origen complains that there are, especially in the larger cities, overseers of the people of God, who seek to outdo the pomp of heathen potentates, would surround themselves, like the emperors, with a body-guard, and make themselves terrible and inaccessible to the poor.158 We consider, first, the origin of the episcopate. The unreliable character of our documents and traditions from the transition period between the close of the apostolic church and the beginning of the post-apostolic, leaves large room here for critical research and combination. First of all comes the question: Was the episcopate directly or indirectly of apostolic (Johannean) origin?159 Or did it arise after the death of the apostles, and develope itself from the presidency of the congregational presbytery?160 In other words, was the episcopate a continuation and contraction of, and substitute for, the apostolate, or was it an expansion and elevation of the presbyterate?161 The later view is more natural and better sustained by facts. Most of its advocates date the change from the time of Ignatius in the first quarter of the second century, while a few carry it further back to the close of the first, when St. John still lived in Ephesus. I. For the apostolic origin of episcopacy the following points may be made: (1) The position of James, who evidently stood at the head of the church at Jerusalem,162 and is called bishop, at least in the pseudo-Clementine literature, and in fact supreme bishop of the whole church.163 This instance, however, stands quite alone, and does not warrant an inference in regard to the entire church. (2) The office of the assistants and delegates of the apostles, like Timothy, Titus, Silas, Epaphroditus, Luke, Mark, who had a sort of supervision of several churches and congregational officers, and in a measure represented the apostles in special missions.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Thus a high proportion of the late medieval regulars were reluctant saints whose chief object was to make their lives as comfortable as possible. One cannot reform men (or women) into piety against their will. Without the voluntary principle, the monastic movement was bound to become an embarrassment to Christianity. And then there were far too many houses, some too poor, others too rich. Rationalizing them would have involved prodigies of litigation; only the papacy could have done it without using force. The popes should have dissolved the main orders in the fourteenth century and reallocated their resources to new purposes. Instead, they milked them financially – always a temptation. They did point the way, however. Early in the fourteenth century the papacy, at the behest of the French crown, dissolved the Knights Templars. The lesson was not forgotten. During the Hundred Years’ War the English crown seized the so-called alien priories – offshoots in England of French abbeys – on patriotic grounds. Legal devices were also developed within the Church for winding up groups of ecclesiastical foundations to form new and more promising ones. Cardinal Wolsey, for instance, was an adept at this type of canonical operation; and one of the legal experts he employed on it was Thomas Cromwell, who provided similar services, though on a much more extensive scale, to Henry VIII. Thus monastic dissolutions during the sixteenth-century Reformation evolved from established procedures within the Church, and were later employed by Catholic monarchs (in Austria for instance) in the eighteenth century. The monastic system, and its urban adaptations, had played an enormously important role from the sixth to the twelfth centuries; but it never recovered its pristine spirit until after radical reformation, which in some Catholic countries was delayed until the nineteenth century; and even then it survived only on a much reduced scale, as a small minority movement within the more conservative Christian communities. As a major element in western society and economy it had had its day, like, for instance, domaine farming and chain-mail armour. What must strike the historian as curious is that neither western nor eastern Christianity developed missionary orders. Until the sixteenth century, Christian enthusiasm, which took so many other forms, was never institutionally directed into this channel. Christianity remained a universalist religion. But its proselytizing spirit expressed itself throughout the Middle Ages in various forms of violence. The crusades were not missionary ventures but wars of conquest and primitive experiments in colonization; and the only specific Christian institutions they produced, the three knightly orders, were military. This stress on violence was particularly marked in the West. Eastern Christians tended to follow the teachings of St Basil, who regarded war as shameful. This was in the original Christian tradition: violence was abhorrent to the early Christians, who preferred death to resistance; and Paul, attempting to interpret Christ, did not even try to construct a case for the legitimate use of force.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen had hit on a similar idea, but in her case the influence required had been lacking. In vain did she offer to form a Unit at her own expense; the reply was polite but always the same, a monotonous reply: England did not send women to the front line trenches. She disliked the idea of joining the throng who tormented the patient passport officials with demands to be sent out to France at once, on no matter how insufficient a pretext. What was the use of her going to France unless she could find there the work that she wanted? She preferred to stick to her job in England. And now quite often while she waited at the stations for the wounded, she would see unmistakable figures—unmistakable to her they would be at first sight, she would single them out of the crowd as by instinct. For as though gaining courage from the terror that is war, many a one who was even as Stephen, had crept out of her hole and come into the daylight, come into the daylight and faced her country: ‘Well, here I am, will you take me or leave me?’ And England had taken her, asking no questions—she was strong and efficient, she could fill a man’s place, she could organize too, given scope for her talent. England had said: ‘Thank you very much. You’re just what we happen to want . . . at the moment.’ So, side by side with more fortunate women, worked Miss Smith who had been breeding dogs in the country; or Miss Oliphant who had been breeding nothing since birth but a litter of hefty complexes; or Miss Tring who had lived with a very dear friend in the humbler purlieus of Chelsea. One great weakness they all had, it must be admitted, and this was for uniforms—yet why not? The good workman is worthy of his Sam Browne belt. And then too, their nerves were not at all weak, their pulses beat placidly through the worst air raids, for bombs do not trouble the nerves of the invert, but rather that terrible silent bombardment from the batteries of God’s good people. Yet now even really nice women with hairpins often found their less orthodox sisters quite useful. It would be: ‘Miss Smith, do just start up my motor—the engine’s so cold I can’t get the thing going;’ or: ‘Miss Oliphant, do glance through these accounts, I’ve got such a rotten bad head for figures;’ or: ‘Miss Tring, may I borrow your British Warm?

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  His first success, the Adages (1500), was a collection of Latin quotations used to teach the language but also reflecting his philosophy; it was constantly reprinted and gradually expanded into a collection of over 4,000 short essays, which influenced society in the same way as the crude proverbs of his schooling had done. His Enchiridion, or layman’s handbook, first published in 1503, was reprinted in 1509 and 1515, and then every year, and by his death, had been translated into Czech, German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. His In Praise of Folly, 1511, went into thirty-nine editions before 1536; some of these were very substantial – thus one Paris printer, hearing that the book might be suppressed, quickly ran off an edition of 24,000 copies. There were some years, it has been calculated, when between one-fifth and one-tenth of all books sold in Oxford, London and Paris were by Erasmus. In the 1530s, 300,000 copies of his Greek New Testament were circulating, and over 750,000 of his other works. He was a new phenomenon, a living world best-seller. He got so much correspondence that, when he was living in Antwerp, then the richest city in Europe, the postman used to stop at his house first, before going on to the City Hall. Erasmus was made a political counsellor by the Emperor Charles V and offered a cardinal’s hat by Pope Paul III. A number of leading European cities gave him their freedom and invited him to live there as an honoured citizen. Yet if Erasmus had sought to propound his views a generation later, he would certainly have been hounded by the Habsburgs and excommunicated by the papacy: indeed, in 1546, only a decade after his death, the Council of Trent declared his version of the New Testament anathema, and at a later session Pope Paul IV branded him as ‘the leader of all heretics’ and called for the burning of his collected works. By this time, too, Erasmus’s unrestricted presence would have been regarded as unwelcome in most of reformed Europe. Erasmus, in fact, rode on the crest of the New Learning, which seemed to offer unlimited opportunities for spiritual and intellectual advancement, and which presaged a thoroughgoing reform of society, conducted from within by a universal and voluntary movement. This rosy prospect was obliterated in the middle decades of the century, and what in fact happened was quite different: a division of Christianity on a compulsory and state basis. Two armed camps came into existence: one, half-reformed, basing its claims exclusively on scripture; the other, unreformed, based exclusively on authority; and between them an unbridgeable chasm, filling with the victims of war and persecution. The outcome, in fact, was almost the complete antithesis of the Erasmian dream. Herein lies one of the central historical tragedies, of Christianity, of Europe, and of the world. The Erasmian dream was not wholly utopian. All men agreed that faith was a unity.

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

  Paul’s."304 But we must not overlook a later testimony, in which the eloquent historian supplemented and qualified this eulogy: — "From the time," says Macaulay in the first chapter of his History of England, "when the barbarians overran the Western Empire, to the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome had been generally favorable to science, to civilization, and to good government. But, during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor; while Protestant countries once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned, by skill and industry, into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of papal domination. The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation; the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached,—teach the same lesson. Whoever passes, in Germany, from a Roman-Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman-Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman-Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic, the same law prevails. The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which, even when misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a great people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm the rule; for in no country that is called Roman-Catholic has the Roman-Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little authority as in France. "It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman-Catholic religion or to the Reformation. For the amalgamation of races and for the abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted to the influence which the priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the laity. For political and intellectual freedom, and for all the blessings which political and intellectual freedom have brought in their train, she is chiefly indebted to the great rebellion of the laity against the priesthood." § 50. Charles V.

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

  Calixtus’ death was the signal for the flight of the Spanish lobbyists, whose houses were looted by the indignant Romans. Discerning the coming storm, Pedro made the best bargain he could by selling S. Angelo to the cardinals for 20,000 ducats, and then took a hasty departure. Like Honorius III., Calixtus might have died of a broken heart over his failure to arouse Europe to the effort of a crusade, if it had not been for this consuming concern for the fortunes and schemes of his relatives. From this time on, for more than half a century, the gift of dignities and revenues under papal control for personal considerations and to unworthy persons for money was an outstanding feature in the history of the popes. § 50. Aeneas Sylvius de’ Piccolomini, Pius II. The next pontiff, Pius II., has a place among the successful men of history. Lacking high enthusiasms and lofty aims, he was constantly seeking his own interests and, through diplomatic shrewdness, came to be the most conspicuous figure of his time. He was ruled by expediency rather than principle. He never swam against the stream.735 When he found himself on the losing side, he was prompt in changing to the other. Aeneas Sylvius de’ Piccolomini was born in 1405 at Corsignano, a village located on a bold spur of the hills near Siena. He was one of 18 children, and his family, which had been banished from Siena, was poor but of noble rank. At 18, the son began studying in the neighboring city, where he heard Bernardino preach. Later he learned Greek in Florence. It was a great opportunity when Cardinal Capranica took this young man with him as his secretary to Basel, 1431. Gregorovius has remarked that it was the golden age of secretaries, most of the Humanists serving in that capacity. Later, Aeneas went into the service of the bishop of Novaro, whom he accompanied to Rome. The bishop was imprisoned for the part he had taken in a conspiracy against Eugenius IV. The secretary escaped a like treatment by flight. He then served Cardinal Albergati, with whom he travelled to France. He also visited England and Scotland.736

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

  But persecution is not the only blot on his reputation. He wasted his affections upon a vicious and worthless son, whom he raised in his fourteenth year to full participation of the imperial power, regardless of the happiness of millions, and upon a beautiful but faithless and wicked wife, whom he hastened after her death to cover with divine honors. His conduct towards Faustina was either hypocritical or unprincipled.593 After her death he preferred a concubine to a second wife and stepmother of his children. His son and successor left the Christians in peace, but was one of the worst emperors that disgraced the throne, and undid all the good which his father had done.594 Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander; Seneca, the teacher of Nero; Marcus Aurelius, the father of Commodus. § 93. Plutarch. Ploutavrcou tou' Cairwnevw" ta; jHqikav. Ed. Tauchnitz Lips. The same with a Latin version and notes in Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, id est, Opera, exceptis vitis, reliqua. Ed. by Daniel Wyttenbach. Oxon. 1795–1800, 8 vols. (including 2 Index vols.). French ed. by Dübner, in the Didot collection. Plutarch’s Morals. Translated from the Greek by several Hands. London, 1684–’94, 5th ed. 1718. The same as corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin (Harvard University). With an introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston, 1870, 5 vols. Octave Greard: De la moralité de Plutarque. Paris, 1866. Richard Chenevix Trench (Archbishop of Dublin): Plutarch, his life, his Parallel Lives, and his Morals. London (Macmillan & Co.), 2nd ed. 1874. W. Möller: Ueber die Religion des Plutarch. Kiel, 1881. Julia Wedgwood: Plutarch and the unconscious Christianity of the first two centuries. In the "Contemporary Review" for 1881, pp. 44–60. Equally remarkable, as a representative of "unconscious Christianity" and "seeker after the unknown God" though from a different philosophical standpoint, is the greatest biographer and moralist of classical antiquity. It is strange that Plutarch’s contemporaries are silent about him. His name is not even mentioned by any Roman writer. What we know of him is gathered from his own works. He lived between A.D. 50 and 125, mostly in his native town of Chaeroneia, in Boeotia, as a magistrate and priest of Apollos. He was happily married, and had four sons and a daughter, who died young. His Conjugal Precepts are full of good advice to husbands and wives. The letter of consolation he addressed to his wife on the death of a little daughter, Timoxena, while she was absent from home, gives us a favorable impression of his family life, and expresses his hope of immortality. "The souls of infants," he says at the close of this letter, "pass immediately into a better and more divine state." He spent some time in Rome (at least twice, probably under Vespasian and Domitian), lectured on moral philosophy to select audiences, and collected material for his Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans. He was evidently well-bred, in good circumstances, familiar with books, different countries, and human nature and society in all its phases.

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

  Persecution of heresy always helps heresy unless the heretics are exterminated. The mysteriousness of its doctrine, its compact organization, the apparent solution of the terrible problem of evil, and the show of ascetic holiness sometimes were the chief points of attraction. Even such a profound and noble spirit as St. Augustin was nine years an auditor of the sect before he was converted to the Catholic church. He sought there a deeper philosophy of religion and became acquainted with the gifted and eloquent Faustus of Numidia, but was disappointed and found him a superficial charlatan. Another Manichaean, by the name of Felix, he succeeded in converting to the Catholic faith in a public disputation of two days at Hippo. His connection with Manichaeism enabled him in his polemic writings to refute it and to develop the doctrines of the relation of knowledge and faith, of reason and revelation, the freedom of will, the origin of evil and its relation to the divine government. Thus here, too, error was overruled for the promotion of truth. Pope Leo I. searched for these heretics in Rome, and with the aid of the magistrate brought many to punishment. Valentinian III. punished them by banishment, Justinian by death. The violent and persistent persecutions at last destroyed their organization. But their system extended its influence throughout the middle ages down to the thirteenth century, reappearing, under different modifications, with a larger infusion of Christian elements, in the Priscillianists, Paulieians, Bogomiles, Albigenses, Catharists and other sects, which were therefore called "New Manichaeans." Indeed some of the leading features of Manichaeism—the dualistic separation of soul and body, the ascription of nature to the devil, the pantheistic confusion of the moral and physical, the hypocritical symbolism, concealing heathen views under Christian phrases, the haughty air of mystery, and the aristocratic distinction of esoteric and exoteric—still live in various forms even in modern systems of philosophy and sects of religion.925 § 136. The Manichaean System. Manichaeism is a compound of dualistic, pantheistic, Gnostic, and ascetic elements, combined with a fantastic philosophy of nature, which gives the whole system a materialistic character, notwithstanding its ascetic abhorrence of matter. The metaphysical foundation is a radical dualism between good and evil, light and darkness, derived from the Persian Zoroastrism (as restored by the school of the Magasaeans under the reign of the second Sassanides towards the middle of the second century). The prominent ethical feature is a rigid asceticism which strongly resembles Buddhism.926 The Christian element is only a superficial varnish (as in Mohammedanism). The Jewish religion is excluded altogether (while in Mohammedanism it forms a very important feature), and the Old Testament is rejected, as inspired by the devil and his false prophets. The chief authorities were apocryphal Gospels and the writings of Mani. 1. The Manichaean theology begins with an irreconcilable antagonism between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. And this is identified with the ethical dualism between good and bad.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  After a few margaritas he held my hand under the table and we stared into each other’s eyes. I had not remembered being present for a meal like this, together, both fully engaged, neither of us on our phones, in years. After dinner we made out in his car. He tasted different, like a licorice taste had entered his body in the time we’d been apart. Maybe it was the cilantro. He drove me home and then followed me upstairs. I went to get him a glass of water. When I came into the living room he was sitting on the sofa. “Come here,” he said. I walked toward him and sat on his leg. I held the water up to his lips. He drank, then put it on the table and kissed me. He undressed me, still sitting in his lap. Then he laid me down on the sofa and undressed hastily as I watched him in the dark. We fucked on the sofa, quickly, our mouths on each other’s mouths the whole time. I didn’t come. I never did from fucking. Jamie’s lack of initiative in going down on me was a source of contention between us, always. He was willing but not ravenous for it. But his mouth on my mouth as he fucked me felt in a way like he had his mouth on my vagina. He didn’t stay the night. Then Rochelle called. “The girl he is seeing is a scientist,” she said. “She’s blond.” “He’s seeing someone?” “I thought you knew,” she said. Apparently the woman’s name was Megan and she was five years younger than me. Rochelle knew nothing more about her. She had bumped into them at a Chinese restaurant. “Well, can you find out?” “I’ll try,” said Rochelle. I could tell she was getting sick of me. Or more than sick of me, actually, she was scared of me. She had always thought we were both safe from the crazy-woman disease: that desperation and need. But now I had fallen into it, fallen all the way under, and she saw how a person could just go. One minute you were playfully complaining to friends about a man’s farts and the next minute you would kill to have the farts back. Could she catch the disease from me? Was her own contentment in danger? I texted her three times to get the info but she just wrote back: rly busy

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  4Stephen got up, stretched, and went to the window. The sun had retreated behind the clouds; a kind of brown twilight hung over the Embankment, for the wind had now dropped and a fog was threatening. The discouragement common to all fine writers was upon her, she was hating what she had written. Last night’s work seemed inadequate and unworthy; she decided to put a blue pencil through it and to rewrite the chapter from start to finish. She began to give way to a species of panic; her new book would be a ludicrous failure, she felt it, she would never again write a novel possessing the quality of The Furrow. The Furrow had been the result of shock to which she had, strangely enough, reacted by a kind of unnatural mental vigour. But now she could not react any more, her brain felt like over-stretched elastic, it would not spring back, it was limp, unresponsive. And then there was something else that distracted, something she was longing to put into words yet that shamed her so that it held her tongue-tied. She lit a cigarette and when it was finished found another and kindled it at the stump. ‘Stop embroidering that curtain, for God’s sake, Puddle. I simply can’t stand the sound of your needle; it makes a booming noise like a drum every time you prod that tightly stretched linen.’ Puddle looked up: ‘You’re smoking too much.’ ‘I dare say I am. I can’t write any more.’ ‘Since when?’ ‘Ever since I began this new book.’ ‘Don’t be such a fool!’ ‘But it’s God’s truth, I tell you—I feel flat, it’s a kind of spiritual dryness. This new book is going to be a failure, sometimes I think I’d better destroy it.’ She began to pace up and down the room, dull-eyed yet tense as a tightly drawn bow string. ‘This comes of working all night,’ Puddle murmured. ‘I must work when the spirit moves me,’ snapped Stephen. Puddle put aside her wool work embroidery. She was not much moved by this sudden depression, she had grown quite accustomed to these literary moods, yet she looked a little more closely at Stephen and something that she saw in her face disturbed her. ‘You look tired to death; why not lie down and rest?’ ‘Rot! I want to work.’ ‘You’re not fit to work. You look all on edge, somehow. What’s the matter with you?’ And then very gently: ‘Stephen, come here and sit down by me, please, I must know what’s the matter.’ Stephen obeyed as though once again they two were back in the old Morton schoolroom, then she suddenly buried her face in her hands: ‘I don’t want to tell you—why must I, Puddle?’ ‘Because,’ said Puddle, ‘I’ve a right to know; your career’s very dear to me, Stephen.’

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

  of war to the Saracens for four years, was ordered read every Sabbath and fast day in Christian ports. Innocent died without seeing the expedition start. For his successor Honorius III., its promotion was a ruling passion, but he also died without seeing it realized. In 1217 Andreas of Hungary led an army to Syria, but accomplished nothing. In 1219 William of Holland with his Germans, Norwegians, and Danes helped John of Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, to take Damietta. This city, situated on one of the mouths of the Nile, was a place of prime commercial importance and regarded as the key of Egypt. Egypt had come to be regarded as the proper way of military approach to Palestine. Malik-al-Kameel, who in 1218 had succeeded to power in Egypt, offered the Christians Jerusalem and all Palestine, except Kerak, together with the release of all Christian prisoners, on condition of the surrender of Damietta. It was a grand opportunity of securing the objects for which the Crusaders had been fighting, but, elated by victory and looking for help from the emperor, Frederick II., they rejected the offer. In 1221 Damietta fell back into the hands of Mohammedans.461 The Fifth Crusade reached its results by diplomacy more than by the sword. Its leader, Frederick II., had little of the crusading spirit, and certainly the experiences of his ancestors Konrad and Barbarossa were not adapted to encourage him. His vow, made at his coronation in Aachen and repeated at his coronation in Rome, seems to have had little binding force for him. His marriage with Iolanthe, granddaughter of Conrad of Montferrat and heiress of the crown of Jerusalem, did not accelerate his preparations to which he was urged by Honorius III. In 1227 he sailed from Brindisi; but, as has already been said, he returned to port after three days on account of sickness among his men.462 At last the emperor set forth with forty galleys and six hundred knights, and arrived in Acre, Sept. 7,1228. The sultans of Egypt and Damascus were at the time in bitter conflict. Taking advantage of the situation, Frederick concluded with Malik-al-Kameel a treaty which was to remain in force ten years and delivered up to the Christians Jerusalem with the exception of the mosque of Omar and the Temple area, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim route from Acre to Jerusalem.463 On March 19, 1229, the emperor crowned himself with his own hand in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The same day the archbishop of Caesarea pronounced, in the name of the patriarch of Jerusalem, the interdict over the city.464 Recalled probably by the dangers threatening his kingdom, Frederick arrived in Europe in the spring of 1229, but only to find himself for the fourth time put under the ban by his implacable antagonist, Gregory.

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

  During the 500 years that followed, the voice of the supreme pontiff was heard above all other voices and controlled every movement emanating from the Church. In this period, the doctrinal system, which is distinctively known as the mediaeval, came to its full statement. It was the period of great corporate movements, of the Crusades, the Mendicant orders, of the cathedrals and universities, of the canon law and the sacramental combination and of the Reformatory councils. The third period of the Middle Ages, which this volume traverses, is at once the product of the former period of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. and, at the same time, the germinative seed-plot of new forces. The sacerdotal keeps its hold and the papacy remains the central tribunal and court of Europe, but protests were heard—vigorous and startling from different quarters, from Prag, Paris, Oxford—which, without overthrowing old institutions, shook the confidence in their Apostolic appointment and perpetuity. These last two centuries of the mediaeval world betray no consuming passion like the Crusades, for all efforts of the pope to stir the dead nerves of that remarkable impulse were futile. And Pius II., looking from the bluffs of Ancona out upon the sea in the hope of discerning ships rigged to undertake the reconquest of the East, furnishes a pathetic spectacle of an attempt to call forth energies to achieve the dreams of the past, when for practical minds the illusion itself has already disappeared. The Reformatory councils endeavored to undo what Hildebrand and Innocent III. had built up and Thomas Aquinas had sanctioned, the control of the Church and society by the will of the supreme pontiff. The system of the Schoolmen broke down. Wyclif, himself endowed with scholastic acuteness, belonged to that modern class of men who find in practical considerations a sufficient reason to ignore the contentions of dialectic philosophy. And, finally, the Renaissance completely set aside some of the characteristic notions of the Middle Ages, stirring the interest of man in all the works of God, and honoring those who in this earthly sphere of action wrought out the products of intellectual endeavor in literature and art, on the platform and in the department of state. This last period of the Middle Ages appears to the student of general history as a period of presentiments—and efforts on the part of scattered thinkers, to reach a more free and rational mode of thought and living than the mode they had inherited from the past. The period opening with Hildebrand and extending to Boniface VIII. furnished more imposing personalities,—architects compelling by the force of intellectual assertion,—but fewer useful men. It created a dogmatic unity and triumphed by a policy of force, but the rights of the individual and the principle of liberty of thought and conscience, with which God has chosen to endow mankind, it could not consign to permanent burial.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I looked down. There was my full bush with one giant chunk missing. The area was pink and had a few tiny dots of blood. My crotch looked like a furry mouth with one pulled tooth. “Darling, lie back. That was nothing.” “No!” I said. “Don’t do it, please. I’m done. I’m done.” “I can’t leave you like this. You’re going to go to mans like this?” she asked, pointing to my torn-up vagina. “I don’t care!” “I go gentler,” she said. I didn’t know what to do. We were sort of fighting. I was pushing her hands away and she was applying the wax. With the second strip I started to cry. “This is fucking insane,” I said. But I let her do my lips, which felt like she was searing off my vulva. I couldn’t believe that other women did this. Who were these people? Then she did my asshole, which she said she had to do, because it was “carrying around stink.” I’d been carrying around stink for thirty-eight years. When I got home I lay down with Dominic and held a package of frozen edamame to my vagina. I hated everything. Now the dress, the lipstick, even my hair color seemed stupid. I realized I didn’t care about any of this stuff, even the dress, which I had loved. It wasn’t about the dress. It was in the acquisition of the dress that there had been beauty. I thought about different kinds of happiness. There was the happiness I felt in all of the adrenaline of running around, a crazed happiness. This was a different happiness from the quiet peace of just being with Dominic. I kissed his ear. “Sorry I get so distracted,” I said. He sniffed at me. Suddenly I didn’t want to go out with Adam anymore. I fell asleep with the edamame defrosting on my vagina. But the next morning, my excitement—that sense of purpose—was oddly restored. I woke up to a text from Adam that said, see you tonight gorgeous. There was something about the morning of a date that tricked me. It tricked me out of the haze of being alive. Or perhaps it tricked me out of the sadness of knowing that one day I would die. It punctured the nothingness. Now I felt passion and love for everything. 12.Back at group, the word of the day seemed to have shifted from unavailable to triggered. In the safe space of Dr. Jude’s crap-filled office, everyone, it seemed, had recently been triggered by something.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “What is it?” “Jamie got that woman pregnant. They’re moving in together.” “No! The scientist?” “It’s true.” “How the hell did that happen?” “They were fucking.” “No, I mean—oh Lucy, I’m so sorry.” “I know. How can I go back to Phoenix and face them?” “You can and you shall. Let’s just pray it totally destroys her pussy.” “She better get fat as hell.” “Well, now he’ll really be pining after you.” “Yeah?” “Oh yes. Nothing brings out a man’s quest for escape like a lactating woman with somebody else doing the sucking.” 49.As I left the hospital, I wondered if Claire was right. Was it possible that she had started seeing more clearly than me? The way she looked at me now was the way I had looked at Diana and at her before: lovingly, but full of pity. I decided it was she who was to be pitied. She had given up on the thing that made her most alive, even if it made her the most crazy. I knew the old way still sounded beautiful to her. But in an act of self-preservation, she was walking the path back to safety and sanity now. Even for Claire, the pain had just gotten too great. Of course, this was today. Who was to say where she would be next week or next month or whenever she got out? For now she had convinced herself, or maybe done more than convinced herself. Maybe she had actually healed a little. But just because you had healed, it didn’t mean the men could no longer get you. Love and lust were latent in her, lurking. For now she was free of the insanity. The cocktail of meds had certainly helped. I wondered if what she felt on the cocktail was as good as romantic obsession, better than that sparkle. You had to feel something truly heavenly to get over the chase. The chase was everything, all the hope and possibility of life. Very little else would ever be enough. Love itself would probably never be enough. You had to have the moment of almost touching, almost fucking, the moment right before he enters you for the first time, all the time. I thought of a story I had read about Solon, an Athenian statesman, who one day heard his nephew singing one of Sappho’s poems. He immediately asked the boy to teach it to him so he could have it memorized. When asked why, he simply said, “So that I may learn it and then die.”

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  But there is only one case in which they seem to have argued with the missionaries on theological grounds, defending their own religion. Usually they retreated to more remote areas, and only when this was impossible did they stage revolts. In settled areas, they were liable to prosecution by the Holy Office for concubinage, bigamy or heresy. Thus a chief was accused in 1539 of concubinage and idolatry; arms and idols were found in his house; and his ten-year-old son, as often happened in Inquisition trials, gave evidence against him. The chief, Ometochtzin, known as ‘Don Carlos Mendoza’, said in his deposition that the various orders of friars and seculars had different dress and rules; that everyone had his own way of life; so had the Indians, and they should not be obliged to give it up; he also argued that many Spaniards were drunkards and scoffed at religion. He was condemned to death. Efforts were undoubtedly made to convey the subtleties and truth of Christianity. In teaching his converts, Maturino Gilberti tried hard to distinguish between devotion and image-worship – later he thought this was the chief reason why he was suspected of Protestantism. Francisco de Bustamente railed against the cult of the Virgin, because of the polytheistic confusion it produced. Most priests did not bother much. Luis Caldera, a Franciscan, who spoke only Spanish, taught the doctrine of Hell by throwing dogs and cats into an oven, and lighting a fire under it: the howls of the animals terrified the Indians. The difficulty was that the more imaginative or sensitive missionaries nearly always got into trouble with their superiors, ecclesiastical or secular. The most remarkable of the sixteenth century Franciscans, Barnadino de Sahagun, who spent over sixty years in Mexico, argued that it was vital to study the ‘spiritual maladies’ and ‘the vices of the country’ in order to effect Christianization. He employed native assistants and an original methodology to compile a gigantic Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana, whose twelve volumes covered the religion, customs, constitution, intellectual and economic life, flora, fauna and the languages of Mexico and its peoples. It was written in both Nahuatl and Spanish, and must be regarded as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the entire Renaissance. But it aroused the opposition of his colleagues, and in 1577 Philip II ordered its confiscation, though one copy was to be sent to the Council of the Indies for examination; no one was to be allowed to ‘describe the superstitions and customs of the Indians’. Barnadino died without knowing what had happened to his life’s work, and the manuscript was not recovered until 1779; two similar studies were made, but none was printed until modern times.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The response of the Vatican, in dealing with its modernists, had been simply to invoke discipline. A huge number of books were condemned, and Catholic scholarship in this field virtually halted. Some Anglicans, too, wanted action against the liberals (Thompson actually had his licence withdrawn by his bishop). But Archbishop Randall Davidson of Canterbury contrived to reach a sensible compromise. At a meeting of Convocation in 1914 he accepted the dictum of Archbishop Temple, ‘If the conclusions are prescribed, the study is precluded’. Truth had to come first. ‘I would say to every honest student in these matters: “Follow the truth, do your utmost to find it, and let it be your guide, whithersoever it may lead you.... Do not let your study be hampered by a single thought about what the consequences of this or that conclusion may be to you or to others. If it be true, go forward to that truth.”’ At the same time, he insisted that Anglican clergymen, as accredited spokesmen of the Christian faith, had to subscribe to certain beliefs; and he persuaded Convocation to pass unanimously a resolution which ‘places on record its conviction that the historical facts stated in the Creeds are an essential part of the faith of the Church’. The Anglican solution placed the onus on the individual, and remained faithful to the teaching of St Paul. A scholar was to pursue the truth; but it might lead him to a stage at which he passed the bounds of Christianity, which had defined limits. If so, it was better to face the fact, in the light of his own mind and conscience, rather than try to suppress it, since Christianity itself was identical with truth. The implication of this line of argument was that ultimately the problem would be resolved by scholarship, which would reconcile historical truth and scripture – or that Christianity would disappear, having been shown to be untrue. The implication of the papal attitude was that man was too frail a vessel to be left to wrestle with truth individually; he needed the collective guidance of the Church, which was divinely directed, and which he must follow even against the apparent evidence of his senses and conscience. The controversy thus served to demonstrate that nothing essential had changed in the Catholic-Protestant argument since the sixteenth century. In 1914, then, Christians still could not reach a consensus about how their creed was to absorb the new knowledge pouring in from all directions, or even about how Christians were to acquire it. This depressing conclusion ran counter to the spiritual euphoria of the times. There were still plenty of triumphalists in 1914. The papalists assumed an eventual submission of all Christians to Rome, followed by a redirection of the world under papal guidance; a return, as it were, to Innocent III’s thirteenth century, but with steamships, radio and aircraft. The Protestant triumphalists looked forward to the evangelization of the world along the lines of American voluntaryism.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I never imagined that anal sex could be loving. I never thought of it as an intimate act, one of trust, only a pornographic and brutal one. So I cried a lot, but not because it hurt. 46. By morning I was very sick: in the spirit, the mind, and the body. I couldn’t stay in Venice any longer. Clearly something had gone very wrong, and I was getting worse. Group therapy had only led me to a merman with severe abandonment issues. Fuck this whole situation. I had come here to get away from Jamie, in the hope that the distance would help me recover. Now he was pursuing me and I didn’t even want him anymore. Didn’t that mean my mission was accomplished? Hadn’t I won? It was time to return to Phoenix and claim my prize. I decided to call and tell him the good news. “It’s me,” I said. “I know.” He laughed. “How are you?” “I’m okay. I haven’t heard from you. I’ve been worried.” “I’m sorry. I needed some time to do some thinking.” “Oh yes?” “Yes.” “And what are your thoughts?” “Well, I was wondering first if you are still with—Megan. Or has that already burned out?” “Well, there’s been some complications with that situation, actually.” I knew he would fall out of love fast, but this had ended quicker than I thought. “Oh really?” I said. This was going to be good. “Yes, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this. But I didn’t want to text it to you. And when I wasn’t hearing back I figured I would talk to you in person when you returned.” This was it. He wanted me back. He was leaving Megan for me, he just needed to be sure I still wanted to be with him too before he ended things. Men are cowardly. But I could understand that and had sympathy for him. Five minutes before, I had been lovesick over Theo. The heart contains multitudes. We all need someone in our lives, because ultimately, humans are weak. “Actually, I’m thinking of coming home early,” I said. “Oh yeah?” Now he sounded nervous. “What do you think about that?” “Listen, Lucy, I don’t know how to say this. I—I hope you aren’t thinking of coming home early for me.” Oh no. “No, not for you,” I stammered. “Okay, good. Because, uh, things have changed a little with Megan and me.” “How so?” I snapped. “Well, it appears—it appears she is pregnant. And she’s going to keep the baby. So we’re going to be parents together. She’s going to move in with me, at least for a while.” I was silent. “Lucy?” I couldn’t say anything. All those years I had tried to get us to cohabitate, and all it took for this blond scientist bitch was some little womb booger and there he was, boom, ready to commit.