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.

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• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Abijah (Abijam) received a brief and negative notice in the earlier history (1 Kgs 15:1-8). In 2 Chronicles he receives a whole chapter (13) and is represented as a staunch defender of Davidic sovereignty over all Israel. In accordance with the typical emphasis of Chronicles, he denounces Jeroboam for having “driven out the priests of the L ORD , the descendants of Aaron, and the Levites” (13:9). Asa The treatment of Asa (14:1—16:14) is almost three times as long as that of 1 Kgs 15:9-24. His reign is divided into two periods: a long phase of fidelity and a much shorter phase of infidelity. The first phase is marked by complete reliance on the Lord and consequent success. The turning point comes when he is attacked by King Baasha of Israel and is moved to rely on Ben-hadad of Aram. For this he is rebuked by a prophet, and he retaliates by confining his critic. The displeasure of the Lord with this later phase is reflected in the disease of Asa’s feet. The basic outline of this career is already found in 1 Kings, where Asa is credited with reform of the cult in his early years but is said to have relied on Ben-hadad after Baasha’s attack. The account in Chronicles, however, is more elaborate and has a clearer moral message. Jehoshaphat Jehoshaphat is overshadowed by Ahab of Samaria in 1 Kings. He receives much more extensive treatment here (2 Chron 17:1—21:1). The notice in Kings is positive, except for the fact that he did not remove the high places (1 Kgs 22:41- 44). Kings also says that he removed the remaining male prostitutes from the land (22:46). Chronicles credits him with much more extensive reforms. He allegedly sent officials, priests, and Levites to all the cities of Judah “having the book of the law of the L ORD with them” (2 Chron 17:9). This would not have been possible in the Deuteronomistic History, since the book was only discovered later, in the reign of King Josiah. Because of this virtuous conduct,

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  QOHELETH (ECCLESIASTES) The book of Job may be said to represent a crisis in the wisdom tradition, arising from the realization that some of the most hallowed assumptions are proven false by experience. As we have seen in the case of Proverbs, the wisdom tradition does not rely on revelation of the kind that one finds in the Prophets. Essentially, it is an attempt to generalize on the basis of experience. But in traditional wisdom, students are not supposed to rely on their own experience. Rather, as Bildad put it, they should “inquire of bygone generations, and consider what their ancestors have found” (Job 8:8). Consequently, the supposedly empirical findings of past generations often hardened into dogma. In a sense, Job was recalling the tradition to its roots by reexamining its basis. It should be noted that even the conservative Elihu shows impatience with assumptions about the wisdom of age and tradition. The skeptical questioning of tradition in the biblical corpus reaches its high point in the book of Qoheleth or Ecclesiastes. The inclusion of this book in the canon of Scriptures is remarkable and was a matter of some controversy in antiquity. In the first century C.E. the rival schools of Shammai and Hillel were divided on the issue. The more conservative school of Shammai rejected it, but the Hillelites prevailed. Objections continued to be raised against the book as late as the fourth century C.E. because of its lack of coherence and its radical questioning of tradition. The name Qoheleth has never been satisfactorily explained. It has the form of a feminine participle but is used with reference to a man (the son of David, Qoh 1:1). It appears both with and without the definite article. The Greek form, “Ecclesiastes,” “member of an assembly,” assumes that the word is derived from qahal, “assembly.” A modern suggestion takes the word to mean “gatherer” or “assembler,” a designation that is reasonably appropriate in light of the content of the book. But the meaning is uncertain and remains obscure. The superscription of the book identifies Qoheleth as “the son of David, king in Jerusalem.” Qoheleth 1:12 repeats that he was king over Israel. He was

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  Every one of you children was given to God as a tiny baby. You have a vocation. Trust me on that. I promise you. You have a vocation.” Then, his voice rising again, he repeated the words—emphasizing each one. “I tell you, you have a vocation.” I stood in silence, unable to craft a response that would mollify him. “The world is wicked out there,” he said ominously. My hands were shaking, my throat dry. Still nearly supine in his chair, Father took my hand in his and said softly, “I will pray for your soul.” I looked at Sister Catherine, hoping she would step in and relieve the tension. She tilted her head and gave the half smile that made her look motherly, and then she spoke. “Sister Anastasia, dear, I have some wonderful news for you. You were accepted into Vassar College. And Bates as well.” Before I could digest this momentous information, Father interrupted, his voice strident. “You’re not going to Vassar, are you?” “Oh, no,” Sister Catherine responded before I could. “She applied just so that our wonderful school would receive the accreditation it deserves. And we are so proud of her for doing her part to save our school.” Father paid no attention. “Vassar is the seat of all evil,” he said, hissing his words. “You will lose your immortal soul if you go there.” He shook a trembling finger at me. “Promise me that you will not go to Vassar! Promise me, my darling.” His voice trailed off. “Yes, Father, I promise you,” I said. He reached out his hand, and I knelt down next to him. Placing his hands on my head, he gently made the sign of the cross on my forehead. As I left the office, I felt shattered. My hard work for the Center had been successful—I’d been accepted at Vassar and at Bates. But my moment of glory, the triumph of winning the trophy for the Center, had been turned into a scene of anger. As I closed the door behind me, I struggled to hold back my tears. 49 Vassar, No Thank You 1966 “S it down, dear,” Sister Ann Mary spoke as she approached me with a letter in her hand. “I thought you might like to read the letter of acceptance you received from Vassar. I can’t tell you how proud we all are of you.” She meant everything she said, and I loved her for it. Reading the formally worded letter felt surreal. I took in the actual words: “A careful evaluation of your credentials leads us to believe that you…would contribute your own special qualities to the college community.” It ended with, “We congratulate you on being a successful candidate at a time when competition for admission to Vassar is keen.” I felt a surge of pride. Only 450 girls in the whole country would be going to Vassar in September as freshmen.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  Sister Catherine was my godmother, and at the Center each godparent played a special role in the life of his or her godchild. But because Sister Catherine seldom came to visit us behind the red fence, I missed out on much of that bonding. I accepted the fact that she must be too busy running the Center with Father to spend time with me, but I longed for that personal attention. So I was thrilled when one Saturday morning, Sister Catherine invited me, along with Mariam and Rene, the two oldest Little Sisters, to spend the day at her office. This meant a trip beyond the red fence, a rare treat. We played quietly while she worked, and as morning became early afternoon, I found myself getting hungry. Sister Catherine had not offered us lunch, and there was no food in sight. Maybe if I tell Sister Catherine I’m hungry, she’ll take us out to eat , I thought to myself. Excitement over the idea of an excursion into Harvard Square grew faster than my hunger. At the age of eight, I’d never been to a restaurant. The picture in my mind’s eye took shape—Sister Catherine would take me by the hand and off we’d go, down the stairs and out into the bright sunlight, up the street and into a restaurant, where we’d sit down and have a sandwich and a glass of milk. Gathering up my nerve, because I was not used to asking for a special favor like this one, I walked to the entrance to her office and said, “Sister Catherine, I’m hungry. Could I please have something to eat?” Her response came as a shock. Rising from her desk chair, she strode past me and into the living room where we’d been playing. “Very well, then,” she said in a stern, cold voice, her nearly six-foot frame towering over me. “If you’re hungry, you can head right back to St. Francis Xavier’s House. Come, the car is here.” We followed her down the stairs, where she instructed Brother David to take us back home. With neither a kiss, nor even a wave goodbye, we were ushered out. I sat in numb silence during the short car ride back to life behind the red fence, stunned by Sister Catherine’s reaction and devastated by the failure of my ploy. What did I do wrong? I wondered. Did she think I was complaining? Or did she see through me and could tell I was angling for an excursion into the “real world”? I beheld my godmother in a new light—no longer the charming, smiling, grandmotherly figure, but an enigma. It was a few months later when Sister Catherine made another appearance in St. Francis Xavier’s yard, this time with Father. I was wary. Father spoke. “Come,” he said, motioning to me, and to Mariam, Rene, Peter, and Leonard. Then, turning on his heel, he headed through the maze of houses to our enclosed parking lot.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I don’t know where I fit in with communities of fat people. I’m aware of and regularly read about the Health at Every Size movement and other fat acceptance communities. I admire their work and their messages, find that work a necessary corrective to our culture’s toxic attitudes toward women’s bodies and fat bodies. I want to be embraced by these communities and their positivity. I want to know how they do it, how they find peace and self-acceptance. I also want to lose weight. I know I am not healthy at this size (not because I am fat but because I have, for example, high blood pressure). More important, I am not happy at this size, though I am not suffering from the illusion that were I to wake up thin tomorrow, I would be happy and all my problems would be solved. All things considered, I have a reasonable amount of self-esteem. When I’m around the right people, I feel strong and powerful and sexy. I am not fearless the way people assume I am, but despite all my fears, I am willing to take chances and I like that too about myself. I hate how people treat and perceive me. I hate how I am extraordinarily visible but invisible. I hate not fitting in so many places where I want to be. I have it wired in my head that if I looked different this would change. Intellectually, I recognize the flaw in the logic, but emotionally, it’s not so easy to make sense. I want to have everything I need in my body and I don’t yet, but I will, I think. Or I will get closer. There are days when I am feeling braver. There are days when I am feeling, finally, like I can shed some of this protection I have amassed and be okay. I am not young but I am not old yet. I have a lot of life left, and my god, I want to do something different than what I have done for the last twenty years. I want to move freely. I want to be free.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  232 LECTURE 35 Letters for Sojourners A common thread connects the letters of the New Testament known as Hebrews, James, and 1 Peter: They portray their readers as sojourners or resident aliens. Written not by Paul but by other early Christian writers, these letters address people who have a sense of dislocation—people who live in society but are not fully integrated into it. This social dislocation largely stemmed from religious beliefs that differed from Judaism and from Roman religious practices. The letters we’ll consider here speak to that issue in different ways. The letter to the Hebrews calls on early Christians to keep the faith. The letter of James emphasizes integrity, and 1 Peter asks what belonging really means. Letter to the Hebrews ‹Somewhat surprisingly, Hebrews lacks the usual features of a letter. Instead of a greeting, for example, it begins, “At many times and in many ways, God spoke in the past to our ancestors through the prophets. But now in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son.” Scholars often refer to Hebrews as a speech because its introduction sounds like a piece of oratory. ‹The writer never tells us his name, but at points in the speech, he tells us something about his readers. In chapter 2, he recalls that initially receiving the Christian message was a spiritual highpoint for these readers. The power of God and the Spirit of God seemed vivid. But after the initial highpoint, they experienced harassment. They were verbally abused and occasionally imprisoned. Yet they rallied and supported one another—at least for a time. ‹Then, the sense of solidarity faded. The early Christians became discouraged, and some began to drift away. They initially found the Christian message to be inspiring, but soon, they felt marginalized in their own society. In their experience, this was not a new age of peace and harmony. It might be better to let go of the faith altogether.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 35—Letters for Sojourners 235 up at the door. One is well dressed in fine clothes with fancy jewelry. The other is poor and dirty and wearing shabby clothes. How should the visitors be treated? ● This simple question points to a clash in value systems. Social convention would say that wealth usually warrants privilege. The wealthy person should be invited to take a comfortable seat at the gathering, while the person in rags would stand by the door or sit on the floor. ● But James asks how that common practice fits the fundamental conviction of loving one’s neighbor as oneself. He insists that in God’s eyes, the poor person has value. The writer goes on to say that there is nothing inherently virtuous about being wealthy. ● James highlights the difference between the two systems of value. On the one hand, social convention assumes that the wealthy are worthy of higher honor than the poor. On the other hand, the command to love one’s neighbor eliminates the idea that a person’s value can be equated with social class. James challenges readers to put their belief into practice, even when it runs counter to social conventions. Doing so is what integrity requires. ‹ At this point, the writer of James takes issue with a certain understanding of Paul’s ideas. ● In the letter to the Galatians, Paul argued that people are set in right relationship with God by faith, not by doing what the law requires. He used the example of Abraham as a person of faith. ● James assumes that some readers thought Paul’s message was that all that counts is having the right beliefs—actions are not important. James makes a sharp critique of that idea, arguing that faith without works is dead. You can have all the right beliefs about God, but if belief does not lead to action, then it is lifeless. James uses Abraham as a clear example of someone who put faith into practice. ‹ Both James and Paul insist that faith rightly takes the form of action, and both agree that saying one thing and doing something else shows a lack of integrity. But there is also tension between these writers because their concerns are not exactly the same. T o read Paul’s emphasis on the relational aspect of faith alongside James’s emphasis on the ethical implications helps ensure that we keep both dimensions in mind. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation236 In the 16th century, Martin Luther believed that James lacked substance, while Paul was the superior theologian; others have tried to even out this claim.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  (Rashi thought that Isaiah had referred to his own wife.) In his exposition of the Servant Songs, Andrew did not even bother to mention Christ, but accepted the Jewish view that the servant symbolized the people of Israel. Instead of seeing the figure in Ezekiel’s vision that was ‘like a son of man’ as a prediction of Jesus, Andrew simply wanted to know what this imagery had meant to Ezekiel and the exiles. He decided that because the ‘son of man’ was the only human element in a very weird and frightening theophany, the exiles would have been reassured that God was interested in their own predicament. Andrew and his Jewish friends had taken a first step towards modern historical criticism of the Bible, but Andrew, a morose, uncharismatic man, had few followers in his own day. During the twelfth century, the men of the hour were the philosophers, who were beginning to develop a new kind of rationalistic theology in which they used reason to sustain their faith and clarify what had hitherto been deemed ineffable. Anselm of Bec (1033–1109), who would become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1189, thought that it was possible to prove anything. 16 As a monk, lectio divina was essential to his spiritual life but he wrote no commentaries on scripture and seldom quoted the Bible in his theological writing. But religion, like poetry or art, requires an intuitive rather than a purely rational approach and Anselm’s theology shows its limitations. In his treatise Cur Deus Homo, for example, he attempted a logical account of the Incarnation that bore no relation at all to scripture: any biblical quotations simply carried the argument along. The Greek Orthodox had also produced a theology that was independent of scripture, but Anselm’s forensic explanation of the incarnation lacks the spiritual insight of Maximus. He argued that the sin of Adam required atonement; because God was just, a human being must atone; but because the fault was so serious, only God could make reparation. Therefore God had to become man. 17 Anselm makes God weigh the matter up as if he were a mere human being. It is not surprising that at this time the Greek Orthodox feared that Latin theology was too anthropomorphic. Anselm’s theory of the atonement, however, became normative in the West, while the Greek Orthodox continued to prefer Maximus’s interpretation. The French philosopher Peter Abelard (1079–1142) developed a different account of the redemption, which again owed little to scripture but came closer to the spirit of the fathers.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  He wanted to find an entirely new significance in the ancient oracle that would bring comfort to the Jews who were anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Maccabean wars. This would become typical of Jewish exegesis. Instead of looking back to uncover its historical meaning, the interpreter would make the text speak to the present and the future. In order to seek out the hidden message in Jeremiah, Daniel put himself through a rigorous ascetic programme: ‘I turned my face to the Lord God begging for time to pray and to plead with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.’ 35 On another occasion, he said, ‘I ate no rich food, touched no meat or wine, and did not anoint myself, until these three weeks were over’. 36 As a result of these spiritual disciplines, he became the recipient of a divine inspiration: Gabriel, the angel of revelation, flew towards him and enabled him to discover a new meaning in the problematic passage. Torah study was becoming a prophetic discipline. The exegete now prepared himself to approach these ancient documents by purifying rituals, as if he were about to enter a holy place, putting himself into an alternative mental state that gave him fresh insight. The second-century author deliberately described Daniel’s enlightenment in a way that recalled the visionary experiences of Isaiah and Ezekiel. 37 But where Isaiah had received his prophetic initiation in the temple, Daniel found his in the sacred text. He did not have to eat the scroll like Ezekiel; instead he lived with the words of scripture constantly in his mind, interiorizing them, and found himself transformed – ‘purged, purified and made white’. 38 Finally the second-century author made Daniel predict the successful outcome of the Maccabean war by finding an entirely novel message in Jeremiah’s words. In riddling, enigmatic verse, Gabriel indicated that whether it took ‘seventy weeks’ or ‘seventy years’, the Maccabees would win through! The text had proved its holiness and divine origin by speaking directly to circumstances that the original author could not have foreseen. 39 Sadly, the Hasmonean dynasty founded by the Maccabees was a huge disappointment. The kings were cruel and corrupt; they were not descendants of David; and, to the horror of the more pious Jews, they violated the sanctity of the temple by assuming the office of High Priest, even though they were not of priestly descent. Outraged by this sacrilege, the historical imagination of the Jewish people projected itself into the future. At the end of the second century there was an explosion of apocalyptic piety. In new texts, Jews described eschatological visions in which God intervened powerfully in human affairs, smashed the present corrupt order and inaugurated an age of justice and purity. As they struggled to find a solution, the people of Judah split into myriad sects, each insisting that it alone was the true Israel.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  Torah study was becoming a prophetic discipline. The exegete now prepared himself to approach these ancient documents by purifying rituals, as if he were about to enter a holy place, putting himself into an alternative mental state that gave him fresh insight. The second-century author deliberately described Daniel’s enlightenment in a way that recalled the visionary experiences of Isaiah and Ezekiel.37 But where Isaiah had received his prophetic initiation in the temple, Daniel found his in the sacred text. He did not have to eat the scroll like Ezekiel; instead he lived with the words of scripture constantly in his mind, interiorizing them, and found himself transformed – ‘purged, purified and made white’.38 Finally the second-century author made Daniel predict the successful outcome of the Maccabean war by finding an entirely novel message in Jeremiah’s words. In riddling, enigmatic verse, Gabriel indicated that whether it took ‘seventy weeks’ or ‘seventy years’, the Maccabees would win through! The text had proved its holiness and divine origin by speaking directly to circumstances that the original author could not have foreseen.39 Sadly, the Hasmonean dynasty founded by the Maccabees was a huge disappointment. The kings were cruel and corrupt; they were not descendants of David; and, to the horror of the more pious Jews, they violated the sanctity of the temple by assuming the office of High Priest, even though they were not of priestly descent. Outraged by this sacrilege, the historical imagination of the Jewish people projected itself into the future. At the end of the second century there was an explosion of apocalyptic piety. In new texts, Jews described eschatological visions in which God intervened powerfully in human affairs, smashed the present corrupt order and inaugurated an age of justice and purity. As they struggled to find a solution, the people of Judah split into myriad sects, each insisting that it alone was the true Israel.40 This was, however, an extraordinarily creative period. The canon of the Bible had not yet been finalized. There was still no authoritative scripture and no orthodoxy and few of the sects felt bound to conform to traditional readings of the Law and the Prophets. Some even felt at liberty to write entirely new scriptures. The diversity of the Late Second Temple period was revealed when the library of the Qumran community was discovered in 1942.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  42 The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, who was probably writing at about the same time, was even more radical. He was trying to console a community of Jewish Christians who were beginning to lose heart by arguing forcefully that Christ had superseded the Torah, was more exalted than Moses 43 and that the sacrificial cult had simply foreshadowed Jesus’s priestly act in giving his life for humanity. 44 In an extraordinary passage, the author saw the entire history of Israel as exemplifying the virtue of pistis, trust in ‘realities that at present remain unseen’. 45 Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets had all exhibited this ‘faith’: that had been their greatest, indeed their sole achievement. 46 But, the author concluded, ‘they did not receive what was promised, since God made provision for us to have something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us.’ 47 In this exegetical tour de force, the whole of Israelite history had been redefined, but in the process the old stories, which had been about far more than pistis, lost much of their rich complexity. Torah, temple and cult simply pointed to a future reality because God had always had something better in mind. Paul and the author of Hebrews showed future generations of Christians how to interpret the Hebrew Bible and make it their own. The other New Testament writers would develop this pesher and make it very difficult for Christians to see Jewish scripture as anything more than a prelude to Christianity. The Jesus movement was becoming controversial even before the disaster of 70. 48 Christians, like all the other Jewish groups, were shocked to the core when they saw Herod’s magnificent shrine reduced to a pile of burnt, stinking masonry. They may have dreamed of replacing Herod’s temple but nobody had envisaged life without a temple at all. But the Christians also saw its destruction as an apokalypsis, a ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling’ of a reality that had been there all along but had not been seen clearly before – namely that Judaism was finished. The temple ruins symbolized its tragic demise and were a sign that the end was approaching. God would now pull down the rest of the defunct world order and establish the kingdom. The destruction of the first temple in 586 BCE had inspired an astonishing burst of creativity among the exiles in Babylon. The destruction of the second temple spurred a similar literary effort among the Christians. By the middle of the second century, nearly all the twenty-seven books of the New Testament had been completed. Communities were already quoting Paul’s letters as though they were scripture, 49 and readings from one of the biographies of Jesus that were in circulation had become customary during Sunday worship. The gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would eventually be selected for the canon, but there were many others.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  Not everybody was enamoured of the new torah. The prophet Jeremiah, who began his ministry at about this time, admired Josiah and agreed with many of the reformers’ aims, but had reservations about a written scripture: the ‘lying pen of the scribes’ could subvert tradition by a mere sleight of the pen and a written text could encourage a superficial mode of thought that concentrated on information rather than wisdom.46 In a study of modern Jewish movements, the eminent scholar Haym Soloveitchik argues that the transition from an oral tradition to written texts can lead to religious stridency by giving the reader an unrealistic certainty about essentially ineffable matters.47 Deuteronomist religion was certainly strident. The reformers depicted Moses preaching a policy of violent suppression of the native Canaanites: ‘You must destroy completely all the places where the nations you dispossess have served their gods . . . you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods and wipe out their name from that place.’48 They described with approval Joshua massacring the people of Ai as though he were an Assyrian general: When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open ground and where they followed them into the wilderness, and when all to a man had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and slaughtered all its people. The number of those who fell that day, men and women together, was twelve thousand, all people of Ai.49 The Deuteronomists had absorbed the violent ethos of a region that had experienced nearly two hundred years of Assyrian brutality. It was an early indication that scripture reflects the failures as well as the high points of the religious quest. Although these texts were revered, they had not yet become ‘scripture’. People felt free to alter older writings and there was no canon of prescribed sacred books. But they were beginning to express the community’s highest aspirations. The Deuteronomists who celebrated Josiah’s reform were convinced that Israel was on the brink of a glorious new era but in 622 he was killed in a skirmish with the Egyptian army. Within a few years, the Babylonians had conquered Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and became the major power in the region. Judah’s brief independence was over. For a few decades the kings veered in their allegiance between Egypt and Babylon. Many still believed that Judah would be safe as long as Yahweh dwelt in his temple, even though Jeremiah warned them that to defy Babylon was suicidal. Finally, after two futile rebellions, Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  In Western Europe, however, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find God in scripture. The ethos of the Enlightenment had inspired more scholars to study the Bible critically, but it was impossible to experience its transcendent dimension without the gestures and disposition of prayer. In England, some of the more radical deists used the new scholarly methods to undermine the Bible.18 The mathematician William Whiston (1667–1752) believed that early Christianity had been a more rational faith. In 1745 he published a version of the New Testament from which he had erased every reference to the Incarnation and the Trinity, doctrines that, he claimed, had been foisted on the faithful by the fathers of the Church. The Irish deist John Toland (1670–1722) tried to replace the New Testament with a manuscript that purported to be the long-lost Jewish-Christian gospel of Barnabas, which denied the divinity of Christ. Other sceptics argued that the text of the New Testament was so corrupt that it was impossible to determine what the Bible actually said. But the distinguished classicist Richard Bentley (1662–1742) mounted a scholarly campaign in the Bible’s defence. Using the critical techniques now applied to Graeco-Roman literature, he showed that it was possible to reconstruct the original manuscripts by collating and analysing the variants. In Germany the Pietists, who wanted to get beyond the arid doctrinal polemics of the competing Protestant sects, also seized on these analytic methods to reinstate the Bible, convinced that the biblical critic should be above denominational loyalty.19 The Pietists’ aim was to liberate religion from theology and recover a more personal experience of the divine. In 1694, they founded a university at Halle to bring the new scholarship to the laity in a non-sectarian guise and Halle became the centre of a biblical revolution.20 Between 1711 and 1719, its press printed 100,000 copies of the New Testament and 80,000 complete Bibles. Halle scholars also produced the Biblia Pentapla to encourage a trans-denominational reading of scripture: five different translations were printed side by side, so that Lutherans, Calvinists and Catholics could read the version of their choice but could consult the wording in another column if they encountered a difficulty. Others translated the Bible in a wholly literal way to show that even in the vernacular the Word of God was far from clear. Theologians should be more reticent in their use of ‘proof texts’ that could not bear the weight of theological interpretation imposed upon them. If the original could not be rendered into elegant German, the Bible sounded strange and unfamiliar and this was a salutary reminder that it was always difficult to understand God’s Word.21

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  He might have looked meaner, but he had a sweetness about him that Garvey didn’t. He’d always given us stolen candy and never pushed us around like Garvey did. But unlike his brother, Grey just didn’t have any luck. When he turned thirteen, he suddenly began to grow thick red-brown hair on his chest and arms. He tried to shave it off with his daddy’s straight razor, but that only made it grow back thicker. Garvey made fun of him for it, and in defense, Grey pretended stubbornly that he was proud of his “manly growth,” of how he was “turning into a bear.” It did make him look more different from Garvey—a lifelong ambition anyway. The only problem was that the hair didn’t grow back thicker, just patchy, and it itched him. It ruined his toughguy image, the way he was always standing around scratching at the reddish-brown hair on his forearms and the backs of his hands. Sometimes he’d seem to fall into a kind of trance, looking off into the distance, frowning and scratching. I found him standing like that back of Woolworth’s Friday. night. It was late—well past midnight—and I’d had trouble sneaking out of Alma’s house quietly enough not to wake Reese, so I was nervous and itchy myself. Grey scared me, standing out in the parking lot with the light pouring down from the Texaco sign across the street lighting up everything. A shadow hid the potato sack between his legs, and for a minute I thought he’d forgotten my hook. “Don’t sweat it,” he laughed when I demanded the hook. “I got it right here.” He squatted down and opened the sack, pulling out a four-pronged blackened object trailing a chain. “You ruined it!” I hissed. “I fixed it!” he almost yelled, and then looked over his shoulder and around the lot. “The paint will make it invisible when we throw it up the wall.” I grimaced and reached out to trace one paint-spattered point. It was still sharp, but the scary razor-and-steel feeling was gone. I swallowed hard. I had really loved the shine of it. “Those suckers had too much gleam on them for safety.” He sounded proud of himself for thinking of it. “Specially after I sharpened the points a little.” He dropped one shoulder and leaned close to me. “I just toned down the light-catching side of the thing. Still kept it sharp. The hard part was painting the chain. Did each link separate so it wouldn’t get all stiff and gummy. That’s a heavy-gauge chain there. Soldered, I think.” He grinned and scratched his hands happily.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The explorers Speke and Grant had arrived in 1862, and impressed King Mutesa of the Baganda: ‘I have not heard a white man tell a lie yet . . . the time they were in Uganda they were very good.’ When H. M. Stanley arrived, he was encouraged by Mutesa to bring missionaries, and he appealed for them in a letter to the Daily Telegraph. The first came in 1877, and within five years were followed by a Catholic mission. Baganda society was in some ways orderly and sophisticated, but royal rule was arbitrary and savage. Mutesa ordered summary executions almost every day, and he had the largest collection of wives on missionary record. As Britain, through the presence of military and naval units to the East, through the operations of the British East Africa Company – which evolved from Livingstone’s trading organization – and through the projected railway, was the power most closely involved, the Protestants felt the obligation to protest against royal depravity fell on them; at any rate, that is what they did. Thus the royal house came to fear the Protestants, and to align itself with the Catholics (and, on occasion, with the Moslems). Both Christian groups built up parties, which armed themselves. The climax came under Mutesa’s heir, Mwanga. In 1885 he had James Hannington, an Anglican bishop, speared to death; and when Christian boys refused to submit to his sodomitic practices – learnt from the Arabs, so the missionaries claimed – he murdered thirty-two of them, three being roasted alive. From the coast, Captain Lugard and a detachment of Askaris were summoned; and in 1892 they fought, and won, the so-called Battle of Mengo against the royalists and their Catholic allies. The event took place perhaps appropriately on a Sunday, and was decided by Lugard’s new Maxim gun. He did not blame the missionaries, but the Africans (probably rightly): ‘My own belief was that the Baganda were par excellence the greatest liars of any nation or tribe I had met or heard of, and that it appeared to be a point of honour that each side should out-lie the others, especially to their missionaries.’ In the House of Commons, Sir Charles Dilke said that the only person who had benefited from the British presence in East Africa was Mr Hiram Maxim; and Sir William Lawson claimed that Uganda was being ‘turned into the Belfast of Africa’. Two years later, Anglican pressure led Britain to take Uganda into protective custody. The Mengo affair caused great scandal at the time, but largely among agnostics and professional anti-Christians. It does not seem to have damaged the image of any of the Christian sects among the Africans; on the contrary, Catholics and Protestants alike reported an increase in converts; and it was a Baganda, Canon Apolo Kivebulaya of Kampala Cathedral, who translated the Gospel of St Mark into pidgin. Indeed, it is a curious and perhaps melancholy fact that violence seems nearly always to have stimulated Christian evangelism.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  noble-hearted brother to send me a double watch-chain of gold. It was not correct to wear a ready-made tie and I learnt the art of tying one for myself. While in India, the mirror had been a luxury permitted on the days when the family barber gave me a shave. Here I wasted ten minutes every day before a huge mirror, watching myself arranging my tie and parting my hair in the correct fashion. My hair was by no means soft, and every day it meant a regular struggle with the brush to keep it in position. Each time the hat was put on and off, the hand would automatically move towards the head to adjust the hair, not to mention the other civilized habit of the hand every now and then operating for the same purpose when sitting in polished society. As if all this were not enough to make me look the thing, I directed my attention to other details that were supposed to go towards the making of an English gentleman. I was told it was necessary for me to take lessons in dancing, French and elocution. French was not only the language of neighbouring France, but it was the lingua franca of the Continent over which I had a desire to travel. I decided to take dancing lessons at a class and paid down £ 3 as fees for a term. I must have taken about six lessons in three weeks. But it was beyond me To achieve anything like rhythmic motion. I could not follow the piano and hence found it impossible to keep time. What then was I to do? The recluse in the fable kept a cat to keep off the rats, and then a cow to feed the cat with milk, and a man to keep the cow and so on. My ambitions also grew like the family of the recluse. I thought I should learn to play the violin in order to cultivate an ear for Western music. So I invested £3 in a violin and something more in fees. I sought a third teacher to give me lessons in elocution and paid him a preliminary fee of a guinea. He recommended Bell’s Standard Elocutionist as the text-book, which I purchased. And I began with a speech of Pitt’s.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  broken by some devotee innocent of aesthetic taste who had set it with rupees serving as an excellent receptacle for dirt. I went near the Janana-vapi (well of knowledge). I searched here for God but failed to find Him. I was not therefore in a particularly good mood. The surroundings of the Jnana-vapi too I found to be dirty. I had no mind to give any dakshina. So I offered a pie. The panda in charge got angry and threw away the pie. He swore at me and said, ‘This insult will take you straight to hell.’ This did not perturb me. ‘Maharaj,’ said I, ‘whatever fate has in store for me, it does not behove one of your class to indulge in such language. You may take this pie if you like, or you will lose that too.’ ‘Go away,’ he replied, ‘I don’t care for your pie.’ And then followed a further volley of abuse. I took up the pie and went my way, flattering myself that the Brahman had lost a pie and I had saved one. But the Maharaj was hardly the man to let the pie go. He called me back and said, ‘All right, leave the pie here, I would rather not be as you are. If I refuse your pie, it will be bad for you.’ I silently gave him the pie and, with a sigh, went away. Since then I have twice been to Kashi Vishvanath, but that has been after I had already been afflicted with the title of Mahatma and experiences such as I have detailed above had become impossible. People eager to have my darshan would not permit me to have a darshan of the temple. The woes of Mahatmas are known to Mahatmas alone. Otherwise the dirt and the noise were the same as before. If anyone doubts the infinite mercy of God, let him have a look at these sacred places. How much hypocrisy and irreligion does the Prince of Yogis suffer to be perpetrated in His holy name? He proclaimed long ago ये यथा मां þपȨȶे तां˪थैव भजाʘहम् । ‘Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap.’ The law of Karma is inexorable and impossible of evasion. There is thus hardly any need for God to interfere. He laid down the law and, as it were, retired. After this visit to the temple, I waited upon Mrs. Besant. I knew that she had just recovered from an illness. I sent in my name. She came at once. As I wished only to pay my respects to her, I said, ‘I am aware that you are in delicate health. I only wanted to pay my respects. I am thankful that you have been good enough to receive me in spite of your indifferent health. I will not detain you any longer.’ So saying, I took leave of her. 1. Priests ↵ 77.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Surely there is some arrangement whereby, before one knows it, the pictures in a picture book can be changed into "the next instant." . . . But one day my sicknurse happened to open the book to that page. While I was stealing a quick sideways glance at it, she said: "Does little master know this picture's story?" "No, I don't." "This looks like a man, but it's a woman. Honestly. Her name was Joan of Arc. The story is that she went to war wearing a man's clothes and served her country." "A woman . . .?" I felt as though I had been knocked flat. The person I had thought a he was a she. If this beautiful knight was a woman and not a man, what was there left? (Even. today I feel a repugnance, deep rooted and hard to explain, toward women in male attire.) This was the first "revenge by reality" that I had met in life, and it seemed a cruel one, particularly upon the sweet fantasies I had cherished concerning his death. From that day on I turned my back on that picture book. I would never so much as take it in my hands again. Years later I was to discover a glorification of the death of a beautiful knight in a verse by Oscar Wilde: Fair is the knight who lieth slain Amid the rush and reed. . . . In his novel Là-Bas, Huysmans discusses the character of Gilles de Rais, bodyguard to Joan of Arc by royal command of Charles VII, saying that even though soon to be perverted to "the most sophisticated of cruelties, the most exquisite of crimes," the original impulse for his mysticism came from seeing with his own eyes all manner of miraculous deeds performed by Joan of Arc. Although she had a contrary effect upon me, arousing in me a feeling of repugnance, in my case also the Maid of Orleans played an important role. . . . Yet another memory : It is the odor of sweat, an odor that drove me onward, awakened my longings, overpowered me. . . . Pricking up my ears, I hear a crunching sound, muffled and very faint, seeming to menace. Once in a while a bugle joins in. A simple and strangely plaintive sound of singing approaches. Tugging at a maid's hand, I urge her to hurry hurry, wild to be standing at the gate, clasped in her arms. It was the troops passing our gate as they returned from drill.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  THE KHILAFAT AGAINST COW PROTECTION ? We must now leave, for the time being these dark happening in the Punjab. The Congress inquiry into Dyerism in the Punjab had just commenced, when I received a letter of invitation to be present at a joint conference of Hindus and Musalmans that was to meet at Delhi to deliberate on the Khilafat question. Among the signatories to it were the late Hakim Ajmal Khan Sahab and Mr. Asaf Ali. The late Swami Shraddhanandji, it was stated, would be attending and, if I remember aright, he was to be the vice-president of the conference, which, so far as I can recollect, was to be held in the November of that year. The Conference was to deliberate on the situation arising out of the Khilafat betrayal, and on the question as to whether the Hindus and Musalmans should take any part in the peace celebrations. The letter of invitation went on to say, among other things, that not only the Khilafat question but the question of cow protection as well would be discussed at the conference, and it would, therefore, afford a golden opportunity for a settlement of the question. I did not like this reference to the cow question. In my letter in reply to the invitation, therefore, whilst promising to do my best to attend, I suggested that the two questions should not be mixed up together or considered in the spirit of a bargain, but should be decided on their own merits and treated separately. With these thoughts filling my mind, I went to the conference. It was a very well attended gathering, though it did not present the spectacle of later gatherings that were attended by tens of thousands. I discussed the question referred to above with the late Swami Shraddhanandji, who was present at the conference. He appreciated my argument and left it to me to place it before the conference. I likewise discussed it with the late Hakim Saheb. Before the conference I contended that, if the Khilafat question had a just and legitimate basis, as I

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  sale were to utilized for furthering the civil disobedience campaign. Both these books were priced at four annas per copy, but I hardly remember anybody having purchased them from me at their face value merely. Quite a large number of people simply poured out all the cash that was in their pockets to purchase their copy. Five and ten rupee notes just flew out to cover the price of a single copy, while in one case I remember having sold a copy for fifty rupees! It was duly explained to the people that they were liable to be arrested and imprisoned for purchasing the proscribed literature. But for the moment they had shed all fear of jail-going. It was subsequently learnt that the Government had conveniently taken the view that the books that had been proscribed by it had not in fact been sold, and that what we had sold was not held as coming under the definition of proscribed literature. The reprint was held by the Government to be a new edition of the books that had been proscribed, and to sell them did not constitute an offence under the law. This news caused general disappointment. The next morning another meeting was held for the administration of the pledges with regard to Swadeshi and Hindu-Muslim unity. Vithaldas Jerajani for the first time realized that all is not gold that glitters. Only a handful of persons came. I distinctly remember some of the sisters who were present on that occasion. The men who attended were also very few. I had already drafted the pledge and brought it with me. I thoroughly explained its meaning to those present before I administered it to them. The paucity of the attendance neither pained nor surprised me, for I have noticed this characteristic difference in the popular attitude partiality for exciting work, dislike for quiet constructive effort. The difference has persisted to this day. But I shall have to devote to this subject a chapter by itself. To return to the story. On the night of the 7th I started for Delhi and Amritsar. On reaching