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 59 of 189 · 20 per page

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  stopped, with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, reason had the chance to raise its head again, and the rapid diffusion of scientific ideas about the workings of nature undermined the theoretical basis of witch-hunting. Witchcraft ceased to be an international mania, but special local conditions produced brief outbursts, in Sweden in the 1660s, following the defection of Queen Christina to Rome, and in New England in the 1690s. The last legal execution of a witch was carried out in Protestant Switzerland in 1782; and there was an illegal burning in Catholic Poland eleven years later. The identification of Protestants with Jews in Spain, and the persecution of old women in northern and central Europe, were only two of the ways in which the Christian schism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the religious passion it generated, damaged the structure of European civilization and retarded the progress of reason. Here, then, we come to an important watershed in the history of Christianity. In Roman times, philosophers and intellectuals generally had tended to identify Christianity with obscurantism and superstition, an impression only gradually (and never completely) effaced in the fourth century. Thereafter, however, Christianity had appeared to associate itself wholly with Roman culture, and after the collapse of the secular Roman state in the West it had successfully grafted the civilization of the ancient world on to the dynamic barbarian societies of the West. Following this, and for many centuries, Christianity remained both the chief focus of culture and the driving force behind economic and institutional innovation. The strength of the total Christian society was essentially religious, and linked to the well- being and vigour of the Catholic Church. But then in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there came the first sign of a change: that is, a tendency for the more progressive and innovatory elements in society to operate not within the institutional framework of the Church but outside it – and eventually against it. The Church ceased to be in the van of progress, and quite rapidly became an obstacle to it. This switch-about came both in the economic and the intellectual field. Let us look at the economy first. The Dark Age Church had been a perfect instrument for the relaunching of the economy of western Europe on an agricultural basis: it had the theory, and it had the institutional agencies. Its urban bishoprics also played a major part in founding the town economy, and its pilgrimage routes and relic-centres in developing communications and trade. But further than that it could not go. It did not develop a theology of trade or capitalism. It did not produce orders

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  My heart sinks as I drive away. I care about him enough that I want him to find what he’s looking for, and I am dispirited that it won’t be me. CHAPTER 18 Green Hulk Sauce I have always thrived on routine, so every year I welcome early September back- to-school days with wide open arms. I throw myself into the rhythm of the kids’ school days as energetically as they resist it, rising in the dark to rouse Hudson for his commute to school, then sitting in the quiet kitchen with the newspaper and coffee until it’s time to awaken Georgia, who is like a teenager with her penchant for sleeping late and has to be harassed out of my bed, where she ends up every night. Some mornings after Hudson leaves, instead of sitting in the kitchen, I slip into Daisy’s bedroom and lie on her bed, pressing my face against her pale pink ruffled pillowcases, gazing at the framed prints of ballerinas lining the walls, the bulletin board covered with the smiling faces of her friends. I miss her acutely and have to remind myself that she is very much alive and well, just not a resident in our home at the moment. I hear from #3 daily, and reading texts about the antics of all his furry friends makes me smile. One day he texts me that he thinks we should try talking on the phone more often, making use of my privacy when the kids are in school. I call him right away, but within minutes I’m standing at the gate to the schoolyard picking Georgia up from school and the din from the crowd of parents and nannies drowns out his voice and I shout out that I will try again the next day and hang up. My big weekend is approaching – and by “big” I mean that I have Friday night until Sunday afternoon kid-free – and I try to pin him down to make plans. He is vague about his schedule and finally writes a heartfelt text that he doesn’t think he should see me, that it’s unwise for him to invest further time and feelings in me when it seems unlikely that he will get what he wants out of this relationship. He wants a wife – not me as his wife, but not me if I don’t have the potential to someday be a wife. He says I should call him if I want to discuss it, but I don’t. I thank him for being straightforward and kind, tell him I have loved our time together and I hope he soon finds the lucky woman he can commit to. I feel a pang of disappointment and loss that takes me by surprise. Though we didn’t see much of each other, we had forged a strong connection and it had been reassuring to know there was someone out there who was keeping track of me, who felt invested in me.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  strengthening of papal power. This was demonstrated by its first historian, the Venetian anti-papalist Fra Paolo Sarpi, whose three chief informants were all well- placed eye-witnesses. Even the reformist decrees were of limited scope, since they either applied only to Italy, or were not ‘received’ by the secular authorities in France, Spain and elsewhere. Reform of clerical standards was a very slow process indeed: in some respects it was not complete until the latter part of the nineteenth century. But there was a marked improvement of tone in the papacy itself during the decades after Trent. The Dominican Grand Inquisitor Michael Ghislieri, who became Pius V in 1565, created the new puritanical atmosphere, which involved the expulsion of prostitutes from Rome, the enforcement of strict clerical dress, and savage punishments for simony. The change was widely noted: ‘Men in Rome have become a great deal better,’ wrote Tiepolo, the Venetian ambassador, ‘or at least have put on the appearance of being so.’ Where Trent did introduce an important change was in instructing bishops to create seminaries for the training of clergy. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan 1560–84, founded three in his diocese, and set about the creation of an educated and resident clergy by insisting on minimum standards before ordination and frequent visitations thereafter. This was something entirely new. Borromeo can be called the first modern Catholic bishop, as his predecessor Ambrose was the first medieval one. It is astonishing that no provision for training priests in their specific duties had ever existed before. This was the curse of the Church until Borromeo’s system was widely imitated. Moreover, the creation of seminaries served to open up the whole question of Christian education. The Church had never looked at it systematically. There had been no need. It had exercised a complete monopoly. That monopoly had been undermined in the fifteenth century, when wealthy townsmen began to endow schools outside the clerical system. The layman entered the field decisively, at all educational levels, and the Renaissance fuelled the Reformation by presenting clericalism as an obstacle to learning and truth. Thus in the period 1520–50, to cite a small but significant instance, an almost infallible test of a scholar’s religious views was the way he pronounced Greek: correct pronunciation was identified with reform. With each generation, there was an increasing tendency for the educated young people to turn against Rome. Then, too, Protestant societies devoted a far greater proportion of total resources to education, since a large slice of the endowments made available by the winding up of the monasteries had been allocated to grammar

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  His pace is quick and I seem always to be a few feet behind him, pausing to look up at birds or down at tree trunks to inspect overgrown mushrooms. “I bet you’re the kind of person who takes her kids on nature walks and stops to look at every bug and flower,” he says. “Oh, I definitely am,” I say. “And I bet you’re not?” He laughs, which is answer enough. I am disappointed that as we walk, he does not reach for my hand or stop to give me even a quick kiss – anything to acknowledge my physical presence. For years, I have pushed Michael’s hands away from me because they always seemed to be coming at me, grabbing and tapping and rubbing, so persistent and needy, but now that he’s gone, I crave being touched. I want to feel the warmth of skin, the pressure of a body against my own. After the walk, we go home to change our clothes. I take mine off and walk around the apartment naked, getting a glass of water and digging in my tote bag for a more evening-worthy outfit. “I like how comfortable you are with your body,” he says, watching me. “I like how you walk around with no clothes on and feel no need to cover up. But, one question: have you ever thought about shaving all the hair from your pussy?” he asks. “Well, no, I haven’t,” I say. “I mean, there’s just a small patch of hair anyway, it’s pretty well-trimmed.” “I think it’s hot when women have no pubic hair,” he says. “Really?” I ask, wrinkling my nose. “I think it looks prepubescent. I’ve never understood how men find that sexy.” “It just is,” he says. “Would you think about shaving it all off?” “No, I wouldn’t. I want to look like a woman, not a little girl,” I say. He approaches me, saying, “Oh you definitely look like a woman,” and then kisses me until I’ve backed up against the wall, where he spins me around so that my breasts are pressed against it and he enters me from behind. He wraps his arm around my waist to hold me in place and I let out a yelp of pain as he penetrates me too forcefully, but then we settle into a rhythm. I come quickly and then he does. Immediately, I can feel his semen dripping down my leg and look down to see it making a small puddle on the floor. When he walks away, I grab a paper towel to clean the floor and then join him to rinse off in the shower. We stopped using condoms when I agreed to be exclusive with him. He wants to see if any of his friends are hanging around the firehouse and asks if I mind stopping by before we go to the bar he is taking me to.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  not a religious movement. It had no specific programme, other than the negative one of stamping out Protestant ‘error’. It involved no substantial reform of the Church, and embodied no change of attitude on the part of the papacy. Between 1520–42, there was a distinct chance that a council would be summoned, probably in Germany, which would in effect impose changes on the papacy. Charles V did his best to bring it about. The only occasion on which he is recorded as having lost his temper arose from the delaying tactics of Paul III. These were successful, from the papacy’s point of view. Up until about 1542, the evidence of secret consistories shows that many of the cardinals would have been willing to concede Protestant demands on a married clergy, on communion in both kinds, on vernacular translations of the scriptures, on justification by faith, on feast-days, fasts and on many other contentious points. A council held on these assumptions, and with a Protestant attendance, must have ended in a reduction of papal power. But no such council was held. After 1542 there was, in effect, a move to the right in Rome. The colloquies had failed. The Protestants were moving further apart, and it was increasingly evident that, whatever prospect there might be of compromise with the Lutherans, there could be none with the Calvinists. Contarini died, and those of his school fell under suspicion. The Inquisition was set up in Rome, under the fanatical Neapolitan papalist Cardinal Caraffa (later Pope Paul IV), whose watchwords were: ‘No man is to abase himself by showing toleration towards any sort of heretic, least of all a Calvinist’; and ‘Even if my own father were a heretic, I would gather the wood to burn him.’ The new atmosphere in Rome was puritanical and intolerant, but not reformist. The Index of Forbidden Books was set up, and there were massive book- burnings; Jews were forced to wear the Yellow Star; Daniel of Volterra, ‘the Trouserer’, was employed to clothe the nudes of the Sistine Chapel; Protestants were burned and liberals silenced. Against this background a council finally met, at Trent, in 1545. By this time few took it seriously. It had been delayed twenty-five years, during which time forms of Protestantism had spread over a large part of Europe. The dying Luther remarked: ‘The remedy comes too late’. How could he negotiate and submit now? ‘This might have been done a quarter of a century ago.’ Its proceedings were ‘twaddle’. Bucer, far more ecumenically minded, nevertheless dismissed it as ‘a joke’. Catholics were scarcely less scathing. The Council began to assemble in March; but hardly anyone arrived on time. On the day appointed for the opening, it poured with rain and no

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Germany and have Italy at their discretion.’ The liberal corridor was never constructed: Venice surrendered to the Counter-Reformation. In Holland, the Arminians were expelled or executed. In England, the attempt to erect a putative royal tyranny led to censorship, sectarian persecution and constitutional crisis. The opportunity for the third force to effect the religious reunification of Europe never recurred. The peace of exhaustion signed at Westphalia ended the doctrine of the prince’s right to settle the religion of his subjects – and so the great age of Jesuit power – but it also froze the religious divisions of Europe, which henceforth became permanent. The seamless garment of Christendom had gone for ever. Yet the third force remained, still waiting for the millenium of the intellectuals. At the end of 1640, Charles I of England bowed to the Long Parliament, the censorship was ended and London burst into a frenzy of political and religious excitement. Once more men thought that the ‘great instauration’ had come, and that Christendom was entering into the third and final reformation. The date deserves to be remembered: it was the last time men would place a renaissance of learning and a political revolution within an essentially Christian context. Milton believed the whole thing was plainly ordained by God: the ills of England, Scotland and Ireland were to be cured at the same time as a true reformation was set on foot to purge and reunite the Christian Church. Others thought the same. Among the third force survivors from the Palatinate circle was Samuel Hartlib who addressed to Parliament his Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria, a Utopian scheme modelled on More and Bacon. The moment had arrived, he claimed; and he hoped the House of Commons ‘will lay the corner stone of the world’s happiness before the final recesse thereof. Another Palatinate survivor, John Amos Comenius, reached liberated London in 1641 and published his The Way of Light, which brought the Hermetic programme up to date. He forecast ‘an Art of Arts, a Science of Sciences, a Wisdom of Wisdom, a Light of Light’; this stupendous intellectual and religious breakthrough was to be achieved through international cooperation, and the exchange of ideas and knowledge; there would be an invisible college, or sacred society, devoted to the common welfare of mankind. Once again, the dawn proved illusory. The intellectual excitement generated in the heady months of the winter 1640–1 was dispelled by the Civil War, and the sectarian battles that followed it. After the 1640s, very few people believed any more in the possibility of a re-unification of Christendom and its recreation within a single

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I realized it was the first time she was seeing the situation from my perspective instead of trying to make me acknowledge how my shortcomings had led to our demise. “I can’t do this anymore,” I announced abruptly. “I come in here hopeful every week, just to get flogged. I go home a little more broken every time. Then I work up the courage to come back only to have what little self-respect I still have beaten to a pulp. Michael, your loyalty is to this woman, not me, and I’m suffering. You have to acknowledge the extent of the damage you’ve done. If you can’t, then we’re done.” Both he and the therapist were silent. That week I found a new family therapist who I felt would advocate for both of us, not just him, and asked Michael to switch to her. She was soft-spoken and started our first session by leading a deep breathing exercise. It helped. When we spoke to each other, we did so with self-restraint. When we veered away from the subject we were discussing to assign blame or make snide remarks to each other, she would gently steer us back. She made a list of the upcoming events we couldn’t figure out how to navigate so that we could make plans for them: Daisy’s prom, her graduation, our summer in the country. She was like a magician, putting a spell on us so that we could speak respectfully and kindly. One day she asked me to look directly at Michael when I was talking to him as until then, I had addressed him while looking at her or out the window – I hadn’t looked him in the eye in months. I said I would try, took a deep breath and stared at him. He looked like a stranger to me, that deep connection we had for so many years simply nonexistent. The thousands of words we could once have communicated with just our eyes had gone silent. I had held out hope that when I finally looked into his eyes, we would magnetically connect to each other again; instead, the lack of recognition blindsided me all over again. “He’s taken everything from me,” I cried. “I don’t know him anymore, I don’t recognize myself, I’ve lost the peace of mind and ease with which I used to walk through the world. I used to think to myself at random moments of the day, I’m happy, I love my life.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  common; they did not even believe in life after death and there is no evidence he expected to draw them into his movement. Equally, though he shared some concepts with the Essenes, and only with the Essenes, their logic led away from universalism, and his towards it. With the Pharisees he could have a dialogue, but he was in effect asking them to abandon their profession as canon lawyers, accept a theory which enabled men to justify themselves without the law, and a doctrine of grace and faith which made legalism impossible. In the end, then, his real appeal was to ordinary, uninstructed Jewish lay opinion, the Am Ha-Aretz, the ‘people of the land’ or lost sheep, especially to the outcasts and the sinners for whom the law was too much. This was Jesus’s constituency; but as events showed, it could be manipulated against him. The entry in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was the high-water mark of his democratic appeal; after that, the unholy coalition formed against him, and the establishment prevailed. One possibility, ended by the crucifixion, was that Jesus’ movement would capture the Jewish religion; another, and perhaps a more real one, was that after his departure Judaism would capture Christianity. Judaism was a collection of tendencies, as well as embodying a great historical tradition. It was not over- centralized. It produced fanatics and outsiders, but then accommodated them within a framework of tolerance. Jesus’s dynamism was too great, and his divergence too wide, to remain within this system of nonconformity. But it might have been a different matter for his movement, shorn of his leadership. Many such groupings in the past had been recuperated, and so fitted into the pattern of Judaic variety. Much of the strength of Judaism lay in its capacity to digest the heterodox; it had a strong stomach. The Jesus movement was worth recapturing. After Jesus’s arrest it had instantly disintegrated – a climax to the period of strain it was clearly undergoing in the last phase of the public ministry, and which had produced the defection of Judas. It virtually ceased to exist. Then came the rapid spread of the resurrection news, the appearance of Jesus, and the pentecostal event. The movement was in being again, but it was not exactly the same movement. Unfortunately, our knowledge of it is limited and distorted by the ineptitude of the early portion of the Acts of the Apostles. Luke, assuming he wrote this document, was not in Jerusalem at the time. He was not an eye-witness. He was a member of the mission to the Gentiles and a product of the diaspora movement. He was not in cultural or indeed doctrinal

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  86 ) Heath’s studies were controversial because many were done on mentally ill patients, and questions arose about their consent to participate. 87 A number of additional stimulation studies followed at a variety of centers around the world but were mostly performed in the context of evaluating and treating severe epilepsy. 88 A fundamental problem with Heath’s stimulation studies was that they were not specifically designed to test whether feelings associated with basic emotions are wired into specific sites. The goal, instead, was to attempt to obtain a better understanding of the schizophrenic brain. 89 It is unclear whether a specific protocol was used for obtaining reports of subjective feelings and for translating what the patient said into data that could be tabulated. Thus, although Heath’s studies are often discussed as having identified pleasure centers in the human brain, Kent Berridge and Morten Kringelbach examined the transcripts from the sessions for evidence that the patients described feelings of pleasure when stimulated but found little indication of this. 90 The patients were more likely to talk about vague sensations, or describe the urge to have sex or eat, rather than say that they felt pleasure. Similarly, the self-reports they provided when they said they felt “fear” are often metaphoric and involve situations in which one might feel fear: “entering into a long, dark tunnel” or “trying to escape.” 91 Thus, researchers who were expecting to find specific feelings in these patients may have counted such examples as being indicative of fear or pleasure, even if the patient did not explicitly state that he was having these feelings. Eric Halgren, a leading expert in human electrical stimulation, evaluated the field in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 92 He accepted that brain stimulation can elicit mental phenomena but concluded that once the general tendency for mental phenomena (thoughts, images, or specific emotional feelings such as fear, anger, pleasure, etc.) to be elicited by brain stimulation is taken into account, “there is no particular tendency for any category of mental phenomena to be evoked from any particular site.” 93 In other words, the particular states were not consistently localizable to brain areas. He also noted that the kind of experience elicited was often more related to preexisting conditions, such as the patient’s personality or demeanor, than to the site stimulated. (Anxious people, for example, were more likely to experience fear and anxiety when stimulated.) If the feeling of fear is hardwired into a fear command system, it should be experienced by everyone in a similar way when the fear command system is activated by stimulation. In evaluating these data it is also useful to consider the nature of the process by which subjective feelings are assessed in humans. In a very interesting commentary on this topic, Berrios and Markova 94 detail the difference between measuring and grading.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She was innocent and stubborn; and this being so, it was not Stephen’s morals that she suspected, but her obvious desire to ape what she was not—in the Comtesse’s set, as at county dinners, there was firm insistence upon sex-distinction. On the other hand, she took a great fancy to Mary, whom she quickly discovered to be an orphan. In a very short time she had learnt quite a lot about Mary’s life before the war and about her meeting with Stephen in the Unit; had learnt also that she was quite penniless—since Mary was eager that every one should know that she owed her prosperity entirely to Stephen. Aunt Sarah secretly pitied the girl who must surely be living a dull existence, bound, no doubt, by a false sense of gratitude to this freakish and masterful-looking woman— pretty girls should find husbands and homes of their own, and this one she considered excessively pretty. Thus it was that while Mary in all loyalty and love was doing her best to extol Stephen’s virtues, to convey an impression of her own happiness, of the privilege it was to serve so great a writer by caring for her house and her personal needs, she was only succeeding in getting herself pitied. But as good luck would have it, she was blissfully unconscious of the sympathy that her words were arousing; indeed she was finding it very pleasant at Aunt Sarah’s hospitable house in Passy. As for Martin, he had never been very subtle, and just now he must rejoice in a long-lost friendship—to him it appeared a delightful luncheon. Even after the guests had said good-bye, he remained in the very highest of spirits, for the Comtesse was capable of unexpected tact, and while praising Mary’s prettiness and charm, she was careful in no way to disparage Stephen. ‘Oh, yes, undoubtedly a brilliant writer, I agree with you, Martin.’ And so she did. But books were one thing and their scribes another; she saw no reason to change her opinion with regard to this author’s unpleasant affectation, while she saw every reason to be tactful with her nephew. 4 On the drive home Mary held Stephen’s hand. ‘I enjoyed myself awfully, didn’t you? Only—’ and she frowned; ‘only will it last? I mean, we mustn’t forget Lady Massey. But he’s so nice, and I liked the old aunt . . .’ Stephen said firmly: ‘Of course it will last.’ Then she lied. ‘I enjoyed it very much too. ’ And even as she lied she came to a resolve which seemed so strange that she flinched a little, for never before since they had been lovers, had she thought of this girl as apart from herself.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Why not go abroad somewhere? Get right away for a bit from your England. You’ll probably write it a damned sight better when you’re far enough off to see the perspective. Start with Paris—it’s an excellent jumping-off place. Then you might go across to Italy or Spain—go anywhere, only do get a move on! No wonder you’re atrophied here in London. I can put you wise about people in Paris. You ought to know Valérie Seymour, for instance. She’s very good fun and a perfect darling; I’m sure you’d like her, every one does. Her parties are a kind of human bran-pie—you just plunge in your fist and see what happens. You may draw a prize or you may draw blank, but it’s always worth while to go to her parties. Oh, but good Lord, there are so many things that stimulate one in Paris.’ He talked on about Paris for a little while longer, then he got up to go. ‘Well, good-bye, my dears, I’m off. I’ve given myself indigestion. And do look at Puddle, she’s blind with fury; I believe she’s going to refuse to shake hands! Don’t be angry, Puddle—I’m very well-meaning.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ answered Puddle, but her voice sounded cold. 4 After he had gone they stared at each other, then Stephen said: ‘What a queer revelation. Who would have thought that Brockett could get so worked up? His moods are kaleidoscopic.’ She was purposely forcing herself to speak lightly. But Puddle was angry, bitterly angry. Her pride was wounded to the quick for Stephen. ‘The man’s a perfect fool!’ she said gruffly. ‘And I didn’t agree with one word he said. I expect he’s jealous of your work, they all are. They’re a mean-minded lot, these writing people.’ And looking at her Stephen thought sadly, ‘She’s tired—I’m wearing her out in my service. A few years ago she’d never have tried to deceive me like this—she’s losing courage.’ Aloud she said: ‘Don’t be cross with Brockett, he meant to be friendly, I’m quite sure of that. My work will buck up—I’ve been feeling slack lately, and it’s told on my writing—I suppose it was bound to.’ Then the merciful lie, ‘But I’m not a bit frightened!’ 5 Stephen rested her head on her hand as she sat at her desk—it was well past midnight. She was heartsick as only a writer can be whose day has been spent in useless labour. All that she had written that day she would destroy, and now it was well past midnight.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  envy.’ The land was sold at high prices, usually to very respectable persons (including, it is thought, the king). The Assembly believed the sales would provide a wide number of people with a stake in the new regime, and they proposed to bind regime and state together by giving the clergy a civil constitution, which, among other things, would rationalize their salaries. Here the deputies grievously miscalculated. What most of the parish clergy wanted was internal democracy within the Church, a system of convocation. Instead, they got a scheme which realigned parish and diocesan boundaries with the new civil ones, swept away cathedral chapters, colleges and benefices without cure of souls, and provided for bishops to be nominated by the electors of departments, and curés by the electors of districts. This was presbyterianism, a return to what was widely assumed to have been the practice of the Apostolic Age. Hardly any priests wanted the new system. Most were opposed, some strongly so; the bishops and higher clergy hated it. The Pope, too, was virtually obliged to oppose it, since all the elected bishops had to do was to write him a letter indicative of unity of faith. It was assumed that Pius VI could be blackmailed into compliance by using his property in Avignon (where the locals had revolted against papal rule) as a bargaining counter. In fact he wrote to the king informing him that the constitution was schismatic, and the king foolishly sat on the letter until the Assembly was too committed to draw back. The second blunder was the failure to consult the clergy before the constitution was framed, or to endeavour to sell it to them afterwards. Instead, the clergy were simply required to take an oath to observe it or face dismissal. Only seven out of a hundred and sixty bishops accepted it; the figures for parochial clergy are incomplete and somewhat confusing, but in general the constitution was accepted in the centre, the Île de France and the south-east, and rejected in Flanders, Artois, Alsace and Brittany. The non-juring areas remain, today, the most fervently Catholic in France. The divisions seem to have existed even in 1791, but the oath reinforced them. Even so, catastrophe might have been averted. Bishop Talleyrand, one of the seven juror bishops, duly consecrated eighty ‘constitutional’ bishops, most of whom were perfectly respectable and some of whom were outstanding; and the Assembly wanted the law to be interpreted liberally, so that non-juring clergy could administer to non- constitutionalist congregations. Unfortunately, enforcement was entrusted to municipalities and local directories of Districts and Departments, many of whom were professional anti-clericals with

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  to condemn him ‘until further information is available’. But the effect of the campaign against De Nobili was to inhibit his own efforts and discourage others. The Church, in practice, was never able to go as far towards reconciliation as the Brahmins required, and the élitist campaign was almost totally unsuccessful. De Nobili’s efforts over many years brought him only twenty-six Brahmin converts. By 1643, the Jesuits calculated that no more than 600 high-caste Indians had been baptized in thirty-seven years. Nor was this surprising, since, apart from a handful of enthusiastic missionaries, the Europeans, either lay or ecclesiastical, would not accord even high-caste converts equality. The educated Brahmin Matthew de Castro (his Portuguese baptismal name) was refused ordination by the Archbishop of Goa. He went to Rome where he was received into the priesthood. But his orders were not acknowledged when he returned to Goa. Back in Rome, he was consecrated a bishop in 1637, and given the see of Idalcan, which was outside Goa’s jurisdiction. He was nonetheless suspended by the archbishop, who actually imprisoned priests whom Bishop de Castro had ordained. He spent the last nineteen years of his life in Rome as adviser on Indian affairs. By this time there were something like 180 Indian priests in Goa, but there was no prospect of promotion for them in the Church, then or for the next 200 years, since most European priests would not serve under Indian bishops, of whatever caste. Nor was there any prospect of the Brahmins making any impact on Christian rites or dogma. The irony in De Nobili’s case is that the low-caste converts to whom he handed the eucharist on a stick were far more numerous even in his mission than any other Indian element. The low-castes often welcomed Christianity enthusiastically; only among them was it possible to effect mass-baptism. Hence some of the friars, especially Franciscans, wanted to concentrate on this approach. But for this to be successful meant the presentation of Christianity in its primitive, revolutionary form (as, of course, St Francis would have wished). Neither the hierarchy in the East, nor Rome – nor indeed most of the missionary clergy – wanted the millenium. The Portuguese secular authorities and merchants (and, later their French and British successors) had no desire to subvert society, which would have meant conflict with the Mohammedans as well as the Indian princes; on the contrary, they were anxious to work through, and reinforce, the existing structure and hierarchy. Hence the missionary effort fell neatly between two stools: neither ‘Asian’ Christianity nor ‘pure’ Christianity was offered. Instead, the Indians were presented with European

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  element of sacrifice and abnegation was eliminated. Morality was presented simply as a shrewd bargain. As Tillotson put it, ‘Now these two things must make our duty very easy: a considerable reward in hand, and not only the hopes but the assurance of a far greater recompense hereafter.’ The whole thing could be worked out and calculated. Conscience had no role to play, since it was merely subjective opinion. Thus the element of personal responsibility was scrapped, and all a man needed to be saved was to stick to the rules. Now this was to sacrifice the whole point of the Reformation and to return, in effect, to the mechanical Christianity of canon law. And mechanical Christianity necessarily produced a corrupt Church, led by a secular- minded clergy. This is precisely what happened in the eighteenth century. In their anxiety to avoid fanaticism of any kind, the rational Christians tended to depersonalize religion, and to emphasize its forms and institutions at the expense of its spirit. In these circumstances, a state Church is bound to become corrupt. As in the Middle Ages, its bishops tended to be seen, and to see themselves, as government servants rather than sacramental ministers, and as financially, rather than spiritually, privileged. The process went furthest in Lutheran Germany, above all in Prussia, where the Church possessed virtually no independent rights, and the ruler had absolute powers over all forms of religious activity. The system evolved in the reigns of Frederick William I and Frederick the Great, and was finally codified in a law of the Prussian Landrecht of 1794. The pastor became a kind of civil servant, who registered births, collected statistics, appointed midwives, published official decrees from the pulpit, was the chairman of the local court, and an official recruiting-sergeant for the army. In England the situation was a good deal better, since in most cases clerical offices were freeholds. On the other hand, higher clerical patronage was entirely in the hands of the government, and the bishops became an important element in the ministerial control of Parliament. It was, above all, Sir Robert Walpole who created the party bishop. He had a special expression for a prelate who could be brought to serve his ends: ‘He is mortal.’ In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, 6 September 1723, he described how he made Edmund Gibson, whom he had promoted to be Bishop of London, the Whig government’s adviser on ecclesiastical patronage: ‘At first he was all nolo episcopari. Before we parted, I perceived upon second thoughts he began to relish it, and the next morning, ex mero motu, he came to me,

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  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. Their rival future projections were thus very different. But they rested on similar assumptions. The paramountcy of the West – intellectual, economic, military and political – would be maintained. Indeed, it would be fortified. And Christianity would continue to be the beneficiary of western strength. The West still rested on an essentially Christian framework of beliefs and ethics. And Westerners, as individuals, were overwhelmingly Christian in their outlook and expectations. The historical process begun by the First World War has demonstrated the fragility of all these certitudes. If 1914 was a watershed in the history of monarchy and legitimacy, of privilege and liberal capitalism, of western imperialism and the

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  among the priesthood and the episcopate; and its teachings, to judge from opinion polls, are believed to have been generally ignored. Humanae Vitae effectively alienated the progressive wing of the Catholic Church from the papacy; and, at about the same time, the introduction of sweeping changes in the liturgy, including the compulsory use of the vernacular at most services, alienated many on the conservative wing. The reign of Paul VI thus signalled the end of populist triumphalism. It was marked by a general erosion of ecclesiastical authority, the assertion of lay opinion, the defiance of superiors, the spread of public debate among Catholics, the defection of many clergy and nuns, and the decline of papal prestige. And, for perhaps the first time since the Reformation, the number of practising Catholic Christians owing allegiance to Rome began to contract. 4 Catholicism appeared to have joined Protestantism and Orthodoxy in a posture of decline. Yet it must be asked: is the expression ‘decline’ appropriate? If the claims of Christianity are true, the number of those who publicly acknowledge them is of small importance; if they are not true, the matter is scarcely worth discussing. In religion, quantitative judgments do not apply. What may, in the future, seem far more significant about this period is the new ecumenical spirit, the offspring of the Second Vatican Council. On 7 December 1965, the Bishop of Rome, Pope Paul VI, and the Bishop of New Rome, the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, at a simultaneous ceremony in Rome and Istanbul, performed what was termed a ‘joint act’, and lifted the mutual excommunications imposed by their predecessors nine hundred years before in 1054. On 23 March 1966, the Bishop of Rome and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Ramsay, exchanged the kiss of peace before the altar of the Sistine Chapel. Both these symbolic gestures have been followed by detailed and continuing negotiations. Progress has been made on marginal matters, such as the status of Anglican orders. Whether the churches reunite will depend entirely on the question of authority, which always has been, and remains, the real source of division within Christianity. 5 And the definition of authority between the churches cannot be settled until the Catholic Church determines the source of ecclesiastical power within itself – an issue which the Vatican Council raised but left unresolved. As we have seen, the argument about the control of the Christian Church is almost as old as Christianity itself; and it may be that it will continue so long as there are men and women who assert that Christ was God, and who await the parousia. Perhaps it is part of the providential plan that the organization of Christianity should be a perpetual source

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The subsequent controversy over Asian rites was gradually broadened to include a number of other variations and translations, and became an explosive issue, as indeed it deserved to be. Was Christianity to throw off its European chrysalis and become at last the world religion, united in its central truth, infinitely varied in its presentation, which Christ implicitly and Paul explicitly had always intended? There was a time when the papacy seemed to be ready to grasp the opportunity. In 1615 Paul V had authorized a Chinese liturgy, and translations were made. In 1622 Gregory XV created a new Vatican Department of Propaganda, with the object of universalizing the missionary movement and freeing it from the narrow national horizons of Spain and Portugal. Francesco Ingoli, the first Secretary of Propaganda until his death in 1649, had a personal vision of global, post-European Christianity, and his philosophy was still reflected in instructions on propaganda sent out a decade after his death: ‘Do not regard it as your task, and do not bring any pressure to bear on the peoples, to change their manners, customs and uses, unless they are evidently contrary to religion and sound morals. What could be more absurd than to transplant France, Spain, Italy or some other European country to China? Do not introduce all that to them but only the faith, which does not despise or destroy the manners and customs of any people, always supposing that they are not evil, but rather wishes to see them preserved unharmed. . . . It is the nature of men to love and treasure above everything else their own country and that which belongs to it. . . . Do not draw invidious contrasts between the customs of the peoples and those of Europe; do your utmost to adapt yourselves to them.’ The intention of this document was wise, indeed admirable; but of course the qualifying phrases laid it open to argument. How ruthless was Rome prepared to be in backing it up, against the protests of the conventional and orthodox? Or, to put it another way, how powerful was Rome’s imagination in the vital process of reinterpreting Christian dogma in the light of strange cultures? In the event, Rome always proved more susceptible to European pressures, and to the arguments of colonial viceroys, bishops and vicars-general, than to the more creative of the missionaries. The kind of battles that Paul won, Ricci and his successors and emulators lost. Latin was reestablished as a universal requirement for the liturgy. The controversy lasted over a century, with repeated rulings, both curial and local, some flatly contradictory, with the ‘Europeans’ gradually prevailing. In both India and

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It was glorious weather. ‘Angela, please come away with me, darling—just for a few days—we’ve never done it, and I’ve longed to so often. You can’t refuse, there’s nothing on earth to prevent your coming.’ But Angela would not make up her mind, she seemed suddenly anxious about her husband: ‘Poor devil, he was awfully fond of his mother. I oughtn’t to go, it would look so heartless with the old woman dead and Ralph so unhappy—’ Stephen said bitterly; ‘What about me? Do you think I’m never unhappy?’ So the time slipped by in heartaches and quarrels, for Stephen’s taut nerves were like spurs to her temper, and she stormed or reproached in her dire disappointment: ‘You pretend that you love me and yet you won’t come—and I’ve waited so long—oh, my God, how I’ve waited! But you’re utterly cruel. And I ask for so little, just to have you with me for a few days and nights—just to sleep with you in my arms; just to feel you beside me when I wake up in the morning—I want to open my eyes and see your face, as though we belonged to each other. Angela, I swear I wouldn’t torment you—we’d be just as we are now, if that’s what you’re afraid of. You must know, after all these months, that you can trust me—’ But Angela set her lips and refused: ‘No, Stephen, I’m sorry, but I’d rather not come.’ Then Stephen would feel that life was past bearing, and sometimes she must ride rather wildly for miles—now on Raftery, now on Sir Philip’s young chestnut. All alone she would ride in the early mornings, getting up from a sleepless night unrefreshed, yet terribly alive because of those nerves that tortured her luckless body. She would get back to Morton still unable to rest, and a little later would order the motor and drive herself across to The Grange, where Angela would usually be dreading her coming. Her reception would be cold: ‘I’m fairly busy, Stephen—I must pay off all these bills before Ralph gets home;’ or: ‘I’ve got a foul headache, so don’t scold me this morning; I think if you did that I just couldn’t bear it!’ Stephen would flinch as though struck in the face; she might even turn round and go back to Morton. Came the last precious day before Ralph’s return, and that day they did spend quite peaceably together, for Angela seemed bent upon soothing.

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

  Among others to accompany the king were Jean de Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, whose graphic chronicle has preserved the annals of the Crusade.470 The number of the troops is given at thirty-two thousand. Venetian and Genoese fleets carried them to Cyprus, where preparations had been made on a large scale for their maintenance. Thence they sailed to Egypt. Damietta fell, but after this first success, the campaign was a dismal disaster. Louis’ benevolence and ingenuousness were not combined with the force of the leader. He was ready to share suffering with his troops but had not the ability to organize them.471 His piety could not prevent the usual vices from being practised in the camps.472

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

  made at his coronation in 1215 and his coronation as emperor in Rome, 1220.239 Frederick at last seemed ready to comply. The crusaders assembled at Brindisi, and Frederick actually set off to sea accompanied by the pope’s prayers. Within three days of leaving port the expedition returned, driven back by an epidemic, as Frederick asserted, or by Frederick’s love of pleasure, as Gregory maintained. The pope’s disappointment knew no bounds. He pronounced against Frederick the excommunication threatened by Honorius.240 As the sentence was being read in the church at Anagni, the clergy dashed their lighted tapers to the floor to indicate the emperor’s going out into darkness. Gregory justified his action in a letter to the Christian princes, and spoke of Frederick as "one whom the Holy See had educated with much care, suckled at its breast, carried on its shoulders, and whom it has frequently rescued from the hands of those seeking his life, whom it has brought up to perfect manhood at much trouble and expense, exalted to the honors of kingly dignity, and finally advanced to the summit of the imperial station, trusting to have him as a wand of defence and the staff of our old age." He declared the plea of the epidemic a frivolous pretence and charged Frederick with evading his promises, casting aside all fear of God, having no respect for Jesus Christ. Heedless of the censures of the Church, and enticed away to the usual pleasures of his kingdom, he had abandoned the Christian army and left the Holy Land exposed to the infidels.241 In a vigorous counter appeal to Christendom, Frederick made a bold protest against the unbearable assumption of the papacy, and pointed to the case of John of England as a warning to princes of what they might expect. "She who calls herself my mother," he wrote, "treats me like a stepmother." He denounced the secularization of the Church, and called upon the bishops and clergy to cultivate the self-denial of the Apostles. In 1228 the excommunication was repeated and places put under the interdict where the emperor might be. Gregory was not without his own troubles at Rome, from which he was compelled to flee and seek refuse at Perugia. The same year, as if to show his independence of papal dictation and at the same time the sincerity of his crusading purpose, the emperor actually started upon a crusade, usually called the Fifth Crusade. On being informed of the expedition, the pope excommunicated, him for the third time and inhibited the patriarch of Jerusalem and the Military Orders from giving him aid. The expedition was successful in spite of the papal malediction, and entering Jerusalem Frederick crowned himself king in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thus we have the singular spectacle of the chief monarch of Christendom conducting a crusade in fulfillment of a vow to two popes while resting under the solemn ban of a third.