Gratitude

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 Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  There are in fact several answers, and they reflect the different v iews about moral sources which have partly shaped each other and partly been o pposed to each other over the last two centuries. In order to get a dearer v iew on them and their relationship, we have to return to the nineteenth cent ury. This development assumed different forms; and most notabl y there was a radical divergence between the Anglo-Saxon and French societies . In the la tt e r the sense of progress was militantly 'lay', and was largely opposed by those who sided with the church. But in England and Americ a, exception alism was a blend of Christian and Enlightenment ideas. The notion of p rogress and the emphasis on rationally planned improvement came from the Enligh tenment. But the inspiration and driving force still came largely from C h ristian faith, and the sense of exceptionalism attached to Christian ( or o ften to Protestant) civilization. 8 Inde ed , the anti-slavery crusade originated in part in a revival movement, initiated by William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, tha t w as an attempt to revivify eva n gelical Christianity in face of the growing infidelity of the educated classes. Wilberforce thought he discerned in contemporary Fr an ce where this kin d of degeneration could lead: "manners corrupted, morals depraved, dissi pation predominant, above all, religion discredited". But Christianity could only be revived f r om its heart, "practical benevolence". 9 In fact, this revival succeeded. The Victorian era was in general more pious and more concerned about the sta te of religion than was the eighteenth century. But the faith which emerged f r om this renewal was significantly different a mong other w a ys, in its intense practical concern-from what had existed before the Enlightenment. These moral c r usades, starting with the anti-slavery movement, cast some light on the comple x relation between theistic and secular moral sources, at least in Anglo-Saxon cultures. We have already seen how the demands of Christian faith were redefined to incorpo r ate a heavy dose of social reform, o ften conceived in terms of utilitarian calculation. This change built on an already existing tradition in English Protestantism which went back to the st rong Ca lvinist lin k between god l iness , regeneration, and an ordered social lif e.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  The resulting theories are all strangely in a rticulate. Classical utilitarianism is perhaps the first to exhibit a feature which afflicts a host o f co ntemporary theories, as we saw in Part I: the y are debarred by the ontology they accept from formulating and recognizing their own moral sources. Thei r commitment to the goods which drive them occasionally emerges in direct invocations; such is the declaration from Bentham I quoted above about th e love for humankind which he claimed animated him . But for the mo st pa rt , these underlying moral sou r ces emerge onl y through rhetoric of ar gum e nt ; and above all through the denunciations of the religio us and philos op hic a l errors which bring such gr e at suffering on mankind. This means tha t th e place of th e moral sources i n this philosoph y , and in the later ones which resemble it in this regard, is strange. Constitutive goods, when invoked in a ce rtain fashion, a re empowering, as I argued in Part I. I h ave been spe aki ng of goods insofar as they empower as 'moral sources'. In the moral vi e w s I h ave b een discussing up to now, be they Platonic, o r theistic, or Cartes ian , o r Deist, or whatever, these sources have been recogniz e d. Th ey have fun ctio ned op e nly, as it were. It is clear to all concerned why it i s important to be aw ar e Radical Enlightenment • .3 .3 9 o f them and have rev ere nce or gratitude or respect for t h e m, as appropriate. We saw how vital it was in Hutcheson that we come to see and appreciate our o w n moral se ntiments; and al s o that we see and feel gratitude for God's pr ovidential order. This appreciation is part of what morality enjoins, not so me reflection external to it. But now none o f this can b e openly recognized. How can utilitarians have a ccess to their moral sources? What are the words of power they can pr onounce? Plainly these are the passages in which the goods are invoke d without being recognized. These include the few passages of direct invocation I i ns ta nced above. But the y mainly consist o f the polem i cal passages in which er ror, superstit io n, fraud, and religion are denounced. Wh at the y are d enounced for lacking, or for suppres sing, or for destroying expresses what we who attack them are moved by and cherish. This becomes a recognizable fe atu re of the whole class of modern po sitions which descends fro m t he radical Enlightenment.

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

  Thank you for always being there to catch us when we falter and for your tireless enthusiasm for my book. Caryn Karmatz Rudy of DeFiore & Company was my friend decades before she became my agent and it was not until then that I fully understood her talent and the fierceness of her allegiance. You spurred me along countless times, but calmly and wisely. Your concern that our working together might put a wedge in our friendship was the opposite of what turned out to happen. I respect and trust you even more now than I did before, if that’s possible. Thank you also to Caryn’s fellow agent Meredith Kaffel Simonoff for securing this book with Borough Press. My editor, Ore Agbaje-Williams, has been the gift that keeps on giving. Brilliant, funny, dedicated, and astute, you work so hard but seemingly without another care in the world. You asked me to rewrite the entire book twice, but so gently that not until I sat down to do it did I realize exactly how much work you wanted done. Sometimes I silently cursed you, but then I saw that what you asked me to do was spot on. Thank you for your keen eye, attention to both the big picture and every little detail, and for your willingness to compromise with me. The whole team at Borough Press has been caring and enthusiastic; I did not imagine it would ever be possible to be on the receiving end of this level of commitment. Cover designer Claire Ward created two beautiful covers and redefined how I will look at certain fruits and vegetables forevermore. Publicist Jen Harlow is so lovely that she makes me feel like I’m doing her a favor even though she’s doing the heavy lifting. The marketing savvy of Abbie Salter helped to create a fresh look and campaign for the book. Proofreader Sarah Bance and copy-editor Jane Donovan are grammar goddesses, and I bow down to them. Editorial Assistant Margot Gray has managed the behind-the-scenes with great efficiency. Literary scouts Molly Maguire and Aram Fox championed this book when it was a slender proposal and got it into Ore’s magical hands – without that bit of handselling, this book would not have come to be. Thank you eternally. My friends, oh my friends. Lauren Moss, head cheerleader – there has not been a time that I have needed you that you haven’t been ready, willing and able. You never once gave me critical feedback beyond “I love every word you write,” but that was helpful in its own way. Thank you for your devotion to me. Erika Brown-Campbell is amongst my oldest friends and a therapist, and if you put those things together you have what she has been to me: a confidante, voice of reason and advisor for going on almost forty years now.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  When you’re ready to come back down, just knock and I’ll open it for you.” I thanked him, went upstairs and spent at least ten minutes searching around in the barrel for the smallest potatoes. My back started aching, and the attic was cold. Naturally, I didn’t bother to knock but opened the trap-door myself. But he obligingly got up and took the pan out of my hands. “I did my best, but I couldn’t find any smaller ones.” “Did you look in the big barrel?” “Yes, I’ve been through them all.” By this time I was at the bottom of the stairs, and he examined the pan of potatoes he was still holding. “Oh, but these are fine,” he said, and added, as I took the pan from him, “My compliments!” As he said this, he gave me such a warm, tender look that I started glowing inside. I could tell he wanted to please me, but since he couldn’t make a long complimentary speech, he said everything with his eyes. I understood him so well and was very grateful. It still makes me happy to think back to those words and that look! When I went downstairs, Mother said she needed more potatoes, this time for dinner, so I volunteered to go back up. When I entered Peter’s room, I apologized for disturbing him again. As I was going up the stairs, he stood up, went over to stand between the stairs and the wall, grabbed my arm and tried to stop me. “I’ll go,” he said. “I have to go upstairs anyway.” I replied that it wasn’t really necessary, that I didn’t have to get only the small ones this time. Convinced, he let go of my arm. On my way back, he opened the trapdoor and once again took the pan from me. Standing by the door, I asked, “What are you working on?” “French,” he replied. I asked if I could take a look at his lessons. Then I went to wash my hands and sat down across from him on the divan. After I’d explained some French to him, we began to talk. He told me that after the war he wanted to go to the Dutch East Indies and live on a rubber plantation. He talked about his life at home, the black market and how he felt like a worthless bum. I told him he had a big inferiority complex. He talked about the war, saying that Russia and England were bound to go to war against each other, and about the Jews. He said life would have been much easier if he’d been a Christian or could become one after the war. I asked if he wanted to be baptized, but that wasn’t what he meant either. He said he’d never be able to feel like a Christian, but that after the war he’d make sure nobody would know he was Jewish. I felt a momentary pang.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  Its importance to the latter, of course, is more readily recognized, because it is arguably one of the sources of modern English literature, in particular, of the novel. Bu t it w as a striking phe no me non in its o wn right. Cal v i n, taki n g up Augusti ne 's doctrine of sin in a sin gl e-m i nded and remorseless fa s hi on, made God's transformation of the will throu g h grace the key to salvation. The Puritan was encouraged to scrutinize his inner life continually , both to descry the signs of g race and election and to bring h is thoughts and feelings into line with the grace-given dispositions of praise an d gratitude to God. What was remarkable about this discipline is t h at it wa s n 't meant only for a small elit e of spiritual athletes, but for all Christians. It remained, of course, the property of an elite, but of one more broadly bas ed than any e arlie r p eriod had seen. In New England, it would appear, "alm os t every literate Puritan kept some sort of journal". 22 C oncerning En glan d, Lawrence Stone writes: "From the seventeenth c entury onwards there b ur s ts o n to paper a torrent of words about intimate thoughts and feelings se t d o w n by large numbers of quite ordinary Engiish men and women, most of the m now increasingly secular in orientation''. 2 3 From Bunyan to Pepys to Bo swe ll , and arguably even to Rousseau, the Protestant culture of introspecti on becomes secularized as a form of confessio n al autobi o gra phy, while at th e same time helpin g t o constitut e ·the new form taken by the Engl ish n ove l i n the eighteenth century at the hands of Defoe, Richardson, and o t he rs. 24 11 INNER NATURE T hus b y the turn of the eighteenth century, something recognizably like the modern self is in process of constitution, at least among the social and spir itua l elites of northwester n Europe and its American offshoots. It holds together, sometimes uneasily , two kinds of radical reflexivity and hence inw ardness, both from the August i nian heritage, forms of self-explo ration and forms of self-control. These are the ground , respectively, of two important facets of th e nasce n t modern individualism, that of self- r esponsible independence, on one hand, and that of recognized pa r ticulari ty , on t he other.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  One of the central points common to all Reformers was the ir rejection of mediation. The mediaeval church as they understood it, a corporate body in which some, more dedicated, members could win merit and salvation for others who were less so, was anathema to the m. There c ould be no such thing as more devoted or le ss devoted Christians: the pe rsonal commitment must be total or it was worthless. The rejection of mediation was closely connected to their rejection of the mediaeval understanding of the sacred. This flowed from the most funda m ent al principle of the Reformers, perhaps even m ore basic than salvation by faith alone, which was that salvation was exclusively the wor k of God. Fallen m an was utterly helpless and could do nothing by himself. The point of harping on the helplessness and depravity of mankind was to throw int o the stark est relief the power and mercy of God, who could bring about a sa l vation which was utterly beyond human power and, what is more, still w an ted to res c ue his unwo rthy creature bey ond all considerations of justice. The powerful idea whic h moved those who threw them sel v es into the su c c essive Prot estant movements over three centuries (and even tod a y in s ome revival movements) was that of an unaccountable salvation by an almi ghty and merciful God, against all rational human hope and utterly d is r e garding ou r just deserts. Those who deeply embraced the new faith were moved by an overwhelming sense of awe and gratitude, and in certain i I 6 • THE A F FIR MA TIO N OF_ 0 RD IN A R Y LIFE circumstances this became a tremendously potent motive force behind revolutionary change. What this savin g action seemed to call for was first and forem ost o u r recog nition, our acknowledgement: both of the fact of salvation and of it s being exclusively God 's gift. Humans can do nothing to earn or bri ng abo u t this gift, so fundamentally all they can do is acknowledge it. This is what i t is to have faith.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In ritual, therefore, the sacrificer reconstructed his self (atman), just as Prajapati had done. In the workshop of sacrifice, he had put together the daiva atman (divine self), which would live on after his death. By performing the rituals correctly, with the knowledge of the bandhus firmly in his mind, the warrior could rebuild his own purusha (person). The Brahmin priests “make the person, consisting of the sacrifices, made of ritual actions,” explained the ritualist.81 The rites of passage also built up the human being. An Aryan boy had to undergo the upanayana that initiated him into the study of the Veda and the sacrificial procedure, or he would never be able to build a fully realized atman. Only married men could commission a ritual, and begin the process of self-building, so marriage was another rite of passage for both men and women (who could attend the sacrifice only in the company of their husbands). After a person’s death, the corpse resembled the exhausted Prajapati and had to be reconstructed by means of the correct funeral rites.82 But the system did not work automatically. Unless a person was proficient in ritual science, he would be lost in the next world. He would not be able to recognize the “divine self” that he had created during his lifetime, nor would he know which of the heavenly realms he should go to. “Bewildered by the cremation fire, choked with smoke, he does not recognize his own world. But he who knows, he, indeed, having left this world, knows the atman, saying: ‘This am I’ and he recognizes his own world. And now the fire carries him to the heavenly world.”83 The phrase “he who knows” beats insistently through the Brahmana texts. The priests could not do all the work. The kshatriya and vaishya sacrificer also had to be proficient in liturgical lore, because knowledge alone could unlock the powers of the rites. The liturgy created by the reformers must have been spiritually satisfying, or the Brahmins never could have persuaded the warriors to give up their war games. It is difficult for us to appreciate the aesthetic, transformative power of these rites, because we have only the flat statements of the Brahmanas. Before the rite, the sacrificer made a retreat that isolated him from the pressing concerns of his ordinary life; the fasting, meditation, and asceticism, the intoxication of the soma drink, and the beauty of the chant would all have given emotional resonance to the dry, abstract instructions of the ritualists. To read the Brahmanas without the experience of the liturgy is like reading the libretto of an opera without hearing the music. The “knowledge” of ritual science was not a notional acceptance of the metaphysical speculations of the Brahmins, but was like the insights derived from art, achieved by the compelling drama of the cult.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Frank Evidence of Margot’s goodness. I received this today, March 20, 1944: Anne, yesterday when I said I wasn’t jeal- ous of you, I wasn’t being entirely honest. The situation is this: I’m not jealous of either you or Peter. I’m just sorry I haven’t found anyone willi whom to share my thoughts and feelings, and I’m not likely to in the near future. But that’s why I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that you will both be able to place your trust in each other. You’re already missing out on so much here, things other people take for granted. On the other hand, I’m certain I’d never have gotten as far with Peter, because I think I’d need to feel very close to a person before I could share my thoughts. I’d want to have the feeling that he understood me through and through, even if I didn’t say much. For this reason it would have to be someone I felt was intellectually superior to me, and that isn’t the case with Peter. But I can imagine your feeling close to him. So there’s no need for you to reproach yourself because you think you’ te taking something I was entitled to; nothing could be further from the truth. You and Peter have everything to gain by your friendship. My answer: Dearest Margot, Your letter was extremely kind, but I still don’t feel completely happy about the situation, and I don’t think I ever will. At the moment, Peter and I don’t trust each other as much as you seem to think. It’s just that when you’re standing beside an open window at twthght, you can say more to each other than in bright sunshine. It’s also easier to whisper your feelings than to shout them from the rooftops. I think you’ve begun to feel a kind of sisterly affection for Peter and would like to help him, just as much as I would. Perhaps you’ll be able to do that someday, though that’s not the kind of trust we have in mind. I believe that trust has to corne from both sides; I also think that’s the reason why Father and I have never really grown so close. But let’s not talk about it anymore. If there’s anything you still want to discuss, please write, because it’s easier for me to say what I mean as on paper than face-to-face. You know how le much I admire you, and only hope that some of your goodness and Father’s goodness will rub off on me, because, in that sense, you two are a lot alike. Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22,1944 Dearest Kitty, I received this letter last night from Margot: Dear Anne, After your letter of yesterday I have the unpleasant feeling that your conscience bothers you whenever you go to Peter’s to work or talk; there’s really no reason for that.

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

  Convents were planted by the missionaries among all the barbarous nations of Europe, as fast as Christianity progressed. They received special privileges and endowments from princes, nobles, popes, and bishops. They offered a quiet retreat to men and women who were weary of the turmoil of life, or had suffered shipwreck of fortune or character, and cared for nothing but to save their souls. They exercised hospitality to strangers and travelers, and were a great blessing in times when traveling was difficult and dangerous.377 They were training schools of ascetic virtue, and the nurseries of saints. They saved the remnants of ancient civilization for future use. Every large convent had a library and a school. Scribes were employed in copying manuscripts of the ancient classics, of the Bible, and the writings of the fathers. To these quiet literary monks we are indebted for the preservation and transmission of nearly all the learning, sacred and secular, of ancient times. If they had done nothing else, they would be entitled to the lasting gratitude of the church and the world. During the wild commotion and confusion of the ninth and tenth centuries, monastic discipline went into decay. Often the very richs of convents, which were the reward of industry and virtue, became a snare and a root of evil. Avaricious laymen (Abba-comites) seized the control and perpetuated it in their families. Even princesses received the titles and emoluments of abbesses. § 83. St. Benedict. St. Nilus. St. Romuald. Yet even in this dark period there were a few shining lights. St. Benedict of Aniane (750–821), of a distinguished family in the south of France, after serving at the court of Charlemagne, became disgusted with the world, entered a convent, founded a new one at Aniane after the strict rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, collected a library, exercised charity, especially during a famine, labored for the reform of monasticism, was entrusted by Louis the Pious with the superintendence of all the convents in Western France, and formed them into a "congregation," by bringing them under one rule. He attended the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817. Soon after his death (Feb. 12, 821) the fruits of his labors were destroyed, and the disorder became worse than before.378

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

  bishop of Jerusalem, in a time of famine, sold the treasures and sacred gifts of the church, and that afterwards some one recognized in the dress of an actress the vestment he once presented to the church. A peculiar variety of such gifts, namely, memorials of miraculous cures,1229 appeared in the fifth century; at least they are first mentioned by Theodoret, who said of them in his eighth discourse on the martyrs: "That those who ask with the confidence of faith, receive what they ask, is plainly proved by their sacred gifts in testimony of their healing. Some offer feet, others hands, of gold or silver, and these gifts show their deliverance from those evils, as tokens of which they have been offered by the restored." With the worship of saints this custom gained strongly, and became in the middle age quite universal. Whoever recovered from a sickness, considered himself bound first to testify by a gift his gratitude to the saint whose aid he had invoked in his distress. Parents, whose children fortunately survived the teething-fever, offered to St. Apollonia (all whose teeth, according to the legend, had been broken out with pincers by a hangman’s servant) gifts of jawbones in wax. In like manner St. Julian, for happily accomplished journeys, and St. Hubert, for safe return from the perils of the chase, were very richly endowed; but the Virgin Mary more than all. Almost every church or chapel which has a miracle-working image of the mother of God, possesses even now a multitude of golden and silver acknowledgments of fortunate returns and recoveries. § 113. Church Poetry and Music. J. Rambach: Anthologie christl. Gesänge aus allen Jahrh. der christl. Kirche. Altona, 1817–’33. H. A. Daniel: Thesaurus hymnologicus. Hal. 1841–’56, 5 vols. Edélestand du Méril: Poésies populaires latines antérieures au douzième siècle. Paris, 1843. C. Fortlage: Gesänge der christl. Vorzeit. Berlin, 1844. G. A. Königsfeld u. A. W. v. Schlegel: Altchristliche Hymnen u. Gesaenge lateinisch u. Deutsch. Bonn, 1847. Second collection by Königsfeld, Bonn, 1865. E. E. Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenlieds u. Kirchengesangs der christl., insbesondere der deutschen evangel. Kirche. 2d ed. Stuttgart, 1852 f. 4 vols. (i. 10– 30). F. J. Mone: Latein. Hymnen des Mittelalters (from MSS.), Freiburg, 1853–’55. (Vol. i., hymns of God and angels; ii., h. of Mary; iii., h. of saints.) Bässler: Auswahl Alt-christl. Lieder vom 2–15ten Jahrh. Berlin, 1858. R. Ch. Trench: Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly lyrical, selected and arranged for use; with Notes and Introduction (1849), 2d ed. improved, Lond. and Cambr. 1864. The valuable hymnological works of Dr. J. M. Neale (of Sackville College, Oxford): The Ecclesiastical Latin Poetry of the Middle Ages (in Henry Thompson’s History of Roman Literature, Lond. and Glasgow., 1852, p. 213 ff.); Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, Lond. 1851; Sequentiae ex Missalibus, 1852; Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1862, several articles in the Ecclesiologist; and a Latin dissertation, De Sequentiis, in the Essays on Liturgiology, etc., p. 359 sqq. (Comp. also J.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  At one o’clock Jan will come for half an hour to check on us poor forsaken souls, like a zookeeper. This afternoon, for the first time in ages, Jan gave us some news of the outside world. You should have seen us gathered around him; it looked exactly like a print: “At Grandmother’s Knee.” He regaled his grateful audience with talk of-what else?-food. Mrs. P., a friend of Miep’s, has been cooking his meals. The day before yesterday Jan ate carrots with green peas, yesterday he had the leftovers, today she’s cooking marrowfat peas, and tomorrow she’s plan- ning to mash the remaining carrots with potatoes. We asked about Miep’s doctor. “Doctor?” said Jan. “What doctor? I called him this morning and got his secretary on the line. I asked for a flu prescription and was told I could come pick it up tomor- row morning between eight and nine. If you’ve got a particularly bad case of flu, the doctor himself comes to the phone and says, ‘Stick out your tongue and say “Aah.” Oh, I can hear it, your throat’s infected. I’ll write out a prescription and you can bring it to the phar- macy. Good day.’ And that’s that. Easy job he’s got, diagnosis by phone. But I shouldn’t blame the doctors.” After all, a person has only two hands, and these days there’re too many patients and too few doctors.” Still, we all had a good laugh at Jan’s phone call. I can just imagine what a doctor’s waiting room looks like these days. Doctors no longer turn up their noses at the poorer patients, but at those with minor illnesses. “Hey, what are you doing here?” they think. “Go to the end of the line; real patients have priority!” Yours, Anne THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1944 Dearest Kitty, The weather is gorgeous, indescribably beautiful; I’ll be going up to the attic in a moment. I now know why I’m so much more restless than Peter. He has his own room, where he can work, dream, think and sleep. I’m constantly being chased from one corner to another. I’m never alone in the room I share with Dussel, though I long to be so much. That’s another reason I take refuge in the attic. When I’m there, or with you, I can be myself, at least for a little while. Still, I don’t want to moan and groan. On the contrary, I want to be brave! Thank goodness the others notice nothing of my innermost feelings, except that every day I’m growing cooler and more contemptuous of Mother, less affection- ate to Father and less willing to share a single thought with Margot; I’m closed up tighter than a drum. Above all, I have to maintain my air of confidence. No one must know that my heart and mind are constantly at war with each other. Up to now reason has always won the battle, but will my emotions get the upper hand?

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

  The supreme duty of Christian charity was inculcated by all faithful pastors and teachers of the gospel from the beginning. In the apostolic and ante-Nicene ages it was exercised by regular contributions on the Lord’s day, and especially at the communion and the agape connected with it. Every congregation was a charitable society, and took care of its widows and orphans, of strangers and prisoners, and sent help to distant congregations in need.372 After Constantine, when the masses of the people flocked into the church, charity assumed an institutional form, and built hospitals and houses of refuge for the strangers, the poor, the sick, the aged, the orphans.373 They appear first in the East, but soon afterwards also in the West. Fabiola founded a hospital in Rome, Pammachius one in the Portus Romanus, Paulinus one in Nola. At the time of Gregory I. there were several hospitals in Rome; he mentions also hospitals in Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. These institutions were necessary in the greatly enlarged sphere of the church, and the increase of poverty, distress, and disaster which at last overwhelmed the Roman empire. They may in many cases have served purposes of ostentation, superseded or excused private charity, encouraged idleness, and thus increased rather than diminished pauperism. But these were abuses to which the best human institutions are subject.

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

  The order increased with astonishing rapidity in numbers, influence, and wealth. Gifts were received from all parts of Europe, the givers being remembered in prayers offered up in Jerusalem. Raymund systematized the rules of the brotherhood and gave it a compact organization and in 1113 it gained papal sanction through Pascal II. At that time there were affiliated houses at St. Giles, Asti, Pisa, Otranto, and Tarentum.504 In 1122 Calixtus II. made the important announcement that those giving protection to pilgrims were entitled to the same reward as the pilgrims themselves and all who gave to the Hospital in the earthly Jerusalem, should receive the joys of the heavenly. Bull followed bull, granting the order privileges. Innocent III. exempted the members from excommunication at the hand of bishops and made the order amenable solely to the pope. Anastasius IV., 1154, gave them the right to build churches, chapels, and graveyards in any locality.505 The military feature of the organization was developed after the philanthropic feature of nursing and caring for unfortunate pilgrims and it quickly became the dominant feature. Raymund du Puy makes a clear distinction in the order between cleric and lay brethren. Innocent II., 1130, speaks of its members as priests, knights, and lay brethren, the last taking no vows. In its perfected organization the order was divided into three classes, knights, chaplains, and serving brethren. The knights and chaplains were bound by the threefold pledge of charity, poverty, and obedience.506 The military brothers or knights formed the majority of the order and from them the officials were elected.507 The hospital work was not abandoned. In 1160 John of Wizburg states from personal observation that more than two thousand sick were cared for in the hospital of Jerusalem, and that in a single day forty deaths occurred. After the transfer of the order to Rhodes, the knights continued to carry on hospital work. After Clement IV., 1267, the title of the chief official was "Grand master of the Hospital of Jerusalem and Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ." The distinctive dress of the order was, after 1259, a red mantle with a white Maltese cross worn on the left breast that "God through this emblem might give faith and obedience and protect us and all our Christian benefactors from the power of the devil." Its motto was pro fide, "for the faith."508 The whole body was divided about 1320 into seven langues or provinces, Provence, France, Auvergne, Italy, Germany, Aragon, England. Castile was added in 1464. Affiliated houses in Europe and the East sent two-thirds of their income to Jerusalem.509 One of the interesting rules of the order was that the knights always went two and two and carried their own light with them.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  It was also essential that the Israelites behave with justice and kindness to one another. They would possess the land and succeed in their enterprises only if they gave a portion of their income to orphans and widows, or set aside for the poor some of their grapes, olives, or wheat in the fields after the harvest. They must remember that they had been oppressed in Egypt and imitate the generosity of Yahweh himself.127 “You are not to toughen your hearts; you are not to shut your hand to your brother, the needy one,” Moses told the people. “Rather you are to open—yes, open your hand to him.”128 Israelites must secure the inheritance of wives abandoned by their husbands, secure the rights of the resident alien (ger), and free their slaves after six years of service.129 The Deuteronomists’ passionate insistence upon the importance of justice, equity, and compassion went even further than the teaching of Amos and Hosea. If their reform had been fully implemented, the Deuteronomists would have completely altered the political, social, religious, and judicial life of Israel. This is an important point. The Deuteronomist lawyers and historians had given a wholly new centrality to the written text. Today people often use scripture to oppose change and to conserve the past. But the Deuteronomists, who pioneered the idea of scriptural orthodoxy, used the texts they had inherited in order to introduce fundamental changes. They rewrote the old laws of the ninth-century Covenant Code, inserting phrases and altering words to make it endorse their novel legislation about secular slaughter, a central sanctuary, and the religious calendar.130 Instead of allowing the old laws, oral sagas, or cultic customs to impede or confine their reform, they used these traditions creatively. The sacred lore of the past was not cast in stone; the Deuteronomists saw it as a resource that could shed light on their current situation. The Deuteronomists made Judaism a religion of the book. But it seems that there was considerable opposition to this development. Literacy changed the people’s relationship with their heritage, and not always for the better. In India, for example, oral transmission required a long apprenticeship, dynamic interchange with a charismatic teacher, and a disciplined, self-effacing lifestyle. But solitary reading encouraged a more individual and independent education. The pupil was no longer reliant on his guru, but could peruse the texts by himself and draw his own conclusions, and his knowledge might be shallower, because he might see no need to look beneath the words on the page or experience the luminous silence that took him beyond its words and concepts.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  When Umar conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantines in 638, he immediately signed a charter to ensure that the Christian shrines were undisturbed and cleared the site of the Jewish temple, which had been left in ruins since its destruction in 70 and was used as the city’s garbage dump. Henceforth this holy site would be called the Haram al-Sharif, the “Most Noble Sanctuary,” and become the third-holiest place in the Muslim world, after Mecca and Medina. Umar also invited Jews, who had been forbidden permanent residence in Judea since the Bar Kokhba revolt, to return to the City of the Prophet Daud (David).48 In the eleventh century, a Jerusalem rabbi still recalled with gratitude the mercy God had shown his people when he allowed the “Kingdom of Ishmael” to conquer Palestine.49 “They did not inquire about the profession of faith,” wrote the twelfth-century historian Michael the Syrian, “nor did they persecute anybody because of his profession, as did the Greeks, a heretical and wicked nation.”50 The Muslim conquerors tried at first to resist the systemic oppression and violence of empire. Umar did not allow his officers to displace the local peoples or establish estates in the rich land of Mesopotamia. Instead, Muslim soldiers lived in new “garrison towns” (amsar, singular: misr) built in strategic locations: Kufah in Iraq, Basra in Syria, Qum in Iran, and Fustat in Egypt; Damascus was the only old city to become a misr. Umar believed that the ummah, still in its infancy, could retain its integrity only by living apart from the more sophisticated cultures. The Muslims’ ability to establish and maintain a stable, centralized empire was even more surprising than their military success. Both the Persians and the Byzantines imagined that after their initial victories, the Arabs would simply ask to settle in the empires they had conquered. This, after all, was what the barbarians had done in the western provinces, and they now ruled according to Roman law and spoke Latin dialects.51 Yet when their wars of expansion finally ceased in 750, the Muslims ruled an empire extending from the Himalayas to the Pyrenees, the largest the world had yet seen, and most of the conquered peoples would convert to Islam and speak Arabic.52 This extraordinary achievement seemed to endorse the message of the Quran, which taught that a society founded on the Quranic principles of justice would always prosper.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  I am also blessed with my editors George Andreou and Jorg Hensgen, whose stringent, meticulous work on the manuscript helped me to push the book into another dimension, for which I am sincerely grateful. My thanks also to all the people who have worked on the book with such skill and expertise—at The Bodley Head: Stuart Williams (editor), Beth Humphries (copy editor), Joe Pickering (publicist), James Jones (jacket designer), Mary Chamberlain (proofreader), and Katherine Ailes (assistant editor); at Knopf: Roméo Enriquez (production manager), Ellen Feldman (production editor), Kim Thornton (publicist), Oliver Munday (jacket designer), Cassandra Pappas (text designer), Janet Biehl (copy editor), and Terezia Cicelova (editorial assistant); and at Knopf Canada: Louise Dennys (editor) and Sheila Kaye (publicist). Many of you I have never met, but be assured I appreciate all you do for me. As always, I must thank my agents Felicity Bryan, Peter Ginsberg, and Andrew Nurnberg for their tireless support, loyalty, and, above all, their continued faith in me; this time, I really could not have managed without you. Thanks too to Michele Topham, Jackie Head, and Carole Robinson in Felicity Bryan’s office for helping me so cheerfully through the day-to-day crises of a writer’s life, from bookkeeping to computer meltdowns. And my sincere gratitude to Nancy Roberts, my assistant, for dealing so patiently with my correspondence and for her adamantine firmness in ensuring that I have time and space to write. A big thank-you to Sally Cockburn, whose paintings helped me to understand what my book was, in part, about. And, finally, thanks to Eve, Gary, Stacey, and Amy Mott, and Michelle Stevenson at My Ideal Dog, for looking after Poppy so devotedly during her last years and enabling me to do my work. This book is also in loving memory of Gary, who always saw to the heart of things and would, I think, have approved its contents.

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

  Dr. Schaff lived to prepare six volumes of this new work, three on early Christianity, one on mediaeval Christianity, and two on the Protestant Reformation. It is of some interest that Dr. Schaff’s last writing was a pamphlet on the Reunion of Christendom, pp. 71, a subject which he treated with warm practical sympathy and with materials furnished by the studies of the historian. The substance of the pamphlet had been used as a paper read before the Parliament of Religions at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago. It was a great satisfaction to him to have the Faculty of the Berlin University,—where he had spent part of his student life, 1840–1841, and which had conferred on him the doctorate of divinity in 1854,—bear testimony in their congratulatory letter on the semicentennial of his professorial career that his "History of the Christian Church is the most notable monument of universal historical learning produced by the school of Neander" (Life Of Philip Schaff, p. 467). The further treatment of the Middle Ages, Dr. Schaff left to his son, the author of this volume. It was deemed by him best to begin the work anew, using the materials Dr. Schaff had left as the basis of the first four chapters. The delay in the issue of the present volume is due chiefly to the requirements of study and in part to the difficulty in getting all the necessary literature. The author has felt unwilling to issue the volume without giving to it as thorough study as it was possible for him to give. This meant that he should familiarize himself not only with the mediaeval writings themselves but with the vast amount of research which has been devoted to the Middle Ages during the last quarter of a century and more. As for the literature, not a little of it has been, until recently, inaccessible to the student in this country. At Lane seminary, where the author was a professor, he found in the library an unusually well selected collection of works on the mediaeval period made fifty years ago by the wise judgment of two of its professors, Calvin E. Stowe and the late George E. Day, who made tours in Europe for the purpose of making purchases for its shelves. He also owes a debt to the Rev. Dr. Henry Goodwin Smith, for some time professor in the seminary and its librarian, for his liberal use of the library funds in supplementing the works in the mediaeval department. In passing, it may be also said that the Cincinnati Public Library, by reason of a large permanent fund given more than a half century ago for the purchase of theological works and by the wise selection of such men as Professor George E. Day, is unusually rich in works for the historical student, some of which may perhaps not be duplicated in this country.

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

  CHURCH FATHERS, AND THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. Comp. the general literature on the Fathers in vol. i. § 116, and the special literature in the several sections following. I.—The Greek Fathers. § 161. Eusebius of C sarea. I. Eusebius Pamphili: Opera omnia Gr. et Lat., curis variorum nempe II. Valesii, Fr. Vigeri, B. Montfaucon, Card. Angelo Maii edita; collegit et denuo recognovit J. P. Migne. Par. (Petit-Montrouge) 1857. 6 vols. (tom. xix.-xxiv. of Migne’s Patrologia Graeca). Of his several works his Church History has been oftenest edited, sometimes by itself, sometimes in connection with his Vita Constantini, and with the church histories of his successors; best by Henr. Valesius (Du Valois), Par. 1659–’73, 8 vols., and Cantabr. 1720, 3 vols., and again 1746 (with additions by G. Reading, best ed.); also (without the later historians) by E. Zimmermann, Francof. 1822; F. A. Heinichen, Lips. 1827–’8, 3 vols.; E. Burton, Oxon. 1838, 2 vols. (1845 and 1856 in 1 vol.); Schwegler, Tüb. 1852; also in various translations: In German by Stroth, Quedlinburg, 1776 ff., 2 vols.; by Closs, Stuttg. 1839; and several times in French and English; in English by Hanmer (1584), T. Shorting, and better by Chr. Fr. Cruse (an Amer. Episcopalian of German descent, died in New York, 1865): The Ecclesiastical History of Euseb. Pamph., etc., Now York, 1856 (10th ed.), and Lond. 1858 (in Bohn’s Eccles. Library). Comp. also the literary notices in Brunet, sub Euseb., and James Darling, Cyclop. Bibliograph. p. 1072 ff. II. Biographies by Hieronymus (De viris illustr. c. 81, a brief sketch, with a list of his works), Valesius (De vita scriptisque Eusebii Caesar.), W. Cave (Lives of the most eminent Fathers of the Church, vol. ii. pp. 95–144, ed. H. Cary, Oxf. 1840), Heinichen, Stroth, Cruse, and others, in their editions of the Eccles. Hist. of Eusebius. F. C. Baur: Comparatur Eusebius Hist. eccl. parens cum parente Hist. Herodoto. Tub. 1834. Haenell: De Euseb. Caes. religionis christ. defensore. Gott. 1843. Sam. Lee: Introductory treatise in his Engl. edition of the Theophany of Eusebius, Cambr. 1843. Semisch: Art. Eusebius v. Caes. in Herzog’s Encycl. vol. iv. (1855), pp. 229–238. Lyman Coleman: Eusebius as an historian, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, Andover, 1858, pp. 78–96. (The biography by Acacius, his successor in the see of Caesarea, Socr. ii. 4, is lost.) This third period is uncommonly rich in great teachers of the church, who happily united theological ability and practical piety, and who, by their development of the most important dogmas in conflict with mighty errors, earned the gratitude of posterity. They monopolized all the learning and eloquence of the declining Roman empire, and made it subservient to the cause of Christianity for the benefit of future generations.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  There were no compelling proofs for the existence of the Olympian daimones, but it was irrational and unintelligent to deny the ancient myths, because like fairy tales, they contained a modicum of truth. Plato wanted to reform the cult. He insisted that the Olympians could not be influenced by sacrifice or prayer, but that people should express their gratitude to these intermediaries with the ineffable, divine world. 101 Hester, Zeus, and Athena must have their shrines on the acropolis of his ideal city. Its agora would be surrounded by temples, and the festivals, processions, sacrifices, and prayers must all be carried out punctiliously. The most important deities of his imaginary city were Apollo and Helios, who had long been identified with the sun, and could easily be integrated with Plato’s cosmic theology. Plato tried to merge old and new. During the festivals of his polis, gods and daimones would dance unseen beside the human celebrants. Indeed, the purpose of these rituals was precisely “to share [the gods’] holidays.” 102 The festival involved orgiazein, a word used to describe the ecstatic mystery celebrations. 103 The sacrifices could not propitiate the Olympians, but they could still lift the spirit and give humans intimations of transcendence. Nevertheless, despite Plato’s approval of the old religion, he considered it inferior to philosophy. It could not bring true enlightenment: the forms could only be apprehended through the reasoning powers of the mind, not in the insights of myth or the sacred drama of ritual. Traditional religion had been downgraded; mythos had become subservient to Plato’s mystical logos. There was a sinister directive in The Laws that took Plato even further away from the Axial Age. 104 His imaginary city was a theocracy. The first duty of the polis was to inculcate “the right thoughts about the gods, and then to live accordingly: well or not well.” 105 Correct belief came first; ethical behavior only second. Orthodox theology was the essential prerequisite for morality. “No one who believes in gods as the law directs ever voluntarily commits an unholy act or lets any lawless word pass his lips.” 106 None of the Axial thinkers had placed any great emphasis on metaphysics. Some even regarded this type of speculation as misguided. Ethical action came first; compassionate action, not orthodoxy, enabled human beings to apprehend the sacred. But for Plato, correct belief was mandatory, so important that a “nocturnal council” must supervise the citizens’ theological opinions. There were three obligatory articles of faith: that the gods existed; that they cared for human beings; and that they could not be influenced by sacrifice and prayer.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Contents Cover Title Page Acknowledgments List of Maps and Plans Introduction 1. THE AXIAL PEOPLES (c. 1600 to 900 BCE) 2. RITUAL (c. 900 to 800 BCE) 3. KENOSIS (c. 800 to 700 BCE) 4. KNOWLEDGE (c. 700 to 600 BCE) 5. SUFFERING (c. 600 to 530 BCE) 6. EMPATHY (c. 530 to 450 BCE) 7. CONCERN FOR EVERYBODY (c. 450 to 398 BCE) 8. ALL IS ONE (c. 400 to 300 BCE) 9. EMPIRE (c. 300 to 220 BCE) 10. THE WAY FORWARD Notes Footnotes Bibliography Glossary Permissions About the Author Other Books by Karen Armstrong Copyright Acknowledgments My thanks, as always, to my literary agents Felicity Bryan, Peter Ginsberg, and Andrew Nurnberg; and to my editors Jane Garrett, Robbert Ammerlaan, and Toby Mundy, who had the idea for this book. Their continued support and friendship has been a source of immense blessing and joy. I must also thank Michele Topham, Carole Robinson, and Jackie Head in Felicity Bryan’s office for their constancy, patience, and kindness in helping me through the daily vicissitudes of a writer’s life, and Emily Molanphy and Alice Hunt, assistants to Jane and Toby, who are such thoughtful intermediaries. As ever, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the production team at Knopf, whose passion for accuracy and elegance is quite indispensable: Chuck Antony (copyeditor), Patrice Silverstein and Chuck Thompson (proofreaders), Claire Bradley Ong (production), Anthea Lingeman (designer), David Lindroth (mapmaker), and Ellen Feldman (production editor). And even though their input is still to come at this writing, I can-not forget my friends in the publicity departments, Sheila Kaye, Francien Schuursma, and Sheila O’Shea, who I know will promote the book with their usual dedication and generosity. Finally, I could not have completed this book without the love and practical support of my cousin, Jenny Wayman. But this book is dedicated to Mitchell and Geraldine Bray, who understand the meaning of compassion, with my sincere and heartfelt gratitude. Maps and Plans Aryan Migrations c. 1500 to 1000 BCE: The Land of the Seven Rivers Aryan Expansion to the East c. 1000 to 500 BCE The Vedic Sacrificial Arena Shang China c. 1600 to 1045 BCE China Under the Early Zhou, 11th Century to 9th Century BCE Early Israel and the Surrounding Countries c. 1200 BCE Mycenaean Greece c. 1450 to 1200 BCE Family Trees of the Greek Gods: The Offspring of Gaia and the Offspring of Chaos The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah c.