Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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

  The foreigners were punished by exile, and met death in Roman Catholic countries. Blaurock was scourged, expelled, and burnt, 1529, at Clausen in the Tyrol. Hätzer, who fell into carnal sins, was beheaded for adultery and bigamy at Constance, Feb. 24, 1529. John Zwick, a Zwinglian, says that "a nobler and more manful death was never seen in Constance." Thomas Blaurer bears a similar testimony.143 Hübmaier, who had fled from Waldshut to Zurich, December, 1525, was tried before the magistracy, recanted, and was sent out of the country to recant his recantation.144 He labored successfully in Moravia, and was burnt at the stake in Vienna, March 10, 1528. Three days afterwards his faithful wife, whom he had married in Waldshut, was drowned in the Danube. Other Swiss cantons took the same measures against the Anabaptists as Zurich. In Zug, Lorenz Fürst was drowned, Aug. 17, 1529. In Appenzell, Uliman and others were beheaded, and some women drowned. At Basle, Oecolampadius held several disputations with the Anabaptists, but without effect; whereupon the Council banished them, with the threat that they should be drowned if they returned (Nov. 13, 1530). The Council of Berne adopted the same course. In Germany and in Austria the Anabaptists fared still worse. The Diet of Speier, in April, 1529, decreed that "every Anabaptist and rebaptized person of either sex be put to death by sword, or fire, or otherwise." The decree was severely carried out, except in Strassburg and the domain of Philip of Hesse, where the heretics were treated more leniently. The most blood was shed in Roman Catholic countries. In Görz the house in which the Anabaptists were assembled for worship was set on fire. "In Tyrol and Görz," says Cornelius,145 "the number of executions in the year 1531 reached already one thousand; in Ensisheim, six hundred. At Linz seventy-three were killed in six weeks. Duke William of Bavaria, surpassing all others, issued the fearful decree to behead those who recanted, to burn those who refused to recant.... Throughout the greater part of Upper Germany the persecution raged like a wild chase.... The blood of these poor people flowed like water so that they cried to the Lord for help.... But hundreds of them of all ages and both sexes suffered the pangs of torture without a murmur, despised to buy their lives by recantation, and went to the place of execution joyfully and singing psalms." The blood of martyrs is never shed in vain. The Anabaptist movement was defeated, but not destroyed; it revived among the Mennonites, the Baptists in England and America, and more recently in isolated congregations on the Continent. The questions of the subjects and mode of baptism still divide Baptist and Pedobaptist churches, but the doctrine of the salvation of unbaptized infants is no longer condemned as a heresy; and the principle of religious liberty and separation of Church and State, for which the Swiss and German Anabaptists suffered and died, is making steady progress.

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

  Scriptures, and defended the position that Christ was the only head of the Church. He used the occasion to explain the Protestant doctrines, and to attack the Roman hierarchy. Christ and the Holy Spirit, he said, are not with the pope, but with those whom he persecutes. The disputation lasted several days, and ended in a partial victory for Farel. Unable to argue from the Scriptures, Furbity confessed:, What I preached I cannot prove from the Bible; I have learned it from the Summa of St. Thomas"; but he repeated in the pulpit of St. Peter’s his charges against the heretics, Feb. 15, and was put in prison for several years. Farel continued to preach in private houses. On March 1, when a monk, Francis Coutelier, attacked the Reformation, he ascended the pulpit to refute him. This was his first public sermon in Geneva. The Freiburgers protested against these proceedings, and withdrew from the coburghery (April 12). The bishop pronounced the ban over the city (April 30); the Duke of Savoy threatened war. But Bern stood by Geneva, and under her powerful protection, Farel, Viret, and Froment vigorously pushed the Reformation, though not without much violence. The priests, monks, and nuns gradually left the city, and the bishop transferred his see to Annecy, an asylum prepared by the Duke of Savoy. Sister Jeanne de Jussie, one of the nuns of St. Claire, has left us a lively and naive account of their departure to Annecy. "It was a piteous thing," she says, "to see this holy company in such a plight, so overcome with fatigue and grief that several swooned by the way. It was rainy weather, and all were obliged to walk through muddy roads, except four poor invalids who were in a carriage. There were six poor old women who had taken their vows more than sixteen years before. Two of these, who were past sixty-six, and had never seen anything of the world, fainted away repeatedly. They could not bear the wind; and when they saw the cattle in the fields, they took the cows for bears, and the long-wooled sheep for ravaging wolves. They who met them were so overcome with compassion that they could not speak a word. And though our mother, the vicaress, had supplied them all with good shoes to save their feet, the greater number could not walk in them, but hung them at their waists. And so they walked from five o’clock in the morning, when they left Geneva, till near midnight, when they got to St. Julien, which is only a little league off." It took the nuns fifteen hours to go a short league. The next day (Aug. 29) they reached Annecy under the ringing of all the bells of the city, and found rest in the monastery of the Holy Cross. The good sister Jussie saw in the Reformation a just punishment of the unfaithful clergy.

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

  While he was in attendance at Ratisbon, the pestilence carried away, among other friends, Louis de Richebourg, who together with his older brother, Charles, lived in his house at Strassburg as a student and pensionnaire, under the tutorship of Claude Féray, Calvin’s dearly beloved assistant. On hearing the sad intelligence, early in April, 1541, he wrote to his father—a gentleman from Normandy, probably the lord of the village de Richebourg between Rouen and Beauvais, but otherwise unknown to us—a long letter of condolence and comfort, from which we give the following extracts:600 — "Ratisbon (Month of April), 1541. "When I first received the intelligence of the death of Claude and of your son Louis, I was so utterly overpowered (tout esperdu et confus en mon esprit) that for many days I was fit for nothing but to weep; and although I was somehow upheld before the Lord by those aids wherewith He sustains our souls in affliction, yet among men I was almost a nonentity; so far at least as regards my discharge of duty, I appeared to myself quite as unfit for it as if I had been half dead (un homme demi-mort). On the one hand, I was sadly grieved that a most excellent and faithful friend [Claude Féray] had been snatched away from me—a friend with whom I was so familiar, that none could be more closely united than we were; on the other hand, there arose another cause of grief, when I saw the young man, your son, taken away in the very flower of his age, a youth of most excellent promise, whom I loved as a son, because, on his part, he showed that respectful affection toward me as he would to another father. "To this grievous sorrow was still added the heavy and distressing anxiety we experienced about those whom the Lord had spared to us. I heard that the whole household were scattered here and there. The danger of Malherbe601 caused me very great misery, as well as the cause of it, and warned me also as to the rest. I considered that it could not be otherwise but that my wife must be very much dismayed. Your Charles,602 I assure you, was continually recurring to my thoughts; for in proportion as he was endowed with that goodness of disposition which had always appeared in him towards his brother as well as his preceptor, it never occurred to me to doubt but that he would be steeped in sorrow and soaked in tears. One single consideration somewhat relieved me, that he had my brother along with him, who, I hoped, would prove no small comfort in this calamity; even that, however, I could not reckon upon, when at the same time I recollected that both were in jeopardy, and neither of them were yet beyond the reach of danger.

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

  It is all over with her when a single individual has more authority than all the rest .... Where there is so much division and separation as we now see, it is indeed no easy matter to still the troubled waters, and bring about composure .... You will say he [Luther] has a vehement disposition and ungovernable impetuosity; as if that very vehemence did not break forth with all the greater violence when all show themselves alike indulgent to him, and allow him to have his way unquestioned. If this specimen of overbearing tyranny has sprung forth already as the early blossom in the springtide of a reviving Church, what must we expect in a short time, when affairs have fallen into a far worse condition? Let us, therefore, bewail the calamity of the Church and not devour our grief in silence, but venture boldly to groan for freedom .... You have studiously endeavored, by your kindly method of instruction, to recall the minds of men from strife and contention. I applaud your prudence and moderation. But while you dread, as you would some hidden rock, to meddle with this question from fear of giving offence, you are leaving in perplexity and suspense very many persons who require from you somewhat of a more certain sound, on which they can repose .... Perhaps it is now the will of God to open the way for a full and satisfactory declaration of your own mind, that those who look up to your authority may not be brought to a stand, and kept in a state of perpetual doubt and hesitation .... "In the mean time let us run the race set before us with deliberate courage. I return you very many thanks for your reply, and for the extraordinary kindness which Claude assures me had been shown to him by you.569 I can form a conjecture what you would have been to myself, from your having given so kind and courteous a reception to my friend. I do not cease to offer my chief thanks to God, who has vouchsafed to us that agreement in opinion upon the whole of that question [on the real presence]; for although there is a slight difference in certain particulars, we are very well agreed upon the general question itself." When after the defeat of the Protestants in the Smalkaldian War, Melanchthon accepted the Leipzig Interim with the humiliating condition of conformity to the Roman ritual, which the German emperor imposed upon them, Calvin was still more dissatisfied with his old friend. He sided, in this case, with the Lutheran non-conformists who, under the lead of Matthias Flacius, resisted the Interim, and were put under the ban of the empire. He wrote to Melanchthon, June 18, 1550, the following letter of remonstrance:570— "The ancient satirist [Juvenal, I. 79] once said, — ’Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum.’ "It is at present far otherwise with me.

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

  I only suggest that this mode of expression is better adapted for practical use."562 In a letter to Camerarius, 1552, Melanchthon expresses his dissatisfaction with the manner in which Calvin emphasized the doctrine of predestination, and attempted to force the Swiss churches to accept it in the Consensus Genevensis.563 Calvin made another attempt in 1554 to gain him to his view, but in vain.564 On one point, however, he could agree to a certain modification; for he laid stress on the spontaneity of the will, and rejected Luther’s paradoxes, and his comparison of the natural man to a dead statue. It is greatly to the credit of Calvin that, notwithstanding his sensitiveness and intolerance against the opponents of his favorite dogma, he respected the judgment of the most eminent Lutheran divine, and gave signal proof of it by publishing a French translation of the improved edition of Melanchthon’s Theological Commonplaces in 1546, with a commendatory preface of his own,565 in which he says that the book was a brief summary of all things necessary for a Christian to know on the way of salvation, stated in the simplest manner by the profoundly learned author. He does not conceal the difference of views on the subject of free will, and says that Melanchthon seems to concede to man some share in his salvation; yet in such a manner that God’s grace is not in any way diminished, and no ground is left to us for boasting. This is the only example of a Reformer republishing and recommending the work of another Reformer, which was the only formidable rival of his own chief work on the same subject (the Institutes), and differed from it in several points.566 The revival of the unfortunate eucharistic controversy by Luther in 1545, and the equally unfortunate controversy caused by the imperial Interim in 1548, tried the friendship of the Reformers to the uttermost. Calvin respectfully, yet frankly, expressed his regret at the indecision and want of courage displayed by Melanchthon from fear of Luther and love of peace. When Luther came out a year before his death with his most violent and abusive book against the "Sacramentarians,"567 which deeply grieved Melanchthon and roused the just indignation of the Zwinglians, Calvin wrote to Melanchthon (June 28, 1545): 568— "Would that the fellow-feeling which enables me to condole with you, and to sympathize in your heaviness, might also impart the power in some degree at least to lighten your sorrow. If the matter stands as the Zürichers say it does, then they have just occasion for their writing .... Your Pericles allows himself to be carried beyond all bounds with his love of thunder, especially seeing that his own cause is by no means the better of the two .... We all of us acknowledge that we are much indebted to him. But in the Church we always must be upon our guard, lest we pay too great a deference to men.

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

  Madgeburg, which became the headquarters of the irreconcilable Lutherans under the lead of Flacius. In Southern Germany it was enforced with great rigor by Spanish soldiers. More than four hundred pastors in Swabia and on the Rhine were expelled from their benefices for refusing the Interim, and wandered about with their families in poverty and misery. Among them was Brenz, the Reformer of Würtemburg, who fled to Basel, where he received a consolitary letter from Calvin (Nov. 5, 1548). Martin Bucer, with all his zeal for Christian union, was unwilling to make a compromise at the expense of his conscience, and fled from Strassburg to England, where he was appointed professor of divinity in the University of Cambridge. It was forbidden under pain of death to write against the Interim. Nevertheless, over thirty attacks appeared from the "Chancellery of God" at Magdeburg. Bullinger and Calvin wrote against it. Calvin published the imperial proclamation and the text of the Interim in full, and then gave his reasons why it could never bring peace to the Church. He begins with a quotation from Hilary in the Arian controversy: "Specious indeed is the name of peace, and fair the idea of unity; but who doubts that the only peace of the Church is that which is of Christ?" This is the key-note of his own exposition on the true method of the pacification of Christendom. Elector Maurice of Saxony, who stood between two fires,—his Lutheran subjects and the Emperor,—modified the Augsburg Interim, with the aid of Melanchthon and the other theologians of Wittenberg, and substituted for it the Leipzig Interim, Dec. 22, 1548. In this document the chief articles of faith are more cautiously worded so as to admit of an evangelical interpretation, but the Roman ceremonies are retained, as adiaphora, or things indifferent, which do not compromise the conscience nor endanger salvation. it gave rise to the Adiaphoristic Controversy between the strict and the moderate Lutherans. Melanchthon was placed in a most trying position in the midst of the contest. In the sincere wish to save Protestantism from utter overthrow and Saxony from invasion and desolation by imperial troops, he yielded to the pressure of the courtiers and accepted the Leipzig Interim in the hope of better times. For this conduct he was severely attacked by Flacius, his former pupil, and denounced as a traitor. When Calvin heard the news, he wrote an earnest letter of fraternal rebuke to Melanchthon, and reminded him of Paul’s unyielding firmness at the Synod of Jerusalem on the question of circumcision.885 Protestantism in Germany was brought to the brink of ruin, but was delivered from it by the treason of the Elector Maurice. This shrewd, selfish politician and master in the art of dissimulation, had first betrayed the Protestants, by aiding the Emperor in the defeat of the Smalkaldian League, whereby he gained the electorate; and then he rose in rebellion against the Emperor and drove him and the Fathers of Trent out of Tyrol (1551).

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

  never forget and never forgive the burning of Servetus. In the interest of impartial history we must condemn the intolerance of the victor as well as the error of the victim, and admire in both the loyalty to conscientious conviction. Heresy is an error; intolerance, a sin; persecution, a crime. § 138. Catholic Intolerance. Comp. vol. VI. §§ 11 and 12 (pp. 50–86), and Schaff: The Progress of Religious Liberty as shown in the History of Toleration Acts. New York, 1889. This is the place to present the chief facts on the subject of religious toleration and intolerance, which gives to the case of Servetus its chief interest and importance in history. His theological opinions are of far less consequence than his connection with the theory of persecution which caused his death. Persecution and war constitute the devil’s chapter in history; but it is overruled by Providence for the development of heroism, and for the progress of civil and religious freedom. Without persecutors, there could be no martyrs. Every church, yea, every truth and every good cause, has its martyrs, who stood the fiery trial and sacrificed comfort and life itself to their sacred convictions. The blood of martyrs is the seed of toleration; toleration is the seed of liberty; and liberty is the most precious gift of God to every man who has been made in his image and redeemed by Christ. Of all forms of persecution, religious persecution is the worst because it is enacted in the name of God. It violates the sacred rights of conscience, and it rouses the strongest and deepest passions. Persecution by word and pen, which springs from the hatred, envy, and malice of the human heart, or from narrowness and mistaken zeal for truth, will continue to the end of time; but persecution by fire and sword contradicts the spirit of humanity and Christianity, and is inconsistent with modern civilization. Civil offences against the State deserve civil punishment, by fine, imprisonment, confiscation, exile, and death, according to the degree of guilt. Spiritual offences against the Church should be spiritually judged, and punished by admonition, deposition, and excommunication, with a view to the reformation and restoration of the offender. This is the law of Christ. The temporal punishment of heresy is the legitimate result of a union of Church and State, and diminishes in rigor as this union is relaxed. A religion established by law must be protected by law. Hence the Constitution of the United States in securing full liberty of religion, forbids Congress to establish by law any religion or church.997 The two were regarded as inseparable. An established church must in self-defence persecute dissenters, or abridge their liberties; a free church cannot persecute. And yet there may be as much individual Christian kindness and charity in an established church, and as much intolerance and bigotry in a free church.

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

  One thing I am thankful for, that there is no one who is fighting now more earnestly against the wafer-god,539 as he calls it, than Brentz."540 All the negotiations failed at last by the combined opposition of the extreme men of both parties.541 The emperor closed the Diet on the 28th of July, and promised to use his influence with the pope to convene a General Council for the settlement of the theological questions.542 Calvin had left Regensburg as soon as he found a chance, about the middle of June, much to the regret of Bucer and Melanchthon, who wished to retain him.543 His sojourn there was embittered by the ravages of the pestilence in Strassburg, which carried away his beloved deacon, Claude Féray (Feraeus), his friends Bedrotus and Capito, one of his boarders, Louis de Richebourg (Claude’s pupil), and the sons of Oecolampadius, Zwingli, and Hedio. He was thrown into a state of extreme anxiety and depression, which he revealed to Farel in a melancholy letter of March 29, 1541.544 "My dear friend Claude, whom I singularly esteemed," he writes, "has been carried off by the plague. Louis (de Richebourg) followed three days afterwards. My house was in a state of sad desolation. My brother (Antoine) had gone with Charles (de Richebourg) to a neighboring village; my wife had betaken herself to my brother’s; and the youngest of Claude’s scholars [probably Malherbe of Normandy] is lying sick in bed. To the bitterness of grief there was added a very anxious concern for those who survived. Day and night my wife is constantly present to my thoughts, in need of advice, seeing that she is deprived of her husband.545 ... These events have produced in me so much sadness that it seems as if they would utterly upset the mind and depress the spirit. You cannot believe the grief which consumes me on account of the death of my dear friend Claude." Then he pays a touching tribute to Féray, who had lived in his house and stuck closer to him than a brother. But the most precious fruit of this sore affliction is his letter of comfort to the distressed father of Louis de Richebourg, which we shall quote in another connection.546 § 90. Calvin and Melanchthon. The correspondence between Calvin (14 letters) and Melanchthon (8 letters), and several letters of Calvin to Farel from Strassburg and Regensburg. Henry, Vol. I. chs. XII. and XVII,—Stähelin, I. 237–254.—Merle D’Aubigné, bk. XI. ch. XIX. (vol. VII. 18–22, in Cates’ translation). One of the important advantages which his sojourn at Strassburg brought to Calvin and to the evangelical Church was his friendship with Melanchthon. It has a typical significance for the relationship of the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions, and therefore deserves special consideration. They became first acquainted by correspondence through Bucer in October, 1538.

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

  “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me.” The language clearly implies human sacrifice. Unfortunately for Jephthah, he is greeted by his only daughter. He expresses more grief than Abraham and is no less steadfast in fulfilling his vow. Modern commentators often fault Jephthah, since, unlike Abraham, he brought his misfortune on himself by a rash vow. But the Bible does not pronounce his vow rash or pass judgment on him at all. (The New Testament proclaims him, like Abraham, a hero of faith, in Heb 11:32-34). Moreover, he seems to make his vow under the influence of the spirit of the Lord (Judg 11:20-21). In this case, there is no ram in the bushes. The Lord does not always provide a substitute. While child sacrifice is not repudiated in Genesis 22, it was emphatically rejected by the later tradition. The tradition continued to praise the obedience of Abraham, but there is evident discomfort both with the idea that God gave such a command and with Abraham’s willingness to carry it out. On the one hand, it was suggested that the idea of the sacrifice came from Satan, just as Satan incited God to test Job. So the book of Jubilees, in the second century B.C.E., has the idea originate with Mastema, leader of the host of demons ( Jub. 17:16). On the other hand, Targum Neofiti (an Aramaic paraphrase of the Bible from the early Christian period) has Abraham tell Isaac openly that he is to be sacrificed. Isaac responds by asking Abraham to bind him properly so that he may not kick and make the sacrifice unfit. (In Jewish tradition, the sacrifice of Isaac is known as the Akedah, or Binding.) Other Jewish sources from the early Christian era also emphasize that Isaac was a willing victim and that his willingness was meritorious. This interpretation of the story may already be found in a fragmentary text from the Dead Sea Scrolls from the pre-Christian era (4Q225). The story continues to fascinate philosophers and theologians down to modern times. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard reasoned that Abraham could only be justified by “the teleological suspension of the ethical”—the idea that ethical standards do not apply to a divine command. Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher of the Enlightenment, offered a more penetrating critique. For Kant, the problem was how one can know whether such a command comes from God in the first place: “There are certain cases in which man can be

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

  out all the good things that came to Enkidu because of the harlot. Enkidu agrees and changes the fate of the harlot to a blessing: “Governors and princes shall love you. . . . Because of you, the mother of seven, the honoured wife, shall be deserted.” When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh mourns bitterly: “Shall I die too? Am I not like Enkidu? . . . I am afraid of Death, and so I roam the country.” He decides to visit Utnapishtim, the flood hero (the counterpart of Atrahasis in the Atrahasis story), who was granted eternal life and now lives far away at the ends of the earth. The journey takes Gilgamesh into the mountain in the west where the sun sets, through a dark tunnel to the sunrise at the other side. He comes to the shore of the sea that circles the earth, where he finds an inn kept by an alewife, Siduri. He tells her his story and asks for directions. She sees that his quest is hopeless: “Gilgamesh, where do you roam? You will not find the eternal life you seek. When the gods created mankind They appointed death for mankind, Kept eternal life in their own hands. So, Gilgamesh, let your stomach be full, Day and night enjoy yourself in every way, Every day arrange for pleasures. Day and night, dance and play, Wear fresh clothes. Keep your head washed, bathe in water, Appreciate the child who holds your hand, Let your wife enjoy herself in your lap. This is the work [of the living].” (Old Babylonian version; Dalley, Myths , 150) She does, however, direct him to Urshanabi, boatman of Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh prevails on the boatman to ferry him over to Utnapishtim, who again lectures him on the inevitability of death. When Gilgamesh presses him as to how he obtained eternal life, Utnapishtim tells him the story of the flood. Before Gilgamesh sets out on his return journey, however, Utnapishtim tells him about a plant that grows in the Apsu, the fresh waters beneath the earth, that has the power to rejuvenate or make the old young again. Gilgamesh dives and brings up the plant. On the way back, however, he stops to bathe in a pool, and while he is doing so, a snake carries off the plant. At this point Gilgamesh becomes

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

  Beza himself was reluctant to go, and indeed had declined a previous summons; but the crisis demanded an authoritative expression of the views of the Swiss Churches upon the proposed reforms in the discipline of the Church, and so he went. The Synod lasted from the 2d to the 17th of April. He was elected its moderator. A revised Confession of Faith was drawn up, and a vigorous reply made to the demand for increased authority on the part of the temporal chiefs. On his way back to Geneva he took part in another Synod, held at Nismes, and was specially charged with the refutation of the opponents to the established discipline. On St. Bartholomew’s Day, Sunday, Aug. 24, 1572, very many Protestants were murdered in Paris, and for days thereafter the shocking scenes were repeated in different parts of France.1300 On the 1st of September the first company of fugitives, many covered with wounds, made their appearance in Geneva. A day of fasting and prayer was ordered, and Beza exhorted his Swiss hearers to stand firm and to provide all needed help to their stricken brethren. Four thousand livres were collected in Geneva, and the wants of the crowd of sufferers attended to.1301 In 1574 Beza met Henry of Condé by appointment at Strassburg, and successfully undertook the negotiations which resulted in enlisting John Casimir to come with an army to the succor of the Huguenots. But Beza’s advice was not always considered prudent by the city authorities, who were more alive than he to the great risk the city ran of reprisals in view of its connivance with the Huguenot schemes. Thus in December of this year, 1574, Beza countenanced a bootless military errand in the direction of Mâcon and Châlons, and the magistrates gently but firmly called him to account, and plainly told him that he should never act so imprudently.1302 On Nov. 26, 1580, the Peace of Fleix brought rest to France for a little while. Beza showed his courage and fidelity on this occasion by writing to King Henry of Navarre, the Protestant leader, a letter in which he candidly informed the king that he himself and his court stood in great need of reformation. It is proof of the respect in which the Reformer was held that the king received the rebuke in good part, and of the king’s light-mindedness that he did not attempt to reform.1303 § 173. Beza’s Conferences with Lutherans. The bitter theological differences between Lutherans and Reformed had long been a disgrace. Beza had in early life brought trouble upon himself by minimizing them, as has been already recorded, but in his old age he made one more attempt in that direction. Count Frederick of Würtemberg, a Lutheran, but a friend of reconciliation, called a conference at Montbéliard (or Mömpelgard), a city in his domains in which were many Huguenot refugees, with whom the Lutherans would not fraternize.

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

  Coin of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. When Mattathias and his friends heard of the slaughter on the Sabbath, they mourned for the victims, but they resolved that they would defend themselves on the Sabbath, lest the whole Jewish people be wiped from the earth. In doing so, they resolved to break the Law for the greater good of the people. Not all pious Jews agreed with this decision. The dilemma, however, is one that has continued to confront Judaism down to modern times (cf. the Arab attack on Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973). There has always been some division of opinion within Judaism between those who insist on absolute obedience to the Law and those who take a more pragmatic approach and give priority to the survival of the people. The remainder of 1 Maccabees recounts the heroic exploits of the Maccabean family. Mattathias dies at the end of chapter 2. His son Judas, called Maccabeus, or “the hammer,” replaces him as leader. First Maccabees describes him in terms reminiscent of the divine warrior in the Hebrew Bible (1 Macc 3:3-9; cf. Isa 59:15-20). He recaptures Jerusalem and purifies the temple, three years to the day after it had been defiled (1 Macc 4:36-61), and institutes the festival of Hanukkah to commemorate the occasion. He gathers Jews from outlying areas into Judea for safekeeping. In the process he pillages Gentile towns and slaughters their inhabitants (chap. 5). Antiochus Epiphanes is shaken by the news of these exploits, realizes that he has brought ruin on his own head by attacking Jerusalem, and dies in despair (chap. 6). The Jews suffer some setbacks in this generally glorious history. One of Judas’s brothers, Eleazar, dies heroically in battle while stabbing an elephant from underneath (6:43-47). When a new high priest from the line of Aaron, Alcimus, is appointed, one group of Judas’s followers, the Hasidim, appear before him to make peace, but he kills sixty of them in one day (7:16). Judas himself is eventually killed in battle (9:11-18). Before his death, however, Judas took a remarkable action by sending an envoy to Rome (1 Maccabees 8). He was evidently aware of the broader international scene. The Romans made a treaty with the Jews, promising mutual

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

  come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? . . . Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Mic 6:6-8). Micah replies that God requires only justice and kindness, but the question shows that a worshiper of YHWH could contemplate child sacrifice in the eighth century B.C.E. Moreover, child sacrifice appears to be commanded in Exod 22:28-29: “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth you shall give it to me” (Hebrew v. 28, English v. 29). This commandment is modified in Exod 34:19-20, which likewise says that “All that first opens the womb is mine,” but adds, “all the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.” (Similarly, the firstborn of a donkey could be redeemed by substituting a lamb, but if it was not redeemed, it had to be killed.) Underlying this commandment is the conviction that all life is from God, and that God’s right to the firstborn must be acknowledged, in order to ensure future fertility. We should expect that human firstborn sons were normally redeemed, as commanded in Exodus 34, but it is remarkable that the stark commandment in Exodus 22 is left on the books. YHWH is also said to have commanded human sacrifice in Ezek 20:25-26: “Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through all their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the L ORD .” Ezekiel does not attribute child sacrifice to Canaanite influence. He may have had Exodus 22 in mind. In any case, he provides further testimony that child sacrifice was practiced in Judah down to the time of the exile. The polemic against child sacrifice in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah would not have been necessary if this had not been the case. Unlike Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, Genesis 22 does not condemn child sacrifice or polemicize against it. On the contrary, Abraham is praised for his willingness to carry it out. He does not have to go through with it, but that may be an exceptional case because of Abraham’s exceptional standing. We shall meet a counterpoint to this story in Judges 11, in the story of Jephthah. Jephthah makes a vow to the Lord that if he is victorious in battle, he will sacrifice

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

  the part of God. In Genesis, however, we rather get the impression of an experiment gone awry: “the L ORD was sorry that he made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” In this respect, the Genesis account resembles the Babylonian myth of Atrahasis. There, too, the gods come to regret that they made humanity, and in fact this happens several times. The problem is that human beings multiply too quickly and become too noisy, and so the gods send plague and disease to destroy them. Each time the god Ea comes to the rescue of human beings and reveals a plan to the wise human Atrahasis. Finally, the gods send a flood. Genesis dispenses with the attempts to destroy humanity by disease and goes directly to the flood. It is also characteristic of Genesis that the problem is wickedness rather than population or noise control. There are two versions of the flood story in Babylonian literature. In one, the flood hero is Atrahasis. In the other, which is part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, he is Utnapishtim. The biblical story is clearly indebted to this story in some form. All the flood heroes, reasonably, cover their vessels with pitch or bitumen. Utnapishtim’s ark, like Noah’s, comes to rest on a mountaintop, and he sends out birds (a dove, swallow, and raven), to test whether the waters have subsided. When they emerge from the ark, each of the heroes offers a sacrifice. In the Atrahasis myth, when the gods smell the fragrance, they gather like flies over the offering. Nonetheless, the god Enlil is angry that life has survived. The gods reach a compromise so that human population will be controlled by less drastic afflictions (wild beasts, famine, unsuccessful births). In the J account, too, YHWH is pleased by the odor of the sacrifice, but he reacts more generously than his Babylonian counterparts. Humanity is not entirely to blame, “for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth,” and so YHWH resolves that he will never again destroy every living creature as he almost did with the flood. The Priestly account of the flood is characterized by the typical Priestly interest in precise detail. Noah is given specific measurements for the ark. Only one pair of each kind of animal is taken, reflecting the Priestly preference for binary opposites. Events are dated precisely. The flood occurs in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. He emerges from the ark in his six hundred and first year, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month. Like the

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

  measure” (5:22). Here again there is a hint that this degree of suffering cannot be fully explained as just punishment from God. The book of Lamentations is cherished mainly for its poetic expression of unspeakable horror. As such, it has lent itself readily to recurring situations in every century, not least the twentieth. There is anger toward taunting neighbors but surprisingly little toward the Babylonians, who were the main agents of Jerusalem’s misery. The reason is presumably that the Babylonians were believed to act on behalf of the God of Israel. It is not unusual for victims of violence to blame themselves and view the violence as punishment. The biblical reactions to the fall of Jerusalem take this attitude to an extreme. Only occasionally does Lamentations hint that the punishment is “beyond measure” or indeed unjustifiable in its severity. For a more thorough reflection on the justice of God, we will have to wait for the book of Job. Lamentations fills its role in the canon by testifying to the depth of human suffering and expressing the basic human emotion of grief. FOR FURTHER READING Habakkuk F. I. Andersen, Habakkuk (AB 25; New York: Doubleday, 1991). Detailed philological commentary. M. H. Floyd, Minor Prophets Part 2 (FOTL 22; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 79–162. Form-critical analysis. R. D. Haak, Habakkuk (VTSup 44; Leiden: Brill, 1992). Detailed study of text and historical context. T. Hiebert, “The Book of Habakkuk,” NIB 7:623–55. Brief homiletical commentary. J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL; Louisville: Westminster, 1991). Textual and philological analysis. M. A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets (Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN, 2000), 2:451–90. Concise exegetical commentary. Jeremiah L. C. Allen Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster, 2008). Literary and theological commentary on the canonical form of the book. J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB 21; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965). Helpful but dated commentary. Regards much of the book as historically reliable. W. Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). Theological and homiletical commentary. R. P. Carroll, Jeremiah (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986). Regards most of the text as the product of later editors. S. Davidson, Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of the Book of Jeremiah (London: T&T Clark, 2011). Reading of selected passages in Jeremiah from the perspective of the exiles. W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (2 vols.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986–1989). Detailed commentary. Exceptional confidence in the historical reliability of the book. P. J. King, Jeremiah: An Archaeological Companion (Louisville: Westminster, 1993). Useful collection of pertinent archaeological evidence. J. R. Lundbom, Jeremiah (3 vols. AB 21A–C; New York: Doubleday, 1999– 2004). Emphasis on rhetorical criticism. ————, “Jeremiah, Book of,” ABD 3:707–21. Summary of critical issues.

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

  LAMENTATIONS The book of Lamentations has traditionally been ascribed to Jeremiah. Significantly, this attribution is not found in the Hebrew Bible, where Lamentations is separated from Jeremiah and placed among the Writings. It is, however, found in the LXX, which may depend on a lost Hebrew original. The book is ascribed to Jeremiah in the Targums and in the rabbinic literature. The consensus of modern scholarship is that Jeremiah was not the author. If he were, it would be difficult to explain why this is not claimed in the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, if the lamentations were originally anonymous, it is easy to understand why they might have been associated with Jeremiah. The prophet was a witness to the fall of Jerusalem, uttered mournful prophecies (e.g., 9:1: “O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people”), and was said to have written laments (2 Chron 35:25). Most scholars assume that Lamentations was composed shortly after the fall of Jerusalem when grief was still fresh. They are highly stylized poems that stand in a long tradition of laments for cities that dates back to the end of the third millennium. There are several Sumerian works in the genre, of which the most famous is probably the Lament for Ur ( ANET, 455). The Hebrew lamentations are carefully constructed. All five poems are shaped in some way by the Hebrew alphabet. Poems one, two, and four are simple acrostics of twenty-two stanzas each; that is, the first word of each stanza begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet (which has twenty-two letters). The third poem is more complex and stands out as the center of the book. There each stanza has three lines, and each line begins with the appropriate letter (so there are three lines with aleph, three with beth, etc.). The fifth poem is not an acrostic but has twenty-two lines corresponding to the number of letters in the alphabet. The poems then are not spontaneous outpourings, but they are no less authentic for that. “Sirrush”, a mythical creature depicted on glazed brick tile, from the Ishtar Gate, Babylon. It is likely that Lamentations was used in mourning rituals from an early time.

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

  ultimately a person of goodwill, that he has the decency to deplore injustice. Nathan’s technique would not work for an Elijah or an Amos who had adversarial relations with the kings of their day. But where the parable can work, it is more likely to lead the listener to repentance than the fiery denunciations characteristic of later prophets. The child born to Bathsheba dies. If this is punishment for David’s sin, we must feel that the punishment is misplaced. It is characteristic of David that he escapes the consequences of his actions by well-timed repentance. Moreover, Bathsheba becomes the mother of David’s eventual heir, Solomon. Once again, providence works in unexpected ways, and the Lord seems to write with crooked lines. As we have seen already in the story of Jacob, the blessing of the Lord is not necessarily reserved for virtuous people. The pattern of sin, repentance, and misplaced punishment is evident again in the last story in 2 Samuel, the story of the census in chapter 24. The purpose of the census is not stated explicitly, but it is transparent—it is a prelude to taxation. Hence the resistance even of David’s loyal henchman, Joab. David, characteristically, repents after the deed is done. Yet he is offered his choice of punishment, and it falls primarily on the people (even if we assume that David was grieved by their suffering). Supposedly, seventy thousand people died. Again, the punishment is misplaced. David does not lose the favor of the Lord. The upshot of this incident is that he acquires the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite and builds an altar to the Lord. This threshing floor is later identified as the site of Solomon’s temple (1 Chron 22:1; 2 Chron 3:1).

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

  THE CONCLUSION OF DAVID’S RISE The story of David’s rise to power is completed in 2 Sam 1:1—5:10. David mourns ostentatiously for Saul, even killing the messenger who brought Saul’s crown to him. The lament (“how the mighty are fallen”) is a moving poem. David is clearly the implied speaker, even apart from the narrative context. This does not necessarily mean that it was composed by David. We have several compositions in the book of Psalms that are related to episodes in David’s life. David was regarded as the composer of psalms par excellence, as Solomon was the composer of proverbs. The lament for Saul and Jonathan could have been composed much later and placed on David’s lips. David moves quickly to consolidate his position as the heir apparent. He goes first to Hebron, where he is anointed king by his own tribe, Judah. (The supposed anointing by Samuel when he was still a boy was evidently insufficient.) Hebron is near David’s hometown of Bethlehem. It was associated with Abraham in Genesis. It may be that David was anointed there because of the association with Abraham, but some scholars think that the tradition about Abraham was invented later, and that Abraham was modeled on David rather than the reverse. David’s claim to monarchy was not undisputed, however. At the same time, Ishbaal, son of Saul, became king over the rest of Israel, with the support of the general Abner. (Ishbaal means “man of Baal.” The fact that a son of Saul, the king of Israel, had a name honoring Baal indicates that other deities besides YHWH were worshiped in Israel at this time.) There follows “a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David” (3:1). Eventually, Abner quarrels with Ishbaal and offers to bring all Israel over to David. He is murdered, however, by David’s general Joab in revenge for the killing of Joab’s brother. David makes public lamentation for Abner but takes no punitive action against Job at this time. Once again, David escapes blame for the death of a rival. When Ishbaal is murdered shortly thereafter, David not only disavows responsibility but executes the murderers who had sought and expected his favor. Eventually,

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  Urbane and cultivated, my parents spoke of how they wanted to visit the great cathedrals of Europe, a mark of their steadfastness to Catholicism. [image file=Image00034.jpg] Mother and Dad’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with their five children: (L to R) me, Peggy, David, Cathy, Ronnie. The anniversary party was a worldly affair—my mother wore a floor-length blue gown, her hair swept up in an elegant chignon at the back of her head, while my dad was dapper in his own fashion. The house was jammed with friends both from the Center and beyond, all there to celebrate a marriage that had been forced into hiding for so many years. The seven of us Walshes posed for pictures as a family—there had been nothing like this before in our lives. It was a far cry from life only two years earlier. And after the cake and the pictures were done, the five of us children presented our parents with an all-expense-paid three-week trip to England, Germany, France, and Italy. It was the start of a thirty-year adventure that saw them visit and revisit the great Catholic sites of Europe. After the guests had left the anniversary party and the cameras had stopped clicking, my parents sat together on the couch. The atmosphere was quiet, and as I plopped myself into an upholstered wing chair next to them, all of us still in our festive attire, it seemed a good moment to talk to them about the Center and to hear from them how it had unfolded, a subject that had been on my mind for the last few years but which I had been reluctant to discuss. They spoke softly and without rancor of how their faith mattered to them, how they truly believed in the dogma of “No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church.” If that meant being scorned by the world and the Church they loved, they were prepared to accept that burden. They may have been excommunicated in the eyes of the world, they said, but in their own eyes they were the true Catholics. They told me that they had no problem living a communal life, studying together and eating meals as a community, and even going out on the road to sell books. What they were not prepared for, however, was the rupturing of their family and the loss of their role as parents. My father likened the ever-tightening grip on their lives to a snowball. “First it was small,” he said. “Each new rule seemed insignificant on its own, but before long, it had become monumental, and we felt trapped.” My mother’s voice became emotional when she spoke of the separation of the families. “It was the most awful day of my life. Brother Henry, in his cold, haughty manner, told us that all the children three years of age and older would no longer live with their parents but would be under the supervision of Sister Matilda.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  challenges, disappointments, humiliations, and other hurdles in life. I’m an optimist through and through—no matter how bad the news, or how daunting the situation, my instinct is to create a solution and see it through to make the situation right again. I left the Center at the tender age of seventeen, brokenhearted and feeling deserted. But that door through which I was kicked out was the same door that opened onto a world I had so passionately wanted to explore since I was a small child. The optimist in me seized the opportunity to learn (silently and timidly at first) and to vault forward on the expedition of my life. Some ventures were formidable, but the journey has been extraordinarily fulfilling. There simply has been no time for self-pity. If I let myself dwell on the emotional pain I experienced, I would unfairly ignore all the good that God’s grace has showered on me, not the least of which is the blessing associated with raising my own children in a warm and loving family environment. Happiness is finding peace, joy, and inspiration in the array of things one does in life. It is also moving on from what cannot be undone. It was grace, earned in those years of tribulation, that allowed me to find a way forward uninhibited by remorse and anger.