Hope

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 The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  various degrees of theoretical rationalization (28). A theodicy may, first, be established by projecting compensation for the anomic phenomena into a future understood in this-worldly terms. When the proper time comes (typically, as a result of some divine intervention), the sufferers will be consoled and the unjust will be punished. In other words, the suffering and the injustice of the present are explained with reference to their future nomization. Under this category, of course, must be placed the different manifestations of religious messianism, millenarianism, and eschatology (29). These manifestations, as one would expect, are historically associated with times of crisis and disaster, naturally or socially caused. For example, the sufferings of the Black Death gave birth to a number of violent millenarian movements, but so did the social displacements brought on by the Industrial Revolution. “The Lord is coming!”—this has been a rallying cry in times of acute affliction over and over again. Within the orbit of the Biblical tradition (that is, the Jewish-Christian-Muslim orbit), as a result of its pervasive stress on the historical dimension of divine action, this rallying cry has been particularly frequent. From the pre- exilic prophets of ancient Israel to the fantastic figure of Shabbatai Zvi, from the imminent expectation of the parousia in the first Christian communities to the great millenarian movements of modern Protestantism, from the Abbasid rebellion to the Sudanese Mahdi—the cry repeats itself, with whatever modifications in ideational content. The land is dry and parched—but soon Yahweh will come forth from his holy mountain and make the clouds give water. The martyrs are dying in the arena—but soon Christ will appear on the clouds, bringing down the Beast and setting up his Kingdom. The infidels rule the land—but soon will come the Mahdi, assisted by the resurrected saints of all ages, and establish the 84

• From Going Clear (2013)

  He pressed a book into Haggis’s hands. “ You have a mind,” Logan said. “This is the owner’s manual.” Then he demanded, “Give me two dollars.” The book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health , by L. Ron Hubbard, which was published in 1950. By the time Logan pushed it on Haggis, the book had sold more than two million copies throughout the world. Haggis opened the book and saw a page stamped with the words “Church of Scientology.” “Take me there,” he said to Logan. At the time, there were only a handful of Scientologists in the entire province of Ontario. By coincidence, Haggis had heard about the organization a couple of months earlier, from a friend who had called it a cult. That interested Haggis; he considered the possibility of doing a documentary film about it. When he arrived at the church’s quarters in London, it certainly didn’t look like a cult—two young men occupying a hole-in-the-wall office above Woolworth’s five-and-dime. As an atheist, Haggis was wary of being dragged into a formal belief system. In response to his skepticism, Logan showed him a passage by Hubbard that read: “ What is true is what is true for you. No one has any right to force data on you and command you to believe it or else. If it is not true for you, it isn’t true. Think your own way through things, accept what is true for you, discard the rest. There is nothing unhappier than one who tries to live in a chaos of lies.” These words resonated with Haggis. Although he didn’t realize it, Haggis was being drawn into the church through a classic, four-step “dissemination drill” that recruiters are carefully trained to follow. The first step is to make contact, as Jim Logan did with Haggis in 1975. The second step is to disarm any antagonism the individual may display toward Scientology. Once that’s done, the task is to “ find the ruin”—that is, the problem most on the mind of the potential recruit. For Paul, it was a turbulent romance. The fourth step is to convince the subject that Scientology has the answer. “ Once the person is aware of the ruin, you bring about an understanding that Scientology can handle the condition,” Hubbard writes. “It’s at the right moment on this step that one … directs him to the service that will best handle what he needs handled.” At that point, the potential recruit has officially been transformed into a Scientologist. Paul responded to every step in an almost ideal manner. He and his girlfriend took a course together and, shortly thereafter, became Hubbard Qualified Scientologists, one of the first levels in what the church calls the Bridge to Total Freedom. HAGGIS WAS BORN in 1953, the oldest of three children. His father, Ted, ran a construction company specializing in roadwork—mostly laying asphalt and pouring sidewalks, curbs, and gutters.

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

  Et sans desconfort La passons d’un cueur fort Quand ce viendra au point. "Tu es la vraye et parfaite douceur, Sans amertume, despit ne rigueur: Fay nous savourer, Aymer et adorer, Ta tresdouce bonté; Fay nous desirer, Et tousiours demeurer En ta douce unité. "Nostre esperanc’ en autre n’est qu’en toy, Sur ta promesse est fondée nostre foy: Vueilles augmenter, Ayder et conforter Nostre espoir tellement, Que bien surmonter Nous puissions, et Porter Tout mal patiemment. "A toy cryons comme povres banys, Enfans d’Eve pleins de maux infinis: A toy souspirons, Gemissons et plorons, En la vallée de plours; Pardon requerons Et salut desirons, Nous confessans pecheurs. "Or avant donq, nostre Mediateur, Nostre advocat et propiciateur, Tourne tes doux yeux Icy en ces bas lieux, Et nous vueille monstrer Le haut Dieu des Dieux, Et aveq toy ’és cieux Nous faire tous entrer. "O debonnair’, o pitoyabl’ et doux, Des ames saintes amyabl’ espoux, Seigneur Iesus Christ, Encontre L’antechrist Remply de cruauté, Donne nous L’esprit De suyvir ton escript En vraye verité." CHAPTER XIX.THEODORE BEZA.Sources: Beza’s Correspondence, mostly unprinted, but many letters are given in the Beilagen zu Baum’s Theodor Beza (see below), and in Herminjard’s Correspondance des réformateurs dans les pays de langue française (vols. VI. sqq.); and his published works (the list to the number of ninety is given in the article "Bèze, Théodore de," in Haag, La France Protestante, 2d ed. by Bordier, vol. II., cols. 620–540). By far the most important of them are, his Vita J. Calvini, best ed. in Calvin’s Opera, XXI., and his Tractationes theologicae (1582). He also had much to do with the Histoire ecclesiastique des églises reformées au royaume de France, best ed. by Baum, Cunitz, and Rodolphe Reuss (the son of Edward Reuss, the editor of Calvin), Paris, 1883–1889. 3 vols. small quarto. Antoine de La Faye: De vita et obitu Th. Bezae, Geneva, 1606.—Friedrich Christoph Schlosser: Leben des Theodor de Beza und des Peter Martyr Vermili, Heidelberg, 1809.—*Johann Wilhelm Baum: Theodor Beza nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt, Leipzig, I. Theil, 1848, with Beilagen to bks. I. and II. II. Theil, 1861, with Anhang die Beilagen enthaltend, 1862 (unfortunately this masterly book only extends to 1663).—*Heinrich Heppe: Theodor Beza. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, Elberfeld, 1861 (contains the whole life, but is inferior in style to Baum).—Art. Beza by Bordier in La France Protestante.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Monsieur de Corville, worthy of his country's highest posts, attained to them, and, whatever were his honors, he employed them for no end but to bring happiness to the people, glory to his master, whom, "although a minister," he served well, and fortune to his friends. O you who have wept tears upon hearing of Virtue's miseries; you who have been moved to sympathy for the woe-ridden Justine; the while forgiving the perhaps too heavy brushstrokes we have found ourselves compelled to employ, may you at least extract from this story the same moral which determined Madame de Lorsange! May you be convinced, with her, that true happiness is to be found nowhere but in Virtue's womb, and that if, in keeping with designs it is not for us to fathom, God permits that it be persecuted on Earth, it is so that Virtue may be compensated by Heaven's most dazzling rewards.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  I could smell the cigarettes and chocolate on his breath. “You can do it,” Coach said. Oh, man, that sounded just like Eugene. He always shouted that during any game I ever played. It could be, like, a three-legged sack race, and Gene would be all drunk and happy in the stands and he’d be shouting out, “Junior, you can do it!” Yeah, that Eugene, he was a positive dude even as an alcoholic who ended up getting shot in the face and killed. Jeez, what a sucky life. I was about to play the biggest basketball game of my life and all I could think about was my dad’s dead best friend. So many ghosts. “You can do it,” Coach said again. He didn’t shout it. He whispered it. Like a prayer. And he kept whispering again. Until the prayer turned into a song. And then, for some magical reason, I believed in him. Coach had become, like, the priest of basketball, and I was his follower. And I was going to follow him onto the court and shut down my best friend. I hoped so. “I can do it,” I said to Coach, to my teammates, to the world. “You can do it,” Coach said. “I can do it.” “You can do it.” “I can do it.” Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It’s one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they’re the four hugest words in the world when they’re put together. You can do it. I can do it. Let’s do it. We all screamed like maniacs as we ran out of the locker room and onto the basketball court, where two thousand maniac fans were also screaming. The Reardan band was rocking some Led Zeppelin. As we ran through our warm-up layup drills, I looked up into the crowd to see if my dad was in his usual place, high up in the northwest corner. And there he was. I waved at him. He waved back. Yep, my daddy was an undependable drunk. But he’d never missed any of my organized games, concerts, plays, or picnics. He may not have loved me perfectly, but he loved me as well as he could. My mom was sitting in her usual place on the opposite side of the court from Dad. Funny how they did that. Mom always said that Dad made her too nervous; Dad always said that Mom made him too nervous. Penelope was yelling and screaming like crazy, too. I waved at her; she blew me a kiss. Great, now I was going to have to play the game with a boner. Ha-ha, just kidding. So we ran through layups and three-on-three weave drills and free throws and pick and rolls, and then the evil Wellpinit five came running out of the visitors’ locker room.

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

  In this great emergency his character shone forth in all its strength and splendor; he bore what God laid upon him in silence and made no complaint. Meanwhile Lewis the German came to his support. In 846 the see of Bremen became vacant. The see of Hamburg was then united to that of Bremen, and to this new see, which Ansgar was called to fill, a papal bull of May 31, 864, gave archiepiscopal rank. Installed in Bremen, Ansgar immediately took up again the Danish mission and again with success. He won even king Horich himself for the Christian cause, and obtained permission from him to build a church in Hedeby, the first Christian church in Denmark, dedicated to Our Lady. Under king Horich’s son this church was allowed to have bells, a particular horror to the heathens, and a new and larger church was commenced in Ribe. By Ansgar’s activity Christianity became an established and acknowledged institution in Denmark, and not only in Denmark but also in Sweden, which he visited once more, 848–850. The principal feature of his spiritual character was ascetic severity; he wore a coarse hair-shirt close to the skin, fasted much and spent most of his time in prayer. But with this asceticism he connected a great deal of practical energy; he rebuked the idleness of the monks, demanded of his pupils that they should have some actual work at hand, and was often occupied in knitting, while praying. His enthusiasm and holy raptures were also singularly well-tempered by good common sense. To those who wished to extol his greatness and goodness by ascribing miracles to him, he said that the greatest miracle in his life would be, if God ever made a thoroughly pious man out of him.129 Most prominent, however, among the spiritual features of his character shines forth his unwavering faith in the final success of his cause and the never-failing patience with which this faith fortified his soul. In spite of apparent failure he never gave up his work; overwhelmed with disaster, he still continued it. From his death-bed he wrote a letter to king Lewis to recommend to him the Scandinavian mission. Other missionaries may have excelled him in sagacity and organizing talent, but none in heroic patience and humility. He died at Bremen, Feb. 3, 865, and lies buried there in the church dedicated to him. He was canonized by Nicholas I.

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

  Such a personage as Augustine, still holding a mediating place between the two great divisions of Christendom, revered alike by both, and of equal influence with both, is furthermore a welcome pledge of the elevating prospect of a future reconciliation of Catholicism and Protestantism in a higher unity, conserving all the truths, losing all the errors, forgiving all the sins, forgetting all the enmities of both. After all, the contradiction between authority and freedom, the objective and the subjective, the churchly and the personal, the organic and the individual, the sacramental and the experimental in religion, is not absolute, but relative and temporary, and arises not so much from the nature of things, as from the deficiencies of man’s knowledge and piety in this world. These elements admit of an ultimate harmony in the perfect state of the church, corresponding to the union of the divine and human natures, which transcends the limits of finite thought and logical comprehension, and is yet completely realized in the person of Christ. They are in fact united in the theological system of St. Paul, who had the highest view of the church, as the mystical "body of Christ," and "the pillar and ground of the truth," and who was at the same time the great champion of evangelical freedom, individual responsibility, and personal union of the believer with his Saviour. We believe in and hope for one holy catholic apostolic church, one communion of saints, one fold, and one Shepherd. The more the different churches become truly Christian, or draw nearer to Christ, and the more they give real effect to His kingdom, the nearer will they come to one another. For Christ is the common head and vital centre of all believers, and the divine harmony of all discordant human sects and creeds. In Christ, says Pascal, one of the greatest and noblest disciples of Augustine, In Christ all contradictions are solved. LIST OF POPES AND EMPERORSFrom Constantine the Great to Gregory the Great, A.D. 314–590. Comp. the lists in vol. ii. 166 sqq., and vol. iv. 205 Sqq. This list is based upon Jaffé’s Regesta, Potthast’s Biblioth. Hist. Medii Aevi, and Cardinal Hergenröther’s list, in his Kirchengesch., third ed. (1886), vol. iii. 1057 sqq. Date Pope Emperor Date 311–314 Melchiades Constantine I, or The Great 306 (323)–337 314–335 Silvester I 336–337 Marcus Constantine II (in Gaul) 337–340 337–352 Julius I Constantius II (In the East) 337–350 Constans (In Italy) " 352–66 Liberius 357 Filix II, Antipope Constantius Alone 350–361 Julian 361–363 Jovian 363–364 366–843 Damasus Valentinian I 364–375 Valens 364–378 366–367 Ursicinus, Antipope Gratian 375–383 Valentinian II (in the West) 375–392 385–398 Siricius Theodosius 379–395 398–402 Anastasius Arcadius (in the East) 395–408 402–417 Innocent I Honorius (in the West) 395–423 417–418 Zosimus Theodosius II (E.) 408–450 418–422 Bonifacius (418 Dec. 27) (Eulalius, Antipope) 422–432 Coelestinus I Valentinian III (W.) 423–455 432–440 Sixtus III 440–461 Leo I the Great Marcian (E.) 450–457 Maximus Avitus (W.) 455–457 Majorian (W.) 457–461 Leo I. (E.)

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Chapter 34 The next day I cast an appraising eye upon my companions: those four girls ranged from twenty-five to thirty years of age; although bestialized and besotted by misery and warped by excessive drudgery, they still had the remnants of beauty; their figures were handsome, and the youngest, called Suzanne, still had, together with charming eyes, very fine hair; Roland had seized her in Lyon, he had deflowered her, and after having sworn to her family he would marry her, he had brought her to this frightful chateau, where she had been three years his slave, and during that period she had been especially singled out to be the object of the monster's ferocities: by dint of blows from the bull's pizzle, her buttocks had become as calloused and toughened as would be cow's hide dried in the sun; she had a cancer upon her left breast and an abscess in her matrix which caused her unspeakable suffering; all that was the perfidious Roland's achievement; each of those horrors was the fruit of his lecheries. It was she who informed me Roland was on the eve of departing for Venice if the considerable sums he had very recently shipped to Spain could be converted into letters of credit he needed for Italy, for he did not want to transport his gold east across the Alps; never did he send any in that direction: it was in a different country from the one he had decided to inhabit that he circulated his false coins; by this device, rich to be sure but only in the banknotes of another kingdom, his rascalities could never be detected in the land where he planned to take up his next abode. But everything could be overthrown within the space of an instant and the retirement he envisioned wholly depended upon this latest transaction in which the bulk of his treasure was compromised. Were Cadiz to accept his false piasters, sequins, and louis, and against them send him letters negotiable in Venice, Roland would be established for the rest of his days; were the fraud to be detected, one single day would suffice to demolish the fragile edifice of his fortune. "Alas!" I remarked upon learning these details, "Providence will be just for once. It will not countenance the success of such a monster, and all of us will be revenged...." Great God I in view of the experience I had acquired, how was I able thus to reason!

• From Between Us

  I also started to look outward for answers on emotions, because this is closer to how people from many other cultures think about emotions. I conducted research in Japan, Korea, Turkey, and Mexico, and among immigrants from these countries to the United States, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Many of these individuals talk about emotional events as taking place between people, while de-emphasizing inner feelings—another reason to follow emotion’s tracks outwards. In Between Us, I will introduce you to this radically different way of thinking about our emotions: one that ties them to our position in the world, our relationships with others, and to the sociocultural contexts in which we participate. I will show how your emotions engage you with, and make you part of, the communities in which you live. I will reveal how emotions are OURS as much as they are MINE. Adopting this perspective on emotions will enrich your emotional life, adding to your understanding of your own and other people’s emotions. It will make transparent the many ways in which our feelings make us social and connect us to others. An OURS perspective on emotions does not so much replace as supplement the MINE model of emotion. Perhaps most important is that an OURS model of emotions provides us with tools to understand and navigate the differences in emotions across cultures, genders, generations, ethnic and racial groups, socioeconomic groups, and even between individuals with different personal histories (as was the case for my parents and me). This understanding may have never been more important than it is today. As our societies grow increasingly multicultural, our business organizations, schools, courtrooms, and health institutions are meeting points for different groups and cultures. Emotions are the currency of many of these intercultural encounters, yet we do not all use the same currency. Understanding how the emotions of each of us are tied to our respective social and cultural contexts will allow us to respectfully communicate about, and even resonate with, differences in emotions. Between Us helps to resolve differences—even clashes—between individuals from different groups and cultures. Undeniably, my motivation to write this book was strengthened by growing nationalism, xenophobia, white supremacy, racism, and religious intolerance in the United States, Western Europe, and beyond. But more of an incentive still has been that people with the best intentions—people who want to be inclusive—believe that to say that people from other groups or cultures have different emotions is equivalent to denying their humanity. If you are one of these people, I hope to convince you of the opposite.

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

  merciful doctrine, did not use Christ’s blessed words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of God." But they did not. The doctrine of original sin and the doctrine of the necessity of water baptism for salvation were carried to their extreme logical conclusions without regard for the superabounding grace of God. So also Augustine had taught and so most of the Reformers taught at a later time. Christ’s descent into hades was carefully discussed by the Schoolmen. It occurred as soon as his soul was separated from the body at his death. He was in the infernal regions during the three days of his burial, but did not assume their pains. The reason for this visit was twofold, says Bonaventura, —to release the Old Testament saints and to confound the adversaries of the Gospel, the demons.1823 Thomas Aquinas tried to show that, when Job said, Job 17:16, "my hope shall go down to the bars of Sheol," or into the "deepest hell," as the Vulgate puts it, he meant that he went no farther than the limbus patrum and not to the abode of the lost.1824 Christ descended into hades, according to Thomas,1825 for a threefold purpose, to deliver us from the necessity of going there ourselves; to release the Hebrew saints by breaking the bars of hell—vectes inferni,—that is, by "spoiling principalities and powers," Col. 2:15; and third, to make show of his divinity—manifestatio divinitatis — to the demons by preaching, 1 Pet. 3:19, and by enlightening those dark spaces with his presence, as it is said, Ps. 24:7, "Lift up your doors, O ye princes, and the king of glory shall come in." Here again the Vulgate is responsible for a mistake, the word "gates" being translated "princes."1826 Christ’s descent into hades did not help the unbaptized children. After this life it is too late to acquire grace.1827 Purgatory is a sort of reformatory school for baptized Catholics who are not good enough at death to go directly to heaven. They are there in that intermediate region for actual transgressions,1828 whose guilt the sacrament of penance and extreme unction had not fully removed. The existence of purgatory is based mainly upon 2 Mac. 12:40 and the universal teaching of the Church.1829 Its inhabitants belong to the communion of saints and are within the reach of human intercession. Masses for the dead are instituted to meet their case. For infants in the limbus puerorum, such intercessory works are of no avail. But one who has been baptized in infancy or manhood, no matter how flagitious or criminal his career may have been, for him there is hope, nay there is certainty, that in time he will pass out of purgatory into the company of the blessed.

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

  While the dogma of transubstantiation enacted by the 4th Lateran, 1215, and the dogma of papal infallibility passed by the Vatican council injected elements of permanent division into the Church, the Council of Constance unified Latin Christendom and ended the schism which had been a cause of scandal for forty years. The validity of its decree putting an oecumenical council above the pope, after being disputed for centuries, was officially set aside by the conciliar vote of 1870. For Protestants the decision at Constance is an onward step towards a right definition of the final seat of religious authority. It remained for Luther, forced to the wall by Eck at Leipzig, and on the ground of the error committed by the Council of Constance, in condemning the godly man, John Huss, to deny the infallibility of councils and to place the seat of infallible authority in the Scriptures, as interpreted by conscience. Note on the Oecumenical Character of the Council of Constance.

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

  In the attempt to make good this judgment, these recent writers not only have laid stress upon "the good old times,"—a description which the people of the 16th century would have repudiated,1351 — but have resorted to the defamation of the German Reformer’s character, setting aside the contemporaries who knew him best, and violently perverting Luther’s own words. Imbart de la Tour, the most recent French historian of this school, on reaching the year 1517, exclaims, "The era of peaceful reforms was at an end; the era of religious revolution was about to open."1352 Lefèvre d’Etaples was not alone when he uttered the famous words: — The signs of the times announce that a reformation of the Church is near at hand and, while God is opening new paths for the preaching of the Gospel by the discoveries of the Portuguese and the Spaniards, we must hope that He will also visit His Church and raise her from the abasement into which she has now fallen. The Philosophy of Christ,—the name which Erasmus gave to the Gospel in his Paraclesis, prefixed to his edition of the New Testament,—was to a large degree covered over by the dialectical theology of the Schoolmen. What men needed was the Gospel and the bishop of Isernia, preaching at the Fifth Lateran council in its 12th session, spoke better than he knew when he exclaimed: "The Gospel is the fountain of all wisdom, of all knowledge. From it has flowed all the higher virtue, all that is divine and worthy of admiration. The Gospel, I say the Gospel." The words were spoken on the very eve of the Reformation and the council of the Middle Ages failed utterly to offer any real remedy for the religious degeneracy. The Reformer came from the North, not from Rome and as from another Nazareth. The angel of God had to descend again and trouble the waters and a single personality touched in conscience proved himself mightier than the wisdom of theology and wiser than the rulers of the visible Church. Remarkable the Middle Ages were for their bold enterprises in thought and action and they are an important part of the history of the Church. We acknowledge our debt, but their superstitions and errors we set aside as we move on in the pathway of a more intelligent devotion and broader human, sympathies, towards an age when all who profess the Gospel shall unite together in the unity of the faith in the Son of God. Remarkable the Middle Ages were for their bold enterprises in thought and action and they are an important part of the history of the Church. We acknowledge our debt, but their superstitions and errors we set aside as we move on in the pathway of a more intelligent devotion and broader human, sympathies, towards an age when all who profess the Gospel shall unite together in the unity of the faith in the Son of God.

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

  But now some ahadith claimed that the wars of conquest heralded the Last Days 61 and imagined Muhammad speaking as a doomsday prophet: “Behold! God has sent me with a sword, just before the Hour.” 62 Muslim warriors are depicted as an elite vanguard fighting the battles of the end time. 63 When the end came, all Muslims would have to abandon the ease of settled life and join the army, which would not only defeat Byzantium but complete the conquest of Central Asia, India, and Ethiopia. Some soldiers were dreaming of martyrdom, and the ahadith supplemented with Christian imagery the Quran’s brief remarks about the fate of those who die in battle. 64 Like the Greek martus, the Arabic shahid meant “one who bears witness” to Islam by making the ultimate surrender. Ahadith list his heavenly rewards: he would not have to wait in the grave for the Last Judgment like everybody else, but would ascend immediately to a special place in paradise. In the sight of God the martyr has six [unique] qualities: He [God] forgives him at the first opportunity, and shows him his place in paradise; he is saved from the torment of the grave, he is safe from the great fright [of the Last Judgment], a crown of honor is placed upon his head—one ruby of which is better than the world and all that is in it—he is married to 72 of the houris [women of paradise], and he gains the right to intercede [with God] for 70 of his relatives. 65 As a reward for his hard life in the army, the martyr will drink wine, wear silk clothes, and bask in the sexual delights he had forsaken for the jihad. But other Muslims, who were not so wedded to the new military ideal, would insist that any untimely death was a martyrdrom: drowning, plague, fire, or accident also “bore witness” to human finitude, showing that there was no security in the human institutions in which people put their trust but only in the illimitable God. 66 It was probably inevitable that, as Muslims made their astonishing transition from a life of penury to world rule, there would be disagreements about leadership, the allocation of resources, and the morality of empire. 67 In 656 Uthman was killed during a mutiny of soldiers backed by the Quran reciters, the guardians of Islamic tradition who were opposed to the growing centralization of power in the ummah.

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

  May we not then cherish at least a charitable hope, if not a certain belief, that a God of infinite love and justice will receive into his heavenly kingdom all those who die innocently ignorant of the Christian revelation, but in a state of preparedness or disposition for the gospel, so that they would thankfully accept it if offered to them? Cornelius was in such a condition before Peter entered his house, and he represents a multitude which no man can number. We cannot know and measure the secret operations of the Spirit of God, who works "when, where, and how he pleases." Surely, here is a point where the rigor of the old orthodoxy, whether Roman Catholic, or Lutheran, or Calvinistic, must be moderated. And the Calvinistic system admits more readily of an expansion than the churchly and sacramental type of orthodoxy. The General Love of God to all Men. This doctrine of a divine will and divine provision of a universal salvation, on the sole condition of faith, is taught in many passages which admit of no other interpretation, and which must, therefore, decide this whole question. For it is a settled rule in hermeneutics that dark passages must be explained by clear pas-sages, and not vice versa. Such passages are the following: — "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord our God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live" (Ezek. 18:32, 23; 33:11). "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself" (John 12:32). "God so loved the world" (that is, all mankind) "that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). "God our Saviour willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth "(1 Tim. 2:4).855 "The grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men" (Tit. 2:11). "The Lord is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9).856 "Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for (the sins of) the whole world" (1 John 2:2). It is impossible to state the doctrine of a universal atonement more clearly in so few words.857 To these passages should be added the divine exhortations to repentance, and the lament of Christ over the inhabitants of Jerusalem who "would not" come to him (Matt. 23:37). These exhortations are insincere or unmeaning, if God does not want all men to be saved, and if men have not the ability to obey or disobey the voice. The same is implied in the command of Christ to preach the gospel to the whole creation (Mark 16:15), and to disciple all nations (Matt. 28:19). It is impossible to restrict these passages to a particular class without doing violence to the grammar and the context.

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

  1860), the master-critic among sceptical church historians, and the corypheus of the Tübingen school, came at last to the conclusion (as stated in the revised edition of his Church History of the First Three Centuries, published shortly before his death, 1860) that "nothing but the miracle of the resurrection could disperse the doubts which threatened to drive faith itself into the eternal night of death (Nur das Wunder der Auferstehung konnte die Zweifel zerstreuen, welche den Glauben selbst in die ewige Nacht des Todes verstossen zu müssen schienen)." Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, I. 39. It is true he adds that the nature of the resurrection itself lies outside of historical investigation ("Was die Auferstehung an sich ist, liegt ausserhalb des Kreises der geschichtlichen Untersuchung"), but also, that "for the faith of the disciples the resurrection of Jesus became the most solid and most irrefutable certainty. In this faith only Christianity gained a firm foothold of its historical development. (In diesem Glauben hat erst das Christenthum den festen Grund seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung gewonnen.) What history requires as the necessary prerequisite of all that follows is not so much the fact of the resurrection itself [?] as the faith in that fact. In whatever light we may consider the resurrection of Jesus, whether as an actual objective miracle or as a subjective psychological one (als ein objectiv geschehenes Wunder, oder als ein subjectiv psychologisches), even granting the possibility of such a miracle, no psychological analysis can penetrate the inner spiritual process by which in the consciousness of the disciples their unbelief at the death of Jesus was transformed into a belief of his resurrection .... We must rest satisfied with this, that for them the resurrection of Christ was a fact of their consciousness, and had for them all the reality of an historical event." (Ibid., pp. 39, 40.) Baur’s remarkable conclusion concerning the conversion of St. Paul (ibid., pp. 44, 45) we shall consider in its proper place. Dr. Ewald, of Göttingen (d. 1874), the great orientalist and historian of Israel, antagonistic to Baur, his equal in profound scholarship and bold, independent, often arbitrary criticism, but superior in religious sympathy with the genius of the Bible, discusses the resurrection of Christ in his History of the Apostolic Age (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, vol. VI. 52 sqq.), instead of his Life of Christ, and resolves it into a purely spiritual, though long continued manifestation from heaven. Nevertheless he makes the strong statement (p. 69) that "nothing is historically more certain than that Christ rose from the dead and appeared to his own, and that this their vision was the beginning of their new higher faith and of an their Christian labors." "Nichts steht geschichtlich fester," he says, "als dass Christus aus den Todten auferstanden den Seinigen wiederschien und dass dieses ihr wiedersehen der anfang ihres neuen höhern glaubens und alles ihres Christlichen wirkens selbst war.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Scientology is not just a matter of belief, the recruits were constantly told; it is a step-by-step scientific process that will help you overcome your limitations and realize your full potential for greatness. Only Scientology can awaken individuals to the joyful truth of their immortal state. Only Scientology can rescue humanity from its inevitable doom. The recruits were infused with a sense of mystery, purpose, and intrigue. Life inside Scientology was just so much more compelling than life outside. Preclears sometimes experience mystical states characterized by feelings of bliss or a sense of blending into the universe. They come to expect such phenomena, and they yearn for them if they don’t occur. “ Exteriorization”—the sense that one has actually left his physical being behind—is a commonly reported occurrence for Scientologists. If one’s consciousness can actually uproot itself from the physical body and move about at will—what does that say about mortality? We must be something more than, something other than, a mere physical incarnation; we actually are thetans, to use Hubbard’s term, immortal spiritual beings that are incarnated in innumerable lifetimes. Hubbard said that exteriorization could be accomplished in about half the preclears by having the auditor simply command, “ Be three feet back of your head.” Free of the limitations of his body, the thetan can roam the universe, circling stars, strolling on Mars, or even creating entirely new universes. Reality expands far beyond what the individual had originally perceived it to be. The ultimate goal of auditing is not just to liberate a person from destructive mental phenomena; it is to emancipate him from the laws of matter, energy, space, and time—or MEST, as Hubbard termed them. These are just artifacts of the thetan’s imagination, in any case. Bored thetans had created MEST universes where they could frolic and play games; eventually, they became so absorbed in their distractions they forgot their true immortal natures. They identified with the bodies that they were temporarily inhabiting, in a universe they had invented for their own amusement. The goal of Scientology is to recall to the thetan his immortality and help him relinquish his self-imposed limitations. Once, Haggis had what he thought was an out-of-body experience. He was lying on a couch, and then he found himself across the room, observing himself lying there. The experience of being out of his body wasn’t that grand, and later he wondered if he had simply been visualizing the scene. He didn’t have the certainty his colleagues reported when they talked about seeing objects behind them or in distant places and times. In 1976, at the Manor Hotel, Haggis went “Clear.” It is the base camp for those who hope to ascend to the upper peaks of Scientology. The concept comes from Dianetics . A person who becomes Clear is “adaptable to and able to change his environment,” Hubbard writes. “His ethical and moral standards are high, his ability to seek and experience pleasure is great.

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

  On two points I have changed my opinion—the second Roman captivity of Paul (which I am disposed to admit in the interest of the Pastoral Epistles), and the date of the Apocalypse (which I now assign, with the majority of modern critics, to the year 68 or 69 instead of 95, as before).1 I express my deep obligation to my friend, Dr. Ezra Abbot, a scholar of rare learning and microscopic accuracy, for his kind and valuable assistance in reading the proof and suggesting improvements. The second volume, likewise thoroughly revised and partly rewritten, is in the hands of the printer; the third requires a few changes. Two new volumes, one on the History of Mediaeval Christianity, and one on the Reformation (to the Westphalian Treaty and the Westminster Assembly, 1648), are in an advanced stage of preparation. May the work in this remodelled shape find as kind and indulgent readers as when it first appeared. My highest ambition in this sceptical age is to strengthen the immovable historical foundations of Christianity and its victory over the world. Philip Schaff Union Theological Seminary, New York, October,1882 FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ——————————— Encouraged by the favorable reception of my "History of the Apostolic Church," I now offer to the public a History of the Primitive Church from the birth of Christ to the reign of Constantine, as an independent and complete work in itself, and at the same time as the first volume of a general history of Christianity, which I hope, with the help of God, to bring down to the present age. The church of the first three centuries, or the ante-Nicene age, possesses a peculiar interest for Christians of all denominations, and has often been separately treated, by Eusebius, Mosheim, Milman, Kaye, Baur, Hagenbach, and other distinguished historians. It is the daughter of Apostolic Christianity, which itself constitutes the first and by far the most important chapter in its history, and the common mother of Catholicism and Protestantism, though materially differing from both. It presents a state of primitive simplicity and purity unsullied by contact with the secular power, but with this also, the fundamental forms of heresy and corruption, which reappear from time to time under new names and aspects, but must serve, in the overruling providence of God, to promote the cause of truth and righteousness. It is the heroic age of the church, and unfolds before us the sublime spectacle of our holy religion in intellectual and moral conflict with the combined superstition, policy, and wisdom of ancient Judaism and Paganism; yet growing in persecution, conquering in death, and amidst the severest trials giving birth to principles and institutions which, in more matured form, still control the greater part of Christendom.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I was exclusively busied with preparing my departure when one evening a lackey clad in gray and completely unknown to me brought me a note; upon presenting it, he said his master had charged him to obtain my response without fail. The missive was worded this way: "A man who has somewhat wronged you, who believes he recognized you in the Place de Belle-cour, is most desirous to see you and to make amends for his conduct: hasten to come to meet him; he has things to tell you which may help liquidate his entire indebtedness to you." The message carried no signature and the lackey offered no explanations. Having declared I was resolved to make no answer at all lest I was informed of who his master was: "He is Monsieur de Saint-Florent, Mademoiselle," the lackey said; "he has had the honor to know you formerly in the neighbor-hood of Paris; you rendered him, he maintains, services for which he burns to attest his gratitude. Presently risen to a position of undisputed eminence in this city's commercial circles, he at once enjoys the consideration and the means which put him in a position to prove his regard for you. He awaits you." My deliberations were soon completed. If this man had other than good intentions, I said to myself, would he be apt to write to me, to have me spoken to in this fashion? He repented his past infamies, was covered with remorse, it was with horror he remembered having torn from me what I cherished most and, by inaugurating a sequence of nightmares, having reduced me to the cruelest circumstances a woman may know... yes, yes, no doubt of it, this is repentance, I should be culpable before the Supreme Being were I not to consent to assuage his sufferings. Am I in a position, furthermore, to spurn the support that is proposed here? Rather, ought I not eagerly snatch at all that is offered to relieve me? This man wishes to see me in his town house: his prosperity must surround him with servants before whom he will have to act with enough dignity to prevent him from daring to fail me again, and in my state, Great God! can I inspire anything but sympathy in him?

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

  Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948), however, disagreed with this interpretation. He had been born into a vaishya family and had many Jain friends who influenced his later attitudes. In 1914, after working for years as a lawyer in South Africa to oppose discriminatory legislation against Indians, he had returned to India and become interested in the issue of home rule, founding the Natal Indian Congress Party and developing his unique method of resisting colonial oppression by nonresistance. Besides the Hindu religious tradition, he had been influenced by Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You, John Ruskin’s Unto This Last, and Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. Central to Gandhi’s worldview was the insight, first developed in the Upanishads, that all beings were manifestations of the Brahman. Since everybody shared the same sacred core, violence went against the metaphysical bias of the entire universe. This deeply spiritual vision of the oneness of existence directly countered the aggressive separatism and chauvinism of the nation-state. Gandhi’s peaceable refusal to obey the self-serving obduracy of the British regime was based on three principles: ahimsa, satyagraha (the “soul force” that comes with the realization of the profound unity of humanity), and swaraj (“self-rule”). In the Gita, Gandhi maintained, Arjuna’s initial refusal to fight had not been true ahimsa, because he still regarded himself as different from his enemies and had not realized that they were all, friend and foe alike, embodiments of the Brahman. Had Arjuna truly understood that he and Duryodana, the adversary he was about to fight, were ultimately one, he would have acquired the “soul force” that had the power to transform an enemy’s hatred into love. But as we have seen, the same texts and spiritual practices can lead to entirely different courses of actions. Others opposed this interpretation of the Gita. The Hindu scholar Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950) argued that Krishna’s validation of violence in the Gita was simply an acknowledgment of life’s grim reality. Yes, it would be nice to remain peacefully above the fray, but until Gandhi’s “soul force” actually became an effective reality in the world, the natural aggression inherent in both men and nations “tramples down, breaks, slaughters, burns, pollutes as we see it doing today.” Gandhi might discover that he had caused as much destruction of life by abjuring violence as those who had resorted to fighting. 8 Aurobindo was voicing the view of Gandhi’s critics, who thought that he closed his eyes to the fact that the British response to his nonviolent campaigns actually resulted in hideous bloodshed.

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

  For without Thee nought we find, Pure or strong in human kind, Nought that has not gone astray. Lava quod est sordidum, Riga quod est aridum, Sana quod est saucium. Wash us from the stains of sin, Gently soften all within, Wounded spirits heal and stay. Flecte quod est rigidum, Fove quod est languidum, Rege quod est devium. What is hard and stubborn bend, What is feeble soothe and tend, What is erring gently sway. Da tuis fidelibus, In te confitentibus, Sacrum septenarium; To Thy faithful servants give, Taught by Thee to trust and live, Sevenfold blessing from this day; Da virtutis meritum, Da salutis exitum, Da perenne gaudium.488 Make our title clear, we pray, When we drop this mortal clay; Then,—O give us joy for aye.489 The following is a felicitous version by an American divine.490 Come, O Spirit! Fount of grace! From thy heavenly dwelling-place One bright morning beam impart: Come, O Father of the poor; Come, O Source of bounties sure; Come, O Sunshine of the heart! O! thrice blessed light divine! Come, the spirit’s inmost shrine With Thy holy presence fill; Of Thy brooding love bereft, Naught to hopeless man is left; Naught is his but evil still. Comforter of man the best! Making the sad soul thy guest; Sweet refreshing in our fears, In our labor a retreat, Cooling shadow in the heat, Solace in our falling tears. Wash away each earthly stain, Flow o’er this parched waste again, Real the wounds of conscience sore, Bind the stubborn will within, Thaw the icy chains of sin, Guide us, that we stray no more. Give to Thy believers, give, In Thy holy hope who live, All Thy sevenfold dower of love; Give the sure reward of faith, Give the love that conquers death, Give unfailing joy above. Notker, surnamed the Older, or Balbulus ("the little Stammerer, "from a slight lisp in his speech), was born about 850 of a noble family in Switzerland, educated in the convent of St. Gall, founded by Irish missionaries, and lived there as an humble monk. He died about 912, and was canonized in 1512.491