Joy

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 Bible: A Biography (2007)

  They saw visions, shook with wonder and awe, and experienced a rapturous transcendence that transformed the world that had seemed so cruel and alien. 36 This sense of unity and joy had to be translated into practical action because the Shekhinah could not live in a place of sorrow and pain. Sadness sprang from the forces of evil in the world, so the cultivation of happiness was essential to tikkun. To counterbalance the prevalence of Din , there must be no anger or aggression in the kabbalists’ heart, even for the goyim who had oppressed and dispossessed them. There were severe penances for faults that injured others: for sexual exploitation, malicious gossip, humiliating others and dishonouring parents. 37 Luria’s mythical rewriting of the creation story helped Jews to develop a spirit of joy and kindness at a time when they could have been overcome by rage and despair. The new discipline of sola scriptura was not able to do this for the Christians of Europe. Even after his great breakthrough, Luther remained terrified of death. He seemed constantly in a state of simmering rage: against the Pope, the Turks, Jews, women, rebellious peasants, scholastic philosophers and every single one of his theological opponents. He and Zwingli engaged in a furious controversy about the meaning of Christ’s words when he had instituted the Eucharist at the last supper, saying ‘This is my body’. 38 Calvin was appalled by the anger that had clouded the minds of the two reformers and caused an unholy rift that could and should have been avoided: ‘Both parties failed altogether to have patience to listen to each other, in order to follow truth without passion, wherever it might be found,’ he concluded. ‘I deliberately venture to assert that, if their minds had not been partly exasperated by the extreme vehemence of the controversies, the disagreement was not so great that conciliation could easily have been achieved.’ 39 It was impossible for interpreters to agree on every single passage of the Bible; disputes must be conducted humbly and with an open mind. Yet Calvin himself did not always live up to these high principles, and was prepared to execute dissenters in his own church. The Protestant Reformation expressed many of the ideals of the new culture that was emerging in the West. Instead of being based on a surplus of agricultural produce, like every previous civilization, its economy would be based on the scientific and technological replication of resources and the constant reinvestment of capital. This society had to be productive, and Calvin’s theology would be used to support the work ethic.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  The restoration of tikkun would also redeem the Bible. Kabbalists had long been aware of the flaws in their scriptures. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the God of the Hebrew Bible was one of the ‘faces’ (parzufim) of Adam Kadmon, primordial man, which was composed of six of the ‘lower’ sefiroth: Judgement (Din), Mercy, Compassion, Patience, Majesty and Stability. Originally they had been in perfect balance, but after the breaking of the vessels the destructive tendency of Din was no longer held in check by the other sefiroth. Dominated by Din, they became collectively Zeir Anpin, ‘the Impatient One’, the deity revealed in the post-lapsarian Torah. This was why the biblical God often appeared so cruel and irascible. Separated from the Shekhinah, his female counterpart, he was also irredeemably male. But there was optimism in this tragic myth. Where Luther felt that he could contribute nothing towards his own salvation, the kabbalists believed that they could transform the world, restore God to his true nature, and reform their scriptures. They did not deny their pain: indeed, the rituals of Safed were designed to help them to face it. They made night vigils, weeping and rubbing their faces in the dust, to identify their own exile with that of the Shekhinah. But Luria was adamant that there must be no wallowing. Kabbalists must work through their sorrow in a purposeful way until they achieved a measure of joy. The vigil always ended with a meditation on the final reunion of the Shekhinah with Zeir Anpin in which they imagined that their bodies had become an earthly shrine for the divine presence. They saw visions, shook with wonder and awe, and experienced a rapturous transcendence that transformed the world that had seemed so cruel and alien.36 This sense of unity and joy had to be translated into practical action because the Shekhinah could not live in a place of sorrow and pain. Sadness sprang from the forces of evil in the world, so the cultivation of happiness was essential to tikkun. To counterbalance the prevalence of Din, there must be no anger or aggression in the kabbalists’ heart, even for the goyim who had oppressed and dispossessed them. There were severe penances for faults that injured others: for sexual exploitation, malicious gossip, humiliating others and dishonouring parents.37 Luria’s mythical rewriting of the creation story helped Jews to develop a spirit of joy and kindness at a time when they could have been overcome by rage and despair.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  The Latin-speaking fathers of Western Europe and North Africa were more down to earth. It is significant that in the West, theoria came to mean a rational construct and dogma expressed everything that could be said about religion. This was a frightening time in the West, where the Roman empire was falling to the barbarian tribes from Germany and Eastern Europe. One of the most influential Western exegetes was Jerome (342–420), who was born in Dalmatia, studied literature and rhetoric in Rome and, fleeing the invading tribes, travelled in Antioch and Egypt before settling in Bethlehem where he founded a monastery. Jerome had initially been attracted to the allegorical hermeneutics of Alexandria, but as a gifted linguist, unique in his day for his mastery of both Greek and Hebrew, his chief contribution was his translation of the entire Bible into Latin. This was called the Vulgate (‘vernacular’) and it remained the standard text in Europe until the sixteenth century. At first Jerome, who had a great respect for what he called Hebraica veritas (‘the truth in Hebrew’), wanted to exclude the Apocrypha, books which had been excluded from the Canon by the rabbis, but at the request of his colleague Augustine he agreed to translate them. As a result of his work on the text, Jerome tended increasingly to concentrate in his commentaries on the Bible’s literal, historical sense. His friend Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa (354–430), had studied rhetoric and was at first disappointed in the Bible, which seemed inferior to the great Latin poets and orators. Yet the Bible played a crucial role in his conversion to Christianity after a long, painful struggle. At a moment of spiritual crisis, he had heard a child in the next garden singing a refrain: ‘tolle, lege’ (‘Pick it up and read it’) and he remembered that Antony had decided to embrace the monastic life after a reading from the gospel. In great excitement, he snatched up a copy of Paul’s epistles and read the first words that caught his eye: ‘no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.’58 In one of the first recorded ‘born-again’ conversions that would become a feature of Western Christianity, Augustine felt all his doubts fall away: ‘It was as if the light of steadfast trust poured into my heart, and all the shadows of hesitation fled away.’59

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  When they refused to accept his opinion, R. Eliezer asked God to back him up with some miracles, and – mirabile dictu – a carob tree moved four hundred cubits of its own accord; water in a conduit flowed uphill; and the walls of the house of studies shook so violently that the building seemed about to collapse. But the other rabbis were not impressed by this show of supernatural force. In desperation, R. Eliezer asked for a bat qol (‘voice from heaven’) to adjudicate and the divine voice obligingly declared: ‘What have you against R. Eliezer? The Halakah is always as he says.’ But Rabbi Joshua quoted a verse from Deuteronomy: ‘It is not in heaven’. 25 The Torah was no longer confined to the celestial world; once it had been promulgated on Mount Sinai, it no longer belonged to God but was the inalienable possession of every single Jew. So, commented a later rabbi, ‘We pay no attention to a heavenly voice.’ And furthermore, it had been decreed at Sinai: ‘By a majority you are to decide’, 26 so R. Eliezer, a minority of one, could not override the popular vote. When God heard that his opinion had been overruled, he laughed and said: ‘My children have conquered me.’ 27 Any limitations in a midrash were due to the weakness of the exegete, who lacked the ability to make sense of a text in a given situation or to find fresh meaning. 28 The Golden Rule also meant any midrash that spread hatred was illegitimate. A mean-spirited interpretation that poured scorn on other sages and sought to discredit them must be avoided. 29 The purpose of midrash was to serve the community, not to inflate the ego of the exegete, who should, R. Meir explained, study the Torah for ‘its own sake’, not for his own benefit. A good midrash, the rabbi continued, sowed affection rather than discord, because anyone who studied scripture properly was full of love and brought joy to others: he ‘loves the Divine Presence and all creatures, makes the Divine Presence glad and makes glad all creatures’. Torah study transformed the exegete, robing him with humility and fear, making him upright, pious, righteous and faithful, so that everybody around him benefited. ‘The mysteries of the Torah are revealed to him,’ R. Meir concluded, ‘he becomes like an overflowing fountain and ceaseless torrent . . . And it makes him great and lifts him above the entire creation.’ 30 ‘Does not my word burn like fire?’ Yahweh had asked Jeremiah.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Oblivious and happy, Little Earle would pound his fists on Grey’s shoulders and then twirl himself around to run all out toward Granny, Temple, and Patsy Ruth. Naked, dimpled all over, fat and brown and wide, his stubborn little body bulged with determination, and his little-boy prick bounced like a rubber toy between his bowlegged thighs as he whooped and ran, bumping his head on Granny’s hip. He was like a windup toy spinning itself out, and his delight only increased when everyone started laughing at him as he jumped up again after falling plop on his behind next to the tub of snap beans. Granny covered her mouth with one hand to hide her teeth. “You ugly little boy,” she teased Little Earle, almost laughing between her words. “You ugly, ugly, ugly little thing.” Earle paused, crowed like a hoot owl, and rocked back and forth as if his momentum were too strong for him to come to a full stop without falling over. Temple and Patsy Ruth shook their wet fingers at his fat little belly while Grey and Garvey smacked their lips and joined in with Granny. “Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly! You so ugly you almost pretty!” Earle squealed and jumped and laughed full out. “Ug-ly,” he parroted them. “Uggg-lly!” His face was bright and smiling, and his hands flew up and down like bumblebees, fast and wild up near his ears. “Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.” “You are just the ugliest thing!” Granny rocked forward and caught her hands under Little Earle’s arms, swinging him up off his feet and directly before her face. “You dimple-belly,” she called him, “you little dimple-butt.” She pressed her mouth against his midriff and blew fiercely so that her lips vibrated against Little Earle’s navel—a bubble-bubble roar that made him shriek and bounce and giggle a high-pitched wail of hysterical laughter. He drew his knees up and cupped his little hands around his sex, which only made Temple and Patsy Ruth laugh louder. Granny swung him back and forth a few times and then dropped him down on his feet. He took off immediately for the shelter of his older brother’s armpit. “Dimple-butt,” Grey snorted, but pulled his little brother in tight to his side. “An’t so ugly maybe.” He rubbed his knuckles across Little Earle’s nearly bald head and sang out, “You just tall, that’s all.” Grey laughed at that while Granny wiped her eyes and the girls poured cool water across the beans. I edged forward until I could put my hand on Granny’s chair, fingers sliding over the smooth, worn trellis of woven slats to feel the heat of her body through her cotton dress. The laughter echoed around me, the music, truck brakes ground up on the highway, and somebody started shouting far off as the dark descended and the fireflies began to flicker past the boys’ heads.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  I always positioned myself behind Granny, up against the wall next to the screen door, where I could listen to Kitty Wells and George Jones, the whine of that guitar and what talk there was in the kitchen, as well as the sound of Aunt Alma’s twin boys thumping their feet against the porch steps and the girls’ giggles as their fingers slipped through the cool, dusty beans. There I was pretty much safe from Little Earle as he ran back and forth from Granny’s apron pockets to the steps, where his brothers pitched pennies and practiced betting against each other. Little Earle would lope like a crippled crawfish, angling to the side, swaying unsteadily, and giggling his own wet croupy babble. The boys would laugh at him, Granny would just smile. Oblivious and happy, Little Earle would pound his fists on Grey’s shoulders and then twirl himself around to run all out toward Granny, Temple, and Patsy Ruth. Naked, dimpled all over, fat and brown and wide, his stubborn little body bulged with determination, and his little-boy prick bounced like a rubber toy between his bowlegged thighs as he whooped and ran, bumping his head on Granny’s hip. He was like a windup toy spinning itself out, and his delight only increased when everyone started laughing at him as he jumped up again after falling plop on his behind next to the tub of snap beans. Granny covered her mouth with one hand to hide her teeth. “You ugly little boy,” she teased Little Earle, almost laughing between her words. “You ugly, ugly, ugly little thing.” Earle paused, crowed like a hoot owl, and rocked back and forth as if his momentum were too strong for him to come to a full stop without falling over. Temple and Patsy Ruth shook their wet fingers at his fat little belly while Grey and Garvey smacked their lips and joined in with Granny. “Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly! You so ugly you almost pretty!” Earle squealed and jumped and laughed full out. “Ug-ly,” he parroted them. “Uggg-lly!” His face was bright and smiling, and his hands flew up and down like bumblebees, fast and wild up near his ears. “Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.” “You are just the ugliest thing!” Granny rocked forward and caught her hands under Little Earle’s arms, swinging him up off his feet and directly before her face. “You dimple-belly,” she called him, “you little dimple-butt.” She pressed her mouth against his midriff and blew fiercely so that her lips vibrated against Little Earle’s navel—a bubble-bubble roar that made him shriek and bounce and giggle a high-pitched wail of hysterical laughter. He drew his knees up and cupped his little hands around his sex, which only made Temple and Patsy Ruth laugh louder. Granny swung him back and forth a few times and then dropped him down on his feet. He took off immediately for the shelter of his older brother’s armpit.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  She blew at the sparks again, whistling into the phone, and then laughed out loud. Halfway across town, Aunt Ruth balanced the phone against her neck, squeezed Granny’s shoulder, and laughed with her. Over at the mill, Aunt Alma looked out a window at the smoke billowing up downtown and had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling like a girl. In the outer yard back of the furnace works, Uncle Earle and Glen Waddell were moving iron and listening to the radio. Both of them grinned and looked up at each other at the same moment, then burst out laughing. It was almost as if everyone could hear each other, all over Greenville, laughing as the courthouse burned to the ground. Bastard Out of Carolina 2 G reenville, South Carolina, in 1955 was the most beautiful place in the world. Black walnut trees dropped their green-black fuzzy bulbs on Aunt Ruth’s matted lawn, past where their knotty roots rose up out of the ground like the elbows and knees of dirty children suntanned dark and covered with scars. Weeping willows marched across the yard, following every wandering stream and ditch, their long whiplike fronds making tents that sheltered sweet-smelling beds of clover. Over at the house Aunt Raylene rented near the river, all the trees had been cut back and the scuppernong vines torn out. The clover grew in long sweeps of tiny white and yellow flowers that hid slender red-and-black-striped caterpillars and fat gray-black slugs—the ones Uncle Earle swore would draw fish to a hook even in a thunderstorm. But at Aunt Alma’s, over near the Eustis Highway, the landlord had locked down the spigots so that the kids wouldn’t cost him a fortune in water bills. Without the relief of a sprinkler or a hose the heat had burned up the grass, and the combined efforts of dogs and boys had reduced the narrow yard to a smoldering expanse of baked dirt and scattered rocks. “Yard’s like a hot griddle,” Aunt Alma complained. “Catches all the heat of that tin roof and concentrates it. You could just about cook on that ground.” “Oh, it’s hot everywhere.” Granny never agreed with Aunt Alma, and particularly not that summer when she was being paid a lot less than she wanted to watch Alma’s kids. And the little Mama threw in to pay her for keeping Reese and me didn’t sweeten her attitude. Granny loved all her grandchildren, but she was always announcing that she didn’t have much use for her daughters. “My three boys worship me,” she’d tell everybody, “but my girls, Lord! I’ve got five girls and they never seem to appreciate me. It’s how girls are, though, selfish and full of themselves. I shouldn’t expect any better.” “Your granny means well,” Mama told me before dropping us off to stay the day over at Aunt Alma’s, “but don’t pay too much attention to the things she says.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  I sat in that rocker with those pictures until morning woke the house and Aunt Alma came to check on me. I ran my fingers over Reese’s baby smile on one, traced Earle’s dark hair on another, examined just how far Granny’s chin pushed out under her lower lip, and looked back to my own face in each to see how the camera had seen me—my eyes like Mama’s eyes, darker but open as hers, my smile fiercer and wider than Reese’s, and my body in motion across Alma’s yard like an animal leaping into the air. [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] Glen was like a boy about the baby, grinning and boasting and putting his palms flat on Mama’s stomach every chance he could to feel his son kick. His son—he never even entertained the notion Mama might deliver a girl. No, this would be his boy, Glen was sure. He bought a crib and a new layette set on time payments, put them in their bedroom, and filled the crib with toys a boy baby would love. “My boy’s gonna look like the best of me and Anney,” he told everyone insistently, as if by saying it often enough he could make it so. He even went out to Aunt Maybelle and Aunt Marvella’s house with a gift of sweet corn for the rabbits, just so he could look into their eyes when he said “a boy” and hear them say it back to him when they took the corn. “They said it was a boy,” he told Earle later over pinto beans and cornbread at Aunt Ruth’s house—the first evidence he’d ever given that he believed in the Eustis aunts’ claim to women’s magic. He was bursting with pride. “Well, goddam, Glen. Congratulations.” Earle kept his face carefully neutral. “Never come between a man and his ambitions,” he told Uncle Beau after Glen had gone. “Glen ever gets the notion that anybody messed up his chance of getting a boy child out of Anney, and he’s gonna go plumb crazy.” “A man should never put his ambition in a woman’s belly.” Beau didn’t like Glen much at all, couldn’t, he admitted, since he never trusted a man who didn’t drink, and Glen was as close to a teetotaler as the family had ever seen. Beau spit out the side of his mouth. “Serve him right if she gave him another girl.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Anney wasn’t sure she wanted to see him at all, but Raylene and I persuaded her to let him see you while she stayed in the back bedroom. That boy was scared shitless, holding you in hands stained dark green where he’d been painting his daddy’s flatbed truck. You just looked at him with your black Indian eyes like he wasn’t nothing but a servant, lifting you up for some air or something. Then you let loose and pissed a pailful all down his sleeves, the front of his shirt, and right down his pants halfway to his knees! You peed all over the son of a bitch!” Aunt Alma hugged me up onto her lap. Her grin was so wide it made her nose seem small. She looked like she’d been waiting to tell me this story since I was born, waiting to praise and thank me for this thing I didn’t even know I had done. “It’s like you were putting out your mama’s opinion, speaking up for her there on his lap. And that boy seemed to know just what it meant, with your baby piss stinking up his clothes for all to smell. He passed you right over to me like you were gonna go on to drown him if he didn’t hurry. Took off without speaking to your mama and never came back again. When we heard he’d married another little girl was already carrying his baby, Earle joked that the boy was just too fertile for his own good, that he couldn’t plow a woman without making children, and maybe it’s true. With the six he’s got legal, and you, and the others people say he’s got scattered from Spartanburg to Greer, he’s been a kind of one-man population movement. You got family you an’t ever gonna know is your own—all of you with that dark dark hair he had himself.” She grinned at me, reaching out to push my midnight-black hair back off my face. “Oh, Bone!” she laughed. “Maybe you should plan on marrying yourself a blond just to be safe. Huh?” Granny wouldn’t talk much about my real daddy except to curse his name, but she told me just about everything else. She would lean back in her chair and start reeling out story and memory, making no distinction between what she knew to be true and what she had only heard told. The tales she told me in her rough, drawling whisper were lilting songs, ballads of family, love, and disappointment. Everything seemed to come back to grief and blood, and everybody seemed legendary. “My granddaddy, your great-great-granddaddy, he was a Cherokee, and he didn’t much like us, all his towheaded grandchildren.

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

  Yet he was never unhappy, but full of joy and peace. He exhorted the Philippians from his prison in Rome: "Rejoice in the Lord alway; again I will say, Rejoice." In all his conflicts with foes from without and foes from within Paul was "more than conqueror" through the grace of God which was sufficient for him. "For I am persuaded," he writes to the Romans in the strain of a sublime ode of triumph, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."409 And his dying word is an assurance of victory: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved his appearing."410 § 33. Paul’s Missionary Labors. The public life of Paul, from the third year after his conversion to his martyrdom, A.D. 40–64, embraces a quarter of a century, three great missionary campaigns with minor expeditions, five visits to Jerusalem, and at least four years of captivity in Caesarea and Rome. Some extend it to A.D. 67 or 68. It may be divided into five or six periods, as follows: 1. A.D. 40–44. The period of preparatory labors in Syria and his native Cilicia, partly alone, partly in connection with Barnabas, his senior fellow-apostle among the Gentiles.

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

  The Acts of the Apostles give us the external, the Epistles the internal history of primitive Christianity. They are independent contemporaneous compositions and never refer to each other; probably Luke never read the Epistles of Paul, and Paul never read the Acts of Luke, although he no doubt supplied much valuable information to Luke. But indirectly they illustrate and confirm each other by a number of coincidences which have great evidential value, all the more as these coincidences are undesigned and incidental. Had they been composed by post-apostolic writers, the agreement would have been more complete, minor disagreements would have been avoided, and the lacunae in the Acts supplied, especially in regard to the closing labors and death of Peter and Paul. The Acts bear on the face all the marks of an original, fresh, and trustworthy narrative of contemporaneous events derived from the best sources of information, and in great part from personal observation and experience. The authorship of Luke, the companion of Paul, is conceded by a majority of the best modern scholars, even by Ewald. And this fact alone establishes the credibility. Renan (in his St. Paul, ch. 1) admirably calls the Acts "a book of joy, of serene ardor. Since the Homeric poems no book has been seen full of such fresh sensations. A breeze of morning, an odor of the sea, if I dare express it so, inspiring something joyful and strong, penetrates the whole book, and makes it an excellent compagnon de voyage, the exquisite breviary for him who is searching for ancient remains on the seas of the south. This is the second idyl of Christianity. The Lake of Tiberias and its fishing barks had furnished the first. Now, a more powerful breeze, aspirations toward more distant lands, draw us out into the open sea." 2. The Post-Apostolic and Patristic writings are full of reminiscences of, and references to, the apostolic books, and as dependent on them as the river is upon its fountain. 3. The Apocryphal and Heretical literature. The numerous Apocryphal Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses were prompted by the same motives of curiosity and dogmatic interest as the Apocryphal Gospels, and have a similar apologetic, though very little historical, value. The heretical character is, however, more strongly marked. They have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Lipsius (in Smith and Wace’s, "Dict. of Christ. Biog." vol. I. p. 27) divides the Apocryphal Acts into four classes: (1) Ebionitic; (2) Gnostic; (3) originally Catholic; (4) Catholic adaptations or recensions of heretical documents. The last class is the most numerous, rarely older than the fifth century, but mostly resting on documents from the second and third centuries.

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

  Finally, the Gospel reforms the international relations by breaking down the partition walls of prejudice and hatred among the different nations and races. It unites in brotherly fellowship and harmony around the same communion table even the Jews and the Gentiles, once so bitterly separate and hostile. The spirit of Christianity, truly catholic or universal, rises above all national distinctions. Like the congregation at Jerusalem, the whole apostolic church was of "one heart and of one soul."637 It had its occasional troubles, indeed, temporary collisions between a Peter and a Paul, between Jewish and Gentile Christians; but instead of wondering at these, we must admire the constant victory of the spirit of harmony and love over the remaining forces of the old nature and of a former state of things. The poor Gentile Christians of Paul’s churches in Greece sent their charities to the poor Jewish Christians in Palestine, and thus proved their gratitude for the gospel and its fellowship, which they had received from that mother church.638 The Christians all felt themselves to be "brethren," were constantly impressed with their common origin and their common destiny, and considered it their sacred duty to "keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."639 While the Jews, in their spiritual pride and "odium generis humani" abhorred all Gentiles; while the Greeks despised all barbarians as only half men; and while the Romans, with all their might and policy, could bring their conquered nations only into a mechanical conglomeration, a giant body without a soul; Christianity, by purely moral means) founded a universal spiritual empire and a communion of saints, which stands unshaken to this day, and will spread till it embraces all the nations of the earth as its living members, and reconciles all to God. § 50. Spiritual Condition of the Congregations.—The Seven Churches in Asia. We must not suppose that the high standard of holiness set up in doctrine and example by the evangelists and apostles was fully realized in their congregations. The dream of the spotless purity and perfection of the apostolic church finds no support in the apostolic writings, except as an ideal which is constantly held up before our vision to stimulate our energies. If the inspired apostles themselves disclaimed perfection, much less can we expect it from their converts, who had just come from the errors and corruptions of Jewish and heathen society, and could not be transformed at once without a miracle in violation of the ordinary laws of moral growth. We find, in fact, that every Epistle meets some particular difficulty and danger. No letter of Paul can be understood without the admission of the actual imperfection of his congregations. He found it necessary to warn them even against the vulgar sins of the flesh as well as against the refined sins of the spirit. He cheerfully and thankfully commended their virtues, and as frankly and fearlessly condemned their errors and vices.

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

  The addresses of Peter to the people and the Sanhedrin282 are remarkable for their natural simplicity and adaptation. They are full of fire and vigor, yet full of wisdom and persuasion, and always to the point. More practical and effective sermons were never preached. They are testimonies of an eye-witness so timid a few weeks before, and now so bold and ready at any moment to suffer and die for the cause. They are an expansion of his confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, the Saviour. He preached no subtle theological doctrines, but a few great facts and truths: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, already known to his hearers for his mighty signs and wonders, his exaltation to the right hand of Almighty God, the descent and power of the Holy Spirit, the fulfilment of prophecy, the approaching judgment and glorious restitution of all things, the paramount importance of conversion and faith in Jesus as the only name whereby we can be saved. There breathes in them an air of serene joy and certain triumph. We can form no clear conception of this bridal season of the Christian church when no dust of earth soiled her shining garments, when she was wholly absorbed in the contemplation and love of her divine Lord, when he smiled down upon her from his throne in heaven, and added daily to the number of the saved. It was a continued Pentecost, it was paradise restored. "They did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people."283 Yet even in this primitive apostolic community inward corruption early appeared, and with it also the severity of discipline and self-purification, in the terrible sentence of Peter on the hypocritical Ananias and Sapphira. At first Christianity found favor with the people. Soon, however, it had to encounter the same persecution as its divine founder had undergone, but only, as before, to transform it into a blessing and a means of growth. The persecution was begun by the skeptical sect of the Sadducees, who took offence at the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, the centre of all the apostolic preaching.

• From Augustine: Philosopher and Saint (2005)

  • Until the Last Judgment the two cities coexist on earth, mingled together, sharing the same temporal goods but using them differently. “As long as the two cities are still mixed together, we also make use of the peace of Babylon” (19:26). The City of God: The Church in History • The community of the predestined: (cid:405) The two cities have two different predestined ends: the one in condemnation and the other in eternal life (15:1). (cid:405) The City of God includes both the blessed angels and humans predestined to eternal life. • The unity of humanity restored: (cid:405) In the beginning, humanity was united in Adam (“For we all were in that one man, when we all were that one man” [13:14]). (cid:405) Adam’s fall into sin is the source of all separation and con(cid:192) ict between human beings (that sinful love or cupidity for things that can’t be shared). (cid:405) The blessedness of heaven will include the reuni(cid:191) cation of saved humanity. No longer divided by sin and con(cid:192) ict of will and the opacity of mortal bodies, we will be able to see into each others’ minds: “our thoughts will be open and obvious to one another” (22:29). • The Body of Christ: (cid:405) As we were once united with Adam before sin, so in order to be redeemed from sin we must be united with Christ. (cid:405) Humanity is united with Christ in the Body of Christ—the Church, of which Christ is head. (cid:405) The Body of Christ is united—as always—by love, through which Christ shares human mortality and humans share Christ’s righteousness and blessedness. This is the blessedness that makes the City of God happy in hope and the (cid:191) nal reuni(cid:191) cation of the human race. 57

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

  4. The Song, a form of prayer, in the festive dress of poetry and the elevated language of inspiration, raising the congregation to the highest pitch of devotion, and giving it a part in the heavenly harmonies of the saints. This passed immediately, with the psalms of the Old Testament, those inexhaustible treasures of spiritual experience, edification, and comfort, from the temple and the synagogue into the Christian church. The Lord himself inaugurated psalmody into the new covenant at the institution of the holy Supper,668 and Paul expressly enjoined the singing of "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," as a means of social edification.669 But to this precious inheritance from the past, whose full value was now for the first time understood in the light of the New Testament revelation, the church, in the enthusiasm of her first love, added original, specifically Christian psalms, hymns, doxologies, and benedictions, which afforded the richest material for Sacred poetry and music in succeeding centuries; the song of the heavenly hosts, for example, at the birth of the Saviour;670 the "Nunc dimittis" of Simeon;671 the "Magnificat" of the Virgin Mary;672 the "Benedictus" of Zacharias;673 the thanksgiving of Peter after his miraculous deliverance;674 the speaking with tongues in the apostolic churches, which, whether song or prayer, was always in the elevated language of enthusiasm; the fragments of hymns scattered through the Epistles;675 and the lyrical and liturgical passages, the doxologies and antiphonies of the Apocalypse.676 5. Confession Of Faith. All the above-mentioned acts of worship are also acts of faith. The first express confession of faith is the testimony of Peter, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. The next is the trinitarian baptismal formula. Out of this gradually grew the so-called Apostles’ Creed, which is also trinitarian in structure, but gives the confession of Christ the central and largest place. Though not traceable in its present shape above the fourth century, and found in the second and third in different longer or shorter forms, it is in substance altogether apostolic, and exhibits an incomparable summary of the leading facts in the revelation of the triune God from the creation of the world to the resurrection of the body; and that in a form intelligible to all, and admirably suited for public worship and catechetical use. We shall return to it more fully in the second period. 6. Finally, the administration of the Sacraments, or sacred rites instituted by Christ, by which, under appropriate symbols and visible signs, spiritual gifts and invisible grace are represented, sealed, and applied to the worthy participators.

• From Augustine: Philosopher and Saint (2005)

  Christian Platonist Lecture 2 Like other Church Fathers, Augustine combines concepts from Christianity and philosophy, especially the philosophy of Platonism. T his lecture centers on an extended thought experiment designed to introduce the student to key elements of Platonist thought that were attractive to Augustine, especially the concept of a nonbodily, eternal mode of being, and how that concept applies to God. Objectives Upon completion of this lecture, you should be able to: • Explain the contrast between sensible things and intelligible things in Platonism. • Discuss the connection between the concept of a nonbodily mode of being and the concept of eternity. • Describe the relation of Understanding and Love in Augustine. • Explain why the philosophy of Platonism might be attractive to a religious thinker. Augustine and Philosophy • The Church Fathers often looked positively upon philosophy. • To understand Augustine, we need to understand the religious attractiveness of certain forms of pagan philosophy, especially Platonism. Platonist Philosophy Gave Augustine the Concept of God as a Nonbodily Being Some terminology to help us understand the question: What is a nonbodily mode of being? 7 8 tsinotalP naitsirhC :2 erutceL • Words to avoid: physical and concrete. • Words to use: bodily and corporeal. Sensible versus intelligible: • Sensible means “perceivable by the senses.” • Intelligible means “understood by the mind.” • Key metaphor: eye of the body versus mind’s eye. • Imagination is sensible, not intelligible. It’s easier to say what the intelligible is not, and there’s a reason for this: We’re familiar with sensible things but need to learn the intellectual hunger for an understanding of intelligible things. A Mathematical Example Imagine a geometry classroom where you’re looking at two kinds of triangles: one is drawn on the chalkboard; the other (which you can’t see with your bodily eyes) is the pure triangle that the mathematical proofs are really about. There comes a moment of insight when you suddenly understand what the proof is about. That moment has startling characteristics: • We say: “Aha! Now I see it!” • It is a moment of joy. • It is the satisfaction of that intellectual hunger. • It is like sexual desire and love. • But it is pure and clean, free from lust, jealousy, embarrassment, and (cid:192) esh. How this mathematical example is connected with religion: • The Real Triangle is Eternal. • The Eternal is higher and more real than the sensible.

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

  Truly, Jesus Christ, the Christ of the Gospels, the Christ of history, the crucified and risen Christ, the divine-human Christ, is the most real, the most certain, the most blessed of all facts. And this fact is an ever-present and growing power which pervades the church and conquers the world, and is its own best evidence, as the sun shining in the heavens. This fact is the only solution of the terrible mystery of sin and death, the only inspiration to a holy life of love to God and man, and only guide to happiness and peace. Systems of human wisdom will come and go, kingdoms and empires will rise and fall, but for all time to come Christ will remain "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." §16. Chronology of the Life of Christ. See the Lit. in §14, p. 98, especially Browne, Wieseler, Zumpt, Andrews, and Keim We briefly consider the chronological dates of the life of Christ. I. The Year of the Nativity.—This must be ascertained by historical and chronological research, since there is no certain and harmonious tradition on the subject. Our Christians aera, which was introduced by the Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, and came into general use two centuries later, during the reign of Charlemagne, puts the Nativity Dec. 25, 754 Anno Urbis, that is, after the founding of the city of Rome.103 Nearly all chronologers agree that this is wrong by at least four years. Christ was born a.u. 750 (or b.c. 4), if not earlier. This is evident from the following chronological hints in the Gospels, as compared with and confirmed by Josephus and contemporary writers, and by astronomical calculations. The Death of Herod. (1) According to Matthew 2:1 (Comp. Luke 1:5, 26), Christ was born "in the days of king Herod" I. or the Great, who died, according to Josephus, at Jericho, a.u. 750, just before the Passover, being nearly seventy years of age, after a reign of thirty-seven years104 This date has been verified by the astronomical calculation of the eclipse of the moon, which took place March 13, a.u. 750, a few days before Herod’s death.105 Allowing two months or more for the events between the birth of Christ and the murder of the Innocents by Herod, the Nativity must be put back at least to February or January, a.u. 750 (or b.c. 4), if not earlier.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Or, the fatted calf is our Lord Himself in the flesh loaded with insults. But in that the Father commands them to bring it, what else is this but that they preach Him, and by declaring Him cause to revive, yet unconsumed by hunger, the bowels of the hungry son? He also bids them kill Him, alluding to His death. For He is then killed to each man who believes Him slain. It follows, And let us eat. AMBROSE. Rightly the flesh of the calf, because it is the priestly victim which was offered for sin. But he introduces him feasting, when he says, Be merry; to shew that the food of the Father is our salvation; the joy of the Father the redemption of our sins. CHRYSOSTOM. (ut sup.) For the father himself rejoices in the return of his son, and feasts on the calf, because the Creator, rejoicing in the acquisition of a believing people, feasts on the fruit of His mercy by the sacrifice of His Son. Hence it follows, For this my son was dead, and is alive again. AMBROSE. He is dead who was. Therefore the Gentiles are not, the Christian is. Here however might be understood one individual of the human race; Adam was, and in him we all were. Adam perished, and in him we all have perished. Man then is restored in that Man who has died. It might also seem to be spoken of one working repentance, because he dies not who has not at one time lived. And the Gentiles indeed when they have believed are made alive again by grace. But he who has fallen recovers by repentance. THEOPHYLACT. As then with respect to the condition of his sins, he had been despaired of; so in regard to human nature, which is changeable and can be turned from vice to virtue, he is said to be lost. For it is less to be lost than to die. But every one who is recalled and turned from sin, partaking of the fatted calf, becomes an occasion of joy to his father and his servants, that is, the angels and priests. Hence it follows, And they all began to be merry. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Those banquets are now celebrated, the Church being enlarged and extended throughout the whole world. For that calf in our Lord’s body and blood is both offered up to the Father, and feeds the whole house. 15:25–3225. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. 26. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 27. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.

• From Fragments (7)

  Now I again am merry: Into my hands I take my lyre, And love I let my song inspire. But when my mind again brings me Some insolent aspiration, 155 Lyric Songs of the Greeks Then comes the fugitive suddenly With mental intoxication, That I seize him — 'tis his desire I should forget my dainty lyre. Ah ! faithless, faithless gold, by stealth Thou vainly tryest to harm me; The bov\r-strings more than golden wealth With love — pray, listen — charm me. For envy, love of treachery Doth reach the mind of man through thee. But, mixing cups w^hich do not grieve. Of love and trusty kisses. These all the lyre doth to us give. Thee when thou wilt, one misses. However, naught could me beguile To leave my lyre a little while. Thou crafty stranger dost admire Far more than all the Muses; The heart of me who plays the lyre The Muse as dwelling uses. Would that her echoes here ring bright, And that she sends us gleaming light. TO WINE (57,1.1-13) Men and maidens both make merry, When in baskets grapes they bring. And them on the shoulders carry. And into the wine-vats fling. 156 Anacreontea Men alone the purple grapes Press, so that the wine escapes. To the god they sing loud praises, Vintage songs; upon the juice, As it bubbles, each one gazes. At the jars; but through its use E'en the trembling gray-haired dare Now to dance and shake their hair. TO APOLLO (58) I shall arouse my slumbering lyre : 'Tis not a contest for a prize. But there is need of exercise For those who wisdom's flower desire. I to my plectrum's strokes shall sing In Phrygian rhythms a loud clear song ; Just as with flapping wings the swan, Friend of the winds, his strains lets ring. Thou, Muse, to join our dance be moved ; For tripod, laurel, and the lyre, To Phoebus sacred, me inspire To tell of the gadfly which he loved. Still he did not fulfill his aim: The modest maid, his love to escape. Once more entirely changed her shape ; A blooming plant she now became. 157 Lyric Songs of the Greeks But Phoebus ever onward went; For Phoebus thought the maid to seize. He plucked a green leaf from the trees, Thus thinking to his love to tend. Come now, my heart, I pray thee, hark: Which frenzy were to have the best? The goodness of thy weapon test, That thou beest sure to hit the mark. Shoot thou with Aphrodite's bow, Which conquers each and every god; Songs like the bard whom all men laud, Anacreon, on us bestow. A bowl of words to those who are Still children pledge, a lovely bowl. With nectar we ourselves console, And let us shun the scorching star. LET ME DRINK (59) Boy, bring water ; boy, bring wine ; Let me drink, to sleep put me; I now by this cup of mine

• From Fragments (7)

  Now wreathe me too — I'll play the lyre. And with a maid, whose gown In deep folds falls, do I desire In Bacchus' shrine to crown With wreaths of rose again my hair. And in hilarious dancing share. TO WINE (43) Whene'er myself in wine I steep. My cares and sorrows go to sleep. Why should I groan and troubles bear? Why burdened be with anxious care? He too must die who Death abhors. Why stray at random o'er life's course? In Bacchus' company divine, Pray, let us therefore drink our wine. Whene'er ourselves in wine we steep. Our cares and sorrows go to sleep. 145 Lyric Songs of the Greeks TO SPRING (44) Spring is here : the Graces see With red roses teeming; See the billows of the sea, How they are calmly gleaming. On the mirrored waters' plane See how ducks are diving; See how journeys there the crane, From the South arriving. Now the sunlight brightly beams; Breezes drive the shadows Of the clouds; for mortals gleam Houses, fields, and meadows. Olive branches downward bend; Grapes with wine-juice swelling Down from leaves and twigs extend, Of our Bromius telling. TO HIMSELF (45) I now am very old, 'tis true, Yet more I drink than young men do, And when to dance I would commence, Then will I rush Into the crush. Then like Silenus will I dance. 146 Anacreontea A wine-bag then my staff shall be; For nothing means a wand to me. The one to whom 'tis dear to fight, May ever fight with all his might. To me a cup be brought by thee, O boy; I enjoin, Sweet honeyed wine Mix in it and bring here to me. I now am very old, 'tis true. Yet more I drink than young men do. TO A LOVER OF DRINK (46) When Bacchus here is present. My cares are put to sleep; Like Croesus' riches pleasant Is my contentment deep. With ivy o'er my temples, I'll sing a graceful song; My mind on all things tramples. Pour in — to drink I long. A cup do to me carry: Than lying dead, my boy, 'Tis better to be merry. And lie one's drink to enjoy. 147 Lyric Songs of the Greeks TO DIONYSUS OR TO WINE (47) Whenever Bacchus, son of Zeus, Lyaeus, who our cares doth loose, The giver of wine, my spirit reaches. Then he to me blithe dances teaches. But something gladsome also is mine, I, who a lover am of wine : Venus me too with song entrances; Again will I take part in dances. TO A SYMPOSIUM (48) Whenever I am drinking wine. Then warm becomes this heart of mine. With strains that clear like crystal ring Of Muses I begin to sing. Whenever I am drinking wine. Then to the winds which beat the brine Of the Ocean do my cares depart. All sombre counsels of my heart.