Love

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 Decameron (1353)

  On the other hand, the great renown of her beauty and worth had won to Sicily, as elsewhither, and not without great delight nor in vain had it reached the ears of Gerbino; nay, it had inflamed him with love of her, no less than that which she herself had conceived for him. Wherefore, desiring beyond measure to see her, against he should find a colourable occasion of having his grandfather's leave to go to Tunis, he charged his every friend who went thither to make known to her, as best he might, his secret and great love and bring him news of her. This was very dexterously done by one of them, who, under pretence of carrying her women's trinkets to view, as do merchants, throughly discovered Gerbino's passion to her and avouched the prince and all that was his to be at her commandment. The princess received the messenger and the message with a glad flavour and answering that she burnt with like love for the prince, sent him one of her most precious jewels in token thereof. This Gerbino received with the utmost joy wherewith one can receive whatsoever precious thing and wrote to her once and again by the same messenger, sending her the most costly gifts and holding certain treaties[237] with her, whereby they should have seen and touched one another, had fortune but allowed it. [Footnote 237: Or, in modern parlance, "laying certain plans."]

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  This is why I have said that the real danger in expounding the meaning of Jesus’s death is to collapse it into a kind of pagan scenario in which an angry God is pacified by taking out his wrath on Jesus. The first Christians did not use the language of “Trinity,” but at the heart of what they believed about Jesus and his death, they affirmed, explained, insisted on, and turned into brilliant poetry the insight that what happened on the cross was the self-expression of the love that made the world. Colossians A passage from another “prison letter” that is vital for our purposes is Colossians 2:13–15: In the same way, though you were dead in legal offenses, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with Jesus, forgiving us all our offenses. He blotted out the handwriting that was against us, opposing us with its legal demands. He took it right out of the way, by nailing it to the cross. He stripped the rulers and authorities of their armor, and displayed them contemptuously to public view, celebrating his triumph over them in him. This is of course deliberately ironic. What seemed to be happening as Jesus of Nazareth hung in agony on the cross was that the “rulers and authorities” were celebrating their triumph over him, having stripped him of his clothes and held him up to public contempt. No, insists Paul, once you learn the meaning of the gospel, you have to see everything inside out. We already heard the cryptic hint in 1 Corinthians 2:8, where the “rulers” wouldn’t have executed Jesus if they had understood who he was and what the result would be. Here the point is spelled out far more graphically. If we ask Paul what had happened when Jesus died—if we bring to him our question of what had changed by six o’clock on that evening, what was different about the world, what was now true that hadn’t been true twenty-four hours earlier—I think this is one of the primary things he would have said, that the rulers, the powers, had been defeated. When Paul speaks of the “rulers and authorities,” he means both the visible rulers, the Herods, the Caesars, the governors, and the priests, and the “invisible” rulers, the dark powers that stand behind them and operate through them. By the time Jesus’s body was taken down from the cross, Paul believed, these “rulers and authorities” had been stripped, shamed, and defeated.

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

  Both these opinions are true up to a certain point. Because the act of charity can be considered in two ways. First, as an act by itself: and thus it falls under the precept of the law which specially prescribes it, viz. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor.” In this sense, the first opinion is true. Because it is not impossible to observe this precept which regards the act of charity; since man can dispose himself to possess charity, and when he possesses it, he can use it. Secondly, the act of charity can be considered as being the mode of the acts of the other virtues, i.e. inasmuch as the acts of the other virtues are ordained to charity, which is “the end of the commandment,” as stated in 1 Tim. i, 5: for it has been said above ([2094]Q[12], A[4]) that the intention of the end is a formal mode of the act ordained to that end. In this sense the second opinion is true in saying that the mode of charity does not fall under the precept, that is to say that this commandment, “Honor thy father,” does not mean that a man must honor his father from charity, but merely that he must honor him. Wherefore he that honors his father, yet has not charity, does not break this precept: although he does break the precept concerning the act of charity, for which reason he deserves to be punished. Reply to Objection 1: Our Lord did not say, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep one commandment”; but “keep” all “the commandments”: among which is included the commandment concerning the love of God and our neighbor. Reply to Objection 2: The precept of charity contains the injunction that God should be loved from our whole heart, which means that all things would be referred to God. Consequently man cannot fulfil the precept of charity, unless he also refer all things to God. Wherefore he that honors his father and mother, is bound to honor them from charity, not in virtue of the precept, “Honor thy father and mother,” but in virtue of the precept, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.” And since these are two affirmative precepts, not binding for all times, they can be binding, each one at a different time: so that it may happen that a man fulfils the precept of honoring his father and mother, without at the same time breaking the precept concerning the omission of the mode of charity. Reply to Objection 3: Man cannot fulfil all the precepts of the law, unless he fulfil the precept of charity, which is impossible without charity. Consequently it is not possible, as Pelagius maintained, for man to fulfil the law without grace.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  As with the poetry of Philippians 2, so with the dense and polemical argument of Colossians 2: the fact that its message can be compressed into a few sentences, complete with rhetorical flourishes, must mean that this line of thought was already a frequent theme in the early church. When Jesus was crucified, the “powers” lost their power, because sin itself had been defeated and sinners forgiven. Once Jesus had chosen to do what he did at Passover time, joining the idea of a new or ultimate “Exodus” together with the idea that this was the time for the real “return from exile,” the forgiveness of sins, and linking them together via passages like Isaiah 52 and 53, the stage was set. The new Exodus was accomplished through the forgiveness of sins, and forgiveness of sins was accomplished by the Messiah as the living and dying embodiment of the one true God, standing in the place of sinners and taking the full weight of their plight upon himself. Paul has already said as much in the poem earlier in the letter: In him all the Fullness was glad to dwell And through him to reconcile all to himself, Making peace by the blood of his cross. (1:19–20) He repeats the point in 2:9: “In him . . . all the full measure of divinity has taken up bodily residence.” This is in fact Temple language, but the point for our present purposes is that all that Paul ascribes to Jesus and his death in 2:13–15 is to be seen as the work of the one God himself. Here again the implicitly trinitarian structure of early Christian thought is all-important. Take that away, and the slide back toward some kind of pagan formulation has begun. * * * There are many other things one might say about the death of Jesus in the letters of Paul. I have argued elsewhere, for instance, that the little Letter to Philemon, though it does not mention the death of Jesus specifically, exemplifies its meaning, which for Paul focused on the “ministry of reconciliation.” Paul extends one arm to Philemon and the other to Onesimus and brings them together within his own love for them both, insisting to Philemon that if Onesimus has wronged him in any way he, Paul, will make it good. That looks to me like a practical application of the cross. Philemon functions as a small signpost to Paul’s largest and most important letter, one that has always featured prominently in any discussion of the meaning of Jesus’s death: the Letter to the Romans. This demands a deep breath and a fresh start. 12 The Death of Jesus in Paul’s Letter to the Romans The New Exodus

• From White Oleander (1999)

  She said she’d received offers to teach, to publish her autobiography, to marry an ice-cream millionaire and pose for Playboy, and she was going to accept them all. Paul offered me a falafel, I shook my head. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore. “Save it for later,” he said, and dropped the bag by the side of the bed. His rich brown eyes asked every question. He didn’t have to say a word. I rested my head in the crook of his shoulder and gazed at the squares of blue TV light shining through the frost blossoms on our window from the windows just across the way. I tried to imagine what she was feeling right now. In Los Angeles it was noon. A bright sunny February, it looked from the picture. I imagined her in a hotel room, courtesy Susan D. Valeris, some luxury suite full of flowers from well-wishers, waking up on fresh sheets. She would have her bath in a double-wide tub, and write a poem overlooking the winter roses. Then she might take a few interviews, or rent a white convertible for a spin down the beach, where she’d pick up a young man with clear eyes and sand in his hair, and make love to him until he wept with the beauty of it. What else would you do when you were acquitted of murder? It was too much to imagine her tempering her joy with a moment of grief, a moment for the knowledge of what her triumph had cost. I couldn’t expect that from her. But I had seen her remorse, and it had nothing to do with Barry or anyone else, it was a gift offered despite a price she had had no way to estimate then, it could have been heavy as mourning, final as a tomb. No matter how much she had damaged me or how flawed she was, how violently mistaken, my mother loved me, unquestionably. I thought of her, facing a court of law without the pawn formation of my lies. The queen stripped bare, she had mastered the end game on her own. Paul rolled a Drum cigarette, the shreds like hair as he lifted them from the bag, tore the shag from the ends, lit it with a match scraped under the box that served as our end table. “You want to go call her?” We couldn’t afford a phone. Oskar Schein let us use his. “Too cold.” He smoked, the ashtray resting on his chest. I reached over and took a puff, handed it back. We had come such a long way together, Paul and I. From the apartment on St. Marks to the squat in South London, an uninsulated barge in Amsterdam, now Senefelderstrasse. I wished we knew someone in Italy, or Greece. I hadn’t been warm since I left L.A. “Do you ever want to go home?” I asked Paul. He brushed an ash from my face.

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

  Reply to Objection 1: Although the unknown cannot be loved, it does not follow that the order of knowledge is the same as the order of love, since love is the term of knowledge, and consequently, love can begin at once where knowledge ends, namely in the thing itself which is known through another thing. Reply to Objection 2: Since to love God is something greater than to know Him, especially in this state of life, it follows that love of God presupposes knowledge of God. And because this knowledge does not rest in creatures, but, through them, tends to something else, love begins there, and thence goes on to other things by a circular movement so to speak; for knowledge begins from creatures, tends to God, and love begins with God as the last end, and passes on to creatures. Reply to Objection 3: Aversion from God, which is brought about by sin, is removed by charity, but not by knowledge alone: hence charity, by loving God, unites the soul immediately to Him with a chain of spiritual union. Whether God can be loved wholly? [*Cf. Q[184], A[2]]Objection 1: It would seem that God cannot be loved wholly. For love follows knowledge. Now God cannot be wholly known by us, since this would imply comprehension of Him. Therefore He cannot be wholly loved by us. Objection 2: Further, love is a kind of union, as Dionysius shows (Div. Nom. iv). But the heart of man cannot be wholly united to God, because “God is greater than our heart” (1 Jn. 3:20). Therefore God cannot be loved wholly. Objection 3: Further, God loves Himself wholly. If therefore He be loved wholly by another, this one will love Him as much as God loves Himself. But this is unreasonable. Therefore God cannot be wholly loved by a creature. On the contrary, It is written (Dt. 6:5): “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.” I answer that, Since love may be considered as something between lover and beloved, when we ask whether God can be wholly loved, the question may be understood in three ways, first so that the qualification “wholly” be referred to the thing loved, and thus God is to be loved wholly, since man should love all that pertains to God. Secondly, it may be understood as though “wholly” qualified the lover: and thus again God ought to be loved wholly, since man ought to love God with all his might, and to refer all he has to the love of God, according to Dt. 6:5: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart.”

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

  Reply to Objection 3: Such like imprecations which we come across in Holy Writ, may be understood in three ways: first, by way of prediction, not by way of wish, so that the sense is: “May the wicked be,” that is, “The wicked shall be, turned into hell.” Secondly, by way of wish, yet so that the desire of the wisher is not referred to the man’s punishment, but to the justice of the punisher, according to Ps. 57:11: “The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge,” since, according to Wis. 1:13, not even God “hath pleasure in the destruction of the wicked [Vulg.: ‘living’]” when He punishes them, but He rejoices in His justice, according to Ps. 10:8: “The Lord is just and hath loved justice.” Thirdly, so that this desire is referred to the removal of the sin, and not to the punishment itself, to the effect, namely, that the sin be destroyed, but that the man may live. Reply to Objection 4: We love sinners out of charity, not so as to will what they will, or to rejoice in what gives them joy, but so as to make them will what we will, and rejoice in what rejoices us. Hence it is written (Jer. 15:19): “They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not to be turned to them.” Reply to Objection 5: The weak should avoid associating with sinners, on account of the danger in which they stand of being perverted by them. But it is commendable for the perfect, of whose perversion there is no fear, to associate with sinners that they may convert them. For thus did Our Lord eat and drink with sinners as related by Mat. 9:11–13. Yet all should avoid the society of sinners, as regards fellowship in sin; in this sense it is written (2 Cor. 6:17): “Go out from among them . . . and touch not the unclean thing,” i.e. by consenting to sin. Whether sinners love themselves?Objection 1: It would seem that sinners love themselves. For that which is the principle of sin, is most of all in the sinner. Now love of self is the principle of sin, since Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 28) that it “builds up the city of Babylon.” Therefore sinners most of all love themselves. Objection 2: Further, sin does not destroy nature. Now it is in keeping with nature that every man should love himself: wherefore even irrational creatures naturally desire their own good, for instance, the preservation of their being, and so forth. Therefore sinners love themselves. Objection 3: Further, good is beloved by all, as Dionysius states (Div. Nom. iv). Now many sinners reckon themselves to be good. Therefore many sinners love themselves. On the contrary, It is written (Ps. 10:6): “He that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul.”

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

  Objection 3: Further, whatever is more difficult seems to be more virtuous and meritorious since “virtue is about that which is difficult and good” (Ethic. ii, 3). Now it is easier to love God than to love one’s neighbor, both because all things love God naturally, and because there is nothing unlovable in God, and this cannot be said of one’s neighbor. Therefore it is more meritorious to love one’s neighbor than to love God. On the contrary, That on account of which a thing is such, is yet more so. Now the love of one’s neighbor is not meritorious, except by reason of his being loved for God’s sake. Therefore the love of God is more meritorious than the love of our neighbor. I answer that, This comparison may be taken in two ways. First, by considering both loves separately: and then, without doubt, the love of God is the more meritorious, because a reward is due to it for its own sake, since the ultimate reward is the enjoyment of God, to Whom the movement of the Divine love tends: hence a reward is promised to him that loves God (Jn. 14:21): “He that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father, and I will . . . manifest Myself to him.” Secondly, the comparison may be understood to be between the love of God alone on the one side, and the love of one’s neighbor for God’s sake, on the other. In this way love of our neighbor includes love of God, while love of God does not include love of our neighbor. Hence the comparison will be between perfect love of God, extending also to our neighbor, and inadequate and imperfect love of God, for “this commandment we have from God, that he, who loveth God, love also his brother” (1 Jn. 4:21). Reply to Objection 1: According to one gloss, the Apostle did not desire this, viz. to be severed from Christ for his brethren, when he was in a state of grace, but had formerly desired it when he was in a state of unbelief, so that we should not imitate him in this respect. We may also reply, with Chrysostom (De Compunct. i, 8) [*Hom. xvi in Ep. ad Rom.] that this does not prove the Apostle to have loved his neighbor more than God, but that he loved God more than himself. For he wished to be deprived for a time of the Divine fruition which pertains to love of one self, in order that God might be honored in his neighbor, which pertains to the love of God. Reply to Objection 2: A man’s love for his friends is sometimes less meritorious in so far as he loves them for their sake, so as to fall short of the true reason for the friendship of charity, which is God. Hence that God be loved for His own sake does not diminish the merit, but is the entire reason for merit.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  This is why in Romans 5–8, drawing out the fuller meaning of what has been said in chapters 3–4, Paul can speak unambiguously of the divine love, agapē, and indeed of the Messiah’s love as well (8:31–39). Chapter 8 as a whole is the glorious heaven-and-earth celebration, itself replete with Temple language, that follows precisely from the “meeting” of heaven and earth in the covenant-fulfilling “putting forth” of Jesus in chapter 3. What then does this say as we look back to Romans 3:21–26? It insists that we read what Paul says here about the death of Jesus in the light of the larger covenantal narrative from Abraham through the Exodus story and on to the exile and the question of the ultimate “forgiveness” that would undo that exile and so fulfill the original covenant purposes. And at the heart of that we find not an arbitrary and abstract “punishment” meted out upon an innocent victim, but the living God himself coming incognito (“To whom has the arm of YHWH been revealed?”—in other words, “Who would have thought that he was YHWH in person, in power?”), coming to take upon himself the consequence of Israel’s idolatry, sin, and exile, which itself brought into focus the idolatry, sin, and exile of the whole human race. Expelled from Eden, the human race ended up with Babel. Expelled from Canaan, Israel ended up in Babylon. After Babel, God called Abraham and made covenant promises to him; after Babylon, those promises were made good. Here we see a clue to an important distinction. Exile was not an arbitrary punishment. If Israel worshipped gods other than YHWH, it was impossible to remain in the land—and it was impossible for the glorious Presence of YHWH to remain there either. By worshipping other gods, God’s people effectively sold themselves as slaves. The slavery of exile was thus the consequence of what Israel had done. It can of course be seen as “punishment,” and that is the image Isaiah 53 uses again and again (“He was wounded for our transgressions, . . . upon him was the punishment that made us whole, . . . YHWH has laid upon him the iniquity of us all,” 53:5–6). But Isaiah has framed this sharp-edged description of the “servant’s” death within the long poem about God’s faithfulness to the covenant, his victory over the idols, his dealing with exile, renewing the covenant (chap. 54), and so renewing creation itself (chap. 55). Our study of Romans indicates that Paul has exactly this larger narrative in mind as well rather than the truncated works contract in which “punishment” is the central theme. This means that the language of “punishment” must be used with great care.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  This is not simply the “narrative background” to a death whose meaning is determined by an abstract scheme concocted elsewhere, in supposed readings either of Paul in the first century or of the later theologians in the traditions of the church. For John, this story is the “meaning,” because the whole point about Jesus’s death, at the climax of a book that began explicitly with the story of the creation of the good world and of the way in which the darkness cannot overcome the light, is that here at last Jesus is confronting the “ruler of the world” in the person of Pontius Pilate. The light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness cannot quench it—though it will look for a while as though it has done just that. And as John allows the narrative to unfold, weaving in all kinds of extra strands as he does so, readers are invited to understand Jesus’s death in terms of the victory he had predicted in chapter 12 and also in terms of the love John had highlighted at the start of chapter 13. “No one has a love greater than this, to lay down your life for your friends” (15:13); and this, John has signaled in a thousand different narrative clues, is what Jesus is doing. Victory and love, both growing from the story itself: that is John’s interpretation of the cross. All four gospels, of course, bring the story to its climax at Passover. I have already explored the ways in which Jesus himself seems clearly to have chosen that moment as the appropriate and meaning-laden time to do what had to be done. It is John who makes the connection most explicit when he identifies Jesus as the Passover lamb (1:29, 36; 19:36). But here we see the transition from Passover as victory to Passover as dealing with sin: the lamb is “the one who takes away the world’s sin” (1:29). As in the introductory word in Matthew 1:21, where the child is to be called “Jesus” (“YHWH saves”) because, explains the angel, “he is the one who will save his people from their sins,” so here the theme of “exile undone at last,” joined as always with the theme of “YHWH returning at last,” comes within the larger theme of the true Passover. Echoing the combination of themes that Jesus himself drew together, the evangelists in their different ways saw the great victory over the powers of evil being won by means of taking away sin. This same combination—of the great victory over the powers of darkness, won by the overcoming of sin and therefore exile—is at the heart of the frequent allusions in the gospels to Jesus as the “son of man.”

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  I have given the two well-known examples, from the books of the Maccabees. One might also adduce a line or two from the writings found at Qumran. But the matter is not in dispute. Divine Faithfulness and Covenant Love One theme that is constantly emphasized in Isaiah 40–66 but noticeably lacking in the Maccabean writings is the final strand of meaning to be considered here. When the creator God redeems his covenant people, this will be the result of his faithful love. The normal objection to theories of atonement and redemption that focus on divine anger is that this seems to run contrary to the deepest themes of the New Testament. Now, of course, divine anger at human rebellion and particularly at the rebellion of the chosen people features prominently throughout Israel’s scriptures. Similar notes are struck in the New Testament, not least in the teaching of Jesus himself. And suggestion that “sin” does not make God angry (a frequent idea in modern thought as a reaction against the caricatures of an ill-tempered deity) needs to be treated with disdain. When God looks at sin, what he sees is what a violin maker would see if the player were to use his lovely creation as a tennis racquet. But here is the difference. In many expressions of pagan religion, the humans have to try to pacify the angry deity. But that’s not how it happens in Israel’s scriptures. The biblical promises of redemption have to do with God himself acting because of his unchanging, unshakeable love for his people. This theme runs like a scarlet thread through the scriptures, going back at least to Deuteronomy: You are a people holy to YHWH your God; YHWH your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that YHWH set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because YHWH loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that YHWH has brought you out with almighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that YHWH your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. (Deut. 7:6–9) Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to YHWH your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet YHWH set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the people, as it is today. . . .

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  We must not make the overwhelming experience of God’s love revealed in the cross of Jesus an excuse for mere muddle. As in a marriage, love doesn’t stand still. A passionately devoted young couple need to learn the long-term skills of mutual understanding, not to replace love, but to deepen it. It is of course better to hold on to love (whether that of God or of a spouse), even when we are confused, than to let go because we can’t understand it. But it is far better to address the confusions. It isn’t only faith that seeks understanding. Love ought to do the same; not of course in order to stop loving, but so that love may grow, mature, and bear fruit. Models and Doctrines So how did the story develop—the story, that is, of the ways in which the followers of Jesus have understood his death? Many books have been written on this topic alone, and I must here confine myself to a quick outline sketch. The great dogmatic disputes of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries focused on the questions of God, Jesus, and the Spirit. Their participants hammered out the official doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. To be sure, they all believed that Jesus had “died for their sins,” and in sermons and longer writings they said many moving things about that death and what it meant. But it was never defined as such, never nailed down to one theory. When the sixteenth-century Reformation took place, many branches of the new churches articulated their particular theories of atonement in official statements, but the great ecumenical creeds of the early centuries did not do so. They merely restated the early formula we find in 1 Corinthians 15, as, for instance, in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381): “For us humans and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and was incarnate . . . and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried.” The shorter Apostles’ Creed doesn’t even add “for us.” There is, in other words, no equivalent in atonement theology of the careful Christological formulations that emerged from the controversies over what could and couldn’t be said and what should and shouldn’t be said about the person of Jesus and the triune God. The rich imagery we find in, for instance, the exposition of the cross by the fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, is striking. But it doesn’t get turned into official formulas. Many of the early church fathers seem to assume two things in particular about the meaning of the cross, holding these two points in a more fluid combination than later theorists sometimes imagine.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  But this resolution of the ultimate problem, this “punishment that made us whole” (Isa. 53:5), means what it means and makes the sense it makes not within the moralistic works contract, an abstract scheme of sin and punishment, but within the covenant of vocation, the image-bearing, glory-sharing covenant. The human vocation, Israel’s vocation, Jesus’s vocation. God’s vocation. Incarnation is indeed at the heart of Romans 3. But incarnation here is not the alternative to election, to the purposes of God for Abraham’s people. Jesus in himself, and in his death, is the place where the one God meets with his world, bringing heaven and earth together at last, removing by his sacrificial blood the pollutions of sin and death that would have made such a meeting impossible. “While we were enemies,” writes Paul in Romans 5:10, summing up the present argument once more, “we were reconciled to God through the death of his son.” Quite so. It isn’t all about “works,” whether done or not done. And it isn’t all about “punishment.” It is about vocation, and about Temple. And about love. Love (another great Isaianic theme) is, after all, the deepest meaning behind Paul’s language of “covenant justice.” The covenant is after all the marriage of God and Israel. Paul picks up that language in many passages where he speaks about the Messiah himself and his people—a sure sign that he sees in Jesus the human embodiment of Israel’s God. (I am sometimes taken to task for using the word “embodiment” in this context, as though I am shy of saying “incarnation.” I am not, as the previous paragraphs indicate. It’s just that I regularly prefer English terms to Latin—particularly when the Latin terms have worn so smooth with use that not all their proper features are visible.) It is to that marriage and to its purpose that God has been faithful. This is why in Romans 5–8, drawing out the fuller meaning of what has been said in chapters 3–4, Paul can speak unambiguously of the divine love, agapē, and indeed of the Messiah’s love as well (8:31–39). Chapter 8 as a whole is the glorious heaven-and-earth celebration, itself replete with Temple language, that follows precisely from the “meeting” of heaven and earth in the covenant-fulfilling “putting forth” of Jesus in chapter 3.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Ultimately we have to choose between a proto-trinitarian framework for understanding Paul’s view of Jesus’s death and a quasi-pagan one. The church has often found itself lapsing into the latter. Romans brings us back sharply to the former. Even when theologians and preachers have seen this danger and have insisted that what was achieved on the cross was the direct result of the Father’s love, when the goal is Platonized (“going to heaven”) and the human role is moralized (“good and bad behavior”), the structure of the implicit story will still run in the wrong direction. Two other elements of this passage make their distinctive contributions. First, Paul describes Jesus’s death as “a sin offering.” This may seem strange. Why mention this particular sacrifice, one of many different sacrifices in Leviticus and Numbers, at this moment? It would be a mistake, as I hinted earlier, to think that the animal presented as a sin offering was being punished for the sins of the worshipper. That is not the point. The point is that in the Bible the “sin offering” is, again and again, the particular sacrifice that has to do with sins that the Israelite performed either unwillingly (not intending to do them) or unwittingly (intending to do them but not realizing that they were sinful). And Paul has analyzed the actions of the “I” in 7:13–20 in such a way as to place Israel under the Torah in exactly that position. “I don’t understand what I do” (v. 15) is literally, “I do not know what I am doing”; this is unwitting sin, the sin of ignorance. “I end up doing the evil thing I don’t want to do” (v. 20); this is the unwilling sin. The remedy is suited exactly to the problem. The forgiveness of sins, the major return-from-exile theme in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, is now available. The exile is over. The slave master’s power is broken. The covenant is renewed in and through Israel’s Messiah. With that there is the assurance that the powers themselves are defeated, because Sin, the very foundation of their power, has been condemned.

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

  Reply to Objection 3: The souls of the saints have their will fully conformed to the Divine will even as regards the things willed. and consequently, although they retain the love of charity towards their neighbor, they do not succor him otherwise than they see to be in conformity with the disposition of Divine justice. Nevertheless, it is to be believed that they help their neighbor very much by interceding for him to God. Reply to Objection 4: Although it does not follow that those who see the Word see all things in the Word, they see those things that pertain to the perfection of their happiness, as stated above. Reply to Objection 5: God alone of Himself knows the thoughts of the heart: yet others know them, in so far as these are revealed to them, either by their vision of the Word or by any other means. Whether we ought to call upon the saints to pray for us?Objection 1: It would seem that we ought not to call upon the saints to pray for us. For no man asks anyone’s friends to pray for him, except in so far as he believes he will more easily find favor with them. But God is infinitely more merciful than any saint, and consequently His will is more easily inclined to give us a gracious hearing, than the will of a saint. Therefore it would seem unnecessary to make the saints mediators between us and God, that they may intercede for us. Objection 2: Further, if we ought to beseech them to pray for us, this is only because we know their prayer to be acceptable to God. Now among the saints the holier a man is, the more is his prayer acceptable to God. Therefore we ought always to bespeak the greater saints to intercede for us with God, and never the lesser ones. Objection 3: Further, Christ, even as man, is called the “Holy of Holies,” and, as man, it is competent to Him to pray. Yet we never call upon Christ to pray for us. Therefore neither should we ask the other saints to do so. Objection 4: Further, whenever one person intercedes for another at the latter’s request, he presents his petition to the one with whom he intercedes for him. Now it is unnecessary to present anything to one to whom all things are present. Therefore it is unnecessary to make the saints our intercessors with God.

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

  I answer that, Charity, which is the bond uniting the members of the Church, extends not only to the living, but also to the dead who die in charity. For charity which is the life of the soul, even as the soul is the life of the body, has no end: “Charity never falleth away” (1 Cor. 13:8). Moreover, the dead live in the memory of the living: wherefore the intention of the living can be directed to them. Hence the suffrages of the living profit the dead in two ways even as they profit the living, both on account of the bond of charity and on account of the intention being directed to them. Nevertheless, we must not believe that the suffrages of the living profit them so as to change their state from unhappiness to happiness or “vice versa”; but they avail for the diminution of punishment or something of the kind that involves no change in the state of the dead. Reply to Objection 1: Man while living in the body merited that such things should avail him after death. Wherefore if he is assisted thereby after this life, this is, nevertheless, the result of the things he has done in the body. Or we may reply, according to John Damascene, in the sermon quoted above, that these words refer to the retribution which will be made at the final judgment, of eternal glory or eternal unhappiness: for then each one will receive only according as he himself has done in the body. Meanwhile, however, he can be assisted by the suffrages of the living. Reply to Objection 2: The words quoted refer expressly to the sequel of eternal retribution as is clear from the opening words: “Blessed are the dead,” etc. Or we may reply that deeds done on their behalf are somewhat their own, as stated above. Reply to Objection 3: Although, strictly speaking, after death souls are not in the state of the way, yet in a certain respect they are still on the way, in so far as they are delayed awhile in their advance towards their final award. Wherefore, strictly speaking, their way is hedged in round about, so that they can no more be changed by any works in respect of the state of happiness or unhappiness. Yet their way is not so hedged around that they cannot be helped by others in the matter of their being delayed from receiving their final award, because in this respect they are still wayfarers. Reply to Objection 4: Although the communion of civic deeds whereof the Philosopher speaks, is impossible between the dead and the living, because the dead are outside civic life, the communication of the spiritual life is possible between them, for that life is founded on charity towards God, to Whom the spirits of the dead live.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  (51:3) This message of divine comfort, extending from the opening of the poem in 40:1 through 52:9 (“For YHWH has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem”), crescendos to the very passage where the “servant” is “despised and rejected by others” (53:3). It is flatly impossible, reading this passage in its wider context, to see it as anything other than the strange and shocking outworking of the powerful divine covenant love. Thus, immediately after chapter 53 itself, where the death of the “servant” is seen as the ultimate punishment of Israel’s sins, we find the covenant gloriously reaffirmed: sins are now forgiven, exile is over, and YHWH and his people are bonded together forever: For your Maker is your husband, YHWH of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For YHWH has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says YHWH, your Redeemer. . . . For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, But my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, Says YHWH, who has compassion on you. (54:5–10) We should not miss the contrast with the ancient non-Jewish sources that spoke of the noble death on behalf of others. In those cases, it was always the human beings involved who were managing to turn away wrath, danger, malevolence, or sheer bad fortune. In Isaiah—and, we might add, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Jeremiah, and many other places—the rescue has been accomplished by Israel’s God himself. It was his initiative, his accomplishment. It was his love. Redemption and Forgiveness of Sins Is it possible to see all these themes as fitting together into a single whole? Probably not—at least within the limitations of Israel’s scriptures themselves. No one book or writer gathers together all the ideas I have sketched in this short summary. Isaiah and some of the Psalms come as close as any.

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

  I answer that, Charity, which is the bond uniting the members of the Church, extends not only to the living, but also to the dead who die in charity. For charity which is the life of the soul, even as the soul is the life of the body, has no end: “Charity never falleth away” (1 Cor. 13:8). Moreover, the dead live in the memory of the living: wherefore the intention of the living can be directed to them. Hence the suffrages of the living profit the dead in two ways even as they profit the living, both on account of the bond of charity and on account of the intention being directed to them. Nevertheless, we must not believe that the suffrages of the living profit them so as to change their state from unhappiness to happiness or “vice versa”; but they avail for the diminution of punishment or something of the kind that involves no change in the state of the dead. Reply to Objection 1: Man while living in the body merited that such things should avail him after death. Wherefore if he is assisted thereby after this life, this is, nevertheless, the result of the things he has done in the body. Or we may reply, according to John Damascene, in the sermon quoted above, that these words refer to the retribution which will be made at the final judgment, of eternal glory or eternal unhappiness: for then each one will receive only according as he himself has done in the body. Meanwhile, however, he can be assisted by the suffrages of the living. Reply to Objection 2: The words quoted refer expressly to the sequel of eternal retribution as is clear from the opening words: “Blessed are the dead,” etc. Or we may reply that deeds done on their behalf are somewhat their own, as stated above. Reply to Objection 3: Although, strictly speaking, after death souls are not in the state of the way, yet in a certain respect they are still on the way, in so far as they are delayed awhile in their advance towards their final award. Wherefore, strictly speaking, their way is hedged in round about, so that they can no more be changed by any works in respect of the state of happiness or unhappiness. Yet their way is not so hedged around that they cannot be helped by others in the matter of their being delayed from receiving their final award, because in this respect they are still wayfarers. Reply to Objection 4: Although the communion of civic deeds whereof the Philosopher speaks, is impossible between the dead and the living, because the dead are outside civic life, the communication of the spiritual life is possible between them, for that life is founded on charity towards God, to Whom the spirits of the dead live.

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxi. 3) Christ, after discoursing on some high truth, commonly retires immediately, to give time to the fury of people to abate, during His absence. Thus He did now: He went away again beyond Jordan, into the place where John at first baptized. He went there that He might recall to people’s minds, what had gone on there; John’s preaching and testimony to Himself. BEDE. (non occ.) He was followed there by many: And many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xlviii. c. 12) did not cast out devils, did not give sight to the blind, did not raise the dead. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxi. 3) Mark their reasoning, John did no miracle, but this Man did; wherefore He is the superior. But lest the absence of miracles should lessen the weight of John’s testimony, they add, But all things that John spake of this Man were true. Though he did no miracle, yet every thing he said of Christ was true, whence they conclude, if John was to be believed, much more this Man, who has the evidence of miracles. Thus it follows, And many believed on Him. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xlviii. c. 12) These laid hold of Him while abiding, not, like the Jews, when departing. Let us approach by the candle to the day. John is the candle, and gave testimony to the day. THEOPHYLACT. We may observe that our Lord often brings out the people into solitary places, thus ridding them of the society of the unbelieving, for their furtherance in the faith: just as He led the people into the wilderness, when He gave them the old Law. Mystically, Christ departs from Jerusalem, i. e. from the Jewish people; and goes to a place where are springs of water, i. e. to the Gentile Church, that hath the waters of baptism. And many resort unto Him, passing over the Jordan, i. e. through baptism. CHAPTER 11 11:1–51. Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 2. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) 3. Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. 4. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. 5. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  I will make with you an everlasting covenant , my steadfast, sure love for David. (55:1–3) On the way to that conclusion, the message comes from one angle after another and always with the reassurance of the powerful and unshakeable divine love: Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For YHWH has comforted his people , and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, “YHWH has forsaken me , my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child , or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget , yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (49:13–16) For YHWH will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places , and will make her wilderness like Eden , her desert like the garden of YHWH; joy and gladness will be found in her , thanksgiving and the voice of song. (51:3) This message of divine comfort, extending from the opening of the poem in 40:1 through 52:9 (“For YHWH has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem”), crescendos to the very passage where the “servant” is “despised and rejected by others” (53:3). It is flatly impossible, reading this passage in its wider context, to see it as anything other than the strange and shocking outworking of the powerful divine covenant love. Thus, immediately after chapter 53 itself, where the death of the “servant” is seen as the ultimate punishment of Israel’s sins, we find the covenant gloriously reaffirmed: sins are now forgiven, exile is over, and YHWH and his people are bonded together forever: For your Maker is your husband , YHWH of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer , the God of the whole earth he is called. For YHWH has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit , like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off , says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you , but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you , but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you , says YHWH, your Redeemer. . . . For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed , But my steadfast love shall not depart from you , and my covenant of peace shall not be removed , Says YHWH, who has compassion on you. (54:5–10) We should not miss the contrast with the ancient non-Jewish sources that spoke of the noble death on behalf of others.