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 Collected Essays (1998)

  It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were tr em bling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must su rvive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children's children. This innocent coun try set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. \Vherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine-but trust your ex perience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhu manity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words ac ceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and 29+ THE FIR E NE XT TIME accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a hist ory which they do not understand; and until they under stand it, they cannot be released from it.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  To be with God is really to be involved with some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you. I conceive of my own lite as a journey toward something I do not under stand, which in the going toward, makes me better. I conceive of God, in tact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others. Love docs not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a grow ing up. No one in the world-in the entire world-knows more-knows Americans better or, odd as this may sound, loves them more than the American Negro. This is because he has had to watch you, outwit you, deal with you, and bear IN SEARCH OF A MAJO RITY 22I you, and sometimes even bleed and die with you, ever since we got here, that is, since both of us, black and white, got here-and this is a wedding. Whether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. What is happening to every Negro in the country at any time is also happening to you. There is no way around this. I am suggesting that these walls-these ar tificial walls -wh ich have been up so long to protect us from something we fear, must come down. I think that what we really have to do is to create a country in which there arc no minorities-f or the first time in the history of the world. The one thing that all Americans have in common is that they have no other identity apart from the identity which is being achieved on this continent. This is not the English necessity, or the Chinese necessity, or the French necessity, but they are born into a framework which allows them their identity. The necessity of Americans to achieve an identity is a historical and a present personal fact and this is the connection between you and me. This brings me back, in a way, to where I started. I said that we couldn't talk about minorities until we had talked about majorities, and I also said that majorities had nothing to do with numbers or with power, but with influ ence, with moral influence, and I want to suggest this: that the majority for which everyone is seeking which must reassess and release us from our past and deal with the present and create stan dards worthy of what a man may be-this majority is you. No one else can do it. The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: Macrobius appears to have considered the two integral parts of justice, namely, “declining from evil,” to which “innocence” belongs, and “doing good,” to which the six others belong. Of these, two would seem to regard relations between equals, namely, “friendship” in the external conduct and “concord” internally; two regard our relations toward superiors, namely, “piety” to parents, and “religion” to God; while two regard our relations towards inferiors, namely, “condescension,” in so far as their good pleases us, and “humanity,” whereby we help them in their needs. For Isidore says (Etym. x) that a man is said to be “humane, through having a feeling of love and pity towards men: this gives its name to humanity whereby we uphold one another.” In this sense “friendship” is understood as directing our external conduct towards others, from which point of view the Philosopher treats of it in Ethic. iv, 6. “Friendship” may also be taken as regarding properly the affections, and as the Philosopher describes it in Ethic. viii and ix. In this sense three things pertain to friendship, namely, “benevolence” which is here called “affection”; “concord,” and “beneficence” which is here called “humanity.” These three, however, are omitted by Tully, because, as stated above, they have little of the nature of a due. Reply to Objection 3: “Obedience” is included in observance, which Tully mentions, because both reverential honor and obedience are due to persons who excel. “Faithfulness whereby a man’s acts agree with his words” [*Cicero, De Repub. iv, De Offic. i, 7], is contained in “truthfulness” as to the observance of one’s promises: yet “truthfulness” covers a wider ground, as we shall state further on ([2983]Q[109], AA[1],3). “Discipline” is not due as a necessary duty, because one is under no obligation to an inferior as such, although a superior may be under an obligation to watch over his inferiors, according to Mat. 24:45, “A faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath appointed over his family”: and for this reason it is omitted by Tully. It may, however, be included in humanity mentioned by Macrobius; and equity under {epieikeia} or under “friendship.”

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

  GREGORY. (Mor. xxii. 11.) Love to an enemy is then observed when we are not sorrowful at his success, or rejoice in his fall. We hate him whom we wish not to be bettered, and pursue with ill-wishes the prosperity of the man in whose fall we rejoice. Yet it may often happen that without any sacrifice of charity, the fall of an enemy may gladden us, and again his exaltation make us sorrowful without any suspicion of envy; when, namely, by his fall any deserving man is raised up, or by his success any undeservedly depressed. But herein a strict measure of discernment must be observed, lest in following out our own hates, we hide it from ourselves under the specious pretence of others’ benefit. We should balance how much we owe to the fall of the sinner, how much to the justice of the Judge. For when the Almighty has struck any hardened sinner, we must at once magnify His justice as Judge, and feel with the other’s suffering who perishes. GLOSS. (ord.) They who stand against the Church oppose her in three ways; with hate, with words, and with bodily tortures. The Church on the other hand loves them, as it is here, Love your enemies; does good to them, as it is, Do good to them that hate you; and prays for them, as it is, Pray for them that persecute you and accuse you falsely. JEROME. Many measuring the commandments of God by their own weakness, not by the strength of the saints, hold these commands for impossible, and say that it is virtue enough not to hate our enemies; but to love them is a command beyond human nature to obey. But it must be understood that Christ enjoins not impossibilities but perfection. Such was the temper of David towards Saul and Absalom; the Martyr Stephen also prayed for his enemies while they stoned him, and Paul wished himself anathema for the sake of his persecutors. (Rom. 9:3.) Jesus both taught and did the same, saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34.) AUGUSTINE. (Enchir. 73.) These indeed are examples of the perfect sons of God; yet to this should every believer aim, and seek by prayer to God, and struggles with himself to raise his human spirit to this temper. Yet this so great blessing is not given to all those multitudes which we believe are heard when they pray, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  120 Lecture 18: Catullus and Horace love as a powerful bond, to denouncing her as utterly profl igate. This portrait of a young man’s progress from romantic love to bitter hatred makes it almost irresistible to ask, “Who was she?” In A.D. 158, Apuleius wrote that by Lesbia, Catullus meant Clodia. We know of three sisters by that name; the evidence is insuf fi cient to tell which one Catullus meant. The usual identi fi cation is Clodia Metelli, but this may be because we know more about her than about her sisters. Most scholars accept that Lesbia is a pseudonym for a genuine woman. The “Lesbia poems” laid the groundwork for a genre of Latin poetry, love elegy, in which the poet is in thrall to a cruel mistress ( domina). In the next generation, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid made love elegy one of the foremost genres of Latin poetry. Catullus’s Lesbia is the ultimate ancestor of Dante’s Beatrice, Petrarch’s Laura, and Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Catullus also wrote short poems on political subjects, friendship, and his love for his home, among other topics. His handling of Greek lyric meters and his use of short, self-contained poems infl uenced the greatest Latin lyric poet of all, Horace. Quintus Horatius Flaccus was born on December 8, 65 B.C., and died on November 27, 8 B.C. Horace included many biographical details in his poetry; in addition, Suetonius’s biography of Horace has survived. Horace was born in Venusia, where his father, a freedman, worked as an auctioneer. He received the education typical for an upper-class youth, fi rst in Rome, then in Athens. Horace’s family lost its possessions after Caesar’s assassination. Caesar’s death led to an open power struggle. Caesar’s friend Mark Antony joined forces with Caesar’s great-nephew and adopted son, Octavian, to fi ght against the assassins Brutus and Cassius. Horace’s family sided with Brutus; Horace joined Brutus’s army. After defeating Brutus and Cassius at Philippi The odes show an amazing facility with meter, word choice, and placement. They are, fundamentally, untranslatable, especially into a non-infl ected language such as English.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Oh” she cried, “as you draw out, my heart follows your sex in fear of losing it and as you push in again, it opens wide in ecstasy and wants you all, all—” and she kissed me with hot lips. “Here is something new,” she exclaimed, “food for your vanity from my love! Mad as you make me with your love-thrusts, for at one moment I am hot and dry with desire, the next wet with passion, bathed in love, I could live with you all my life without having you, if you wished it, or if it would do you good. Do you believe me?” “Yes,” I replied, continuing the love-game; but occasionally withdrawing to rub her clitoris with my sex and then slowly burying him in her cunt again to the hilt. “We women have no souls but love,” she said faintly, her eyes dying as she spoke: “I torture myself to think of some new pleasure for you, and yet you’ll leave me, I feel you will, for some silly girl who can’t feel a tithe of what I feel or give you what I give—.” She began here to breathe quickly: “I’ve been thinking how to give you more pleasure; let me try. Your seed, darling, is dear to me: I don’t want it in my sex; I want to feel you thrill and so I want your sex in my mouth, I want to drink your essence and I will—” and suiting the action to the word she slipped down in the bed and took my sex in her mouth and began rubbing it up and down till my seed spirted in long jets, filling her mouth while she swallowed it greedily. “Now do I love you, Sir!” she exclaimed, drawing herself up on me again and nestling against me: “wait till some girl does that to you and you’ll know she loves you to distraction or better still to self-destruction.” “Why do you talk of any other girl!” I chided her, “I don’t imagine you going with any other man, why should you torment yourself just as causelessly?”

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  'Ahr he said, and raised both hands briefly, palms outward, in a kind of mock resignation. 1 would like to go wherever you go. I do not feel so strongly about Paris as you do, suddenly. I have never liked Paris very much.' Terhaps/ 1 said—I scarcely knew what I was 154 saying—'we could go to the country. Or to James Baldwin Spain/ *Ah/ he said, lightly, 'you are lonely for your mistress/ I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms. 'That's no reason to go to Spain/ I said sullenly. Td just like to see it, that's all. This city is expensive.' 'Well,' he said brightly, let us go to Spain. Perhaps it will remind me of Italy.' 'Would you rather go to Italy? Would you rather visit your home?' He smiled. 1 do not think I have a home there anymore.' And then: 'No. I would not like to go to Italy—perhaps, after all, for the same rea- son you do not want to go to the United States/ 'But I am going to the United States/ I said, quickly. And he looked at me. 1 mean, I'm cer- tainly going to go back there one of these days/ 'One of these days,' he said. 'Everything bad will happen—one of these days/ Why is it bad?' He smiled, 'Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will reaUy be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home.' He played with my thumb and grinned. "N'est-ce pas?' 'Beautiful logic/ I said. Tou mean I have a home to go to as long as I don't go there?' He laughed. 'Well, isn't it true? You don't GIOVANNI'S ROOM 155 have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back/ 1 seem/ I said, 'to have heard this song be- fore/ 'Ah, yes* said Giovanni, *and you will cer- tainly hear it again. It is one of those songs that somebody somewhere will always be sing- ing/ We rose and started walking. *And what would happen,' I asked, idly, *if I shut my ears?' He was silent for a long while. Then: Tou do, sometimes, remind me of the kind of man who is tempted to put himseK in prison in order to avoid being hit by a car.' That/ I said, sharply, 'would seem to apply much more to you than to me.' 'What do you mean?' he asked. Tm talking about that room, that hideous room. Why have you buried yourself there so long?'

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  Eventually we grew still, we fell silent, and we slept. We awoke around three or four in the afternoon, when the dull sun was prying at odd comers of the cluttered room. We arose and washed and shaved, bumping into each other and making jokes and furious with the imstated desire to escape the room. Then we danced out into the streets, into Paris, and ate quickly somewhere, and I left Giovanni at the door to Guillaume's bar. Then I, alone, and relieved to be alone, per- haps went to a movie, or walked, or returned home and read, or sat in a park and read, or sat on a cafe terrace, or talked to people, or wrote letters. I wrote to Hella, telling her noth- ing, or I wrote to my father asking for money. And no matter what I was doing, another me sat in my belly, absolutely cold with terror over the question of my life. Giovanni had awakened an itch, had released James Baldwin 110 a gnaw in me. I realized it one afternoon, when I was taking him to work via the Boulevard Montparnasse. We had bought a kilo of cherries and we were eating them as we walked along. We were both insufferably childish and high- spirited that afternoon and the spectacle we presented, two grown men jostling each other on the wide sidewalk and aiming the cherry pits, as though they were spitballs, into each other's faces, must have been outrageous. And I reaUzed that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than he was that afternoon. And, watching his face, I realized that it meant much to me that I could make his face so bright. I saw that I might be willing to give a great deal not to lose that power. And I felt myself flow toward him, as a river rushes when the ice breaks up. Yet, at that very moment, there passed between us on the pavement another boy, a stranger, and I invested him at once with Giovanni's beauty and what I felt for Giovanni I also felt for him. Giovanni saw this and saw my face and it made him laugh the more. I blushed and he kept laughing and then the boulevard, the light, the sound of his laughter turned into a scene from a nightmare. I kept looking at the trees, the light falling through the leaves. I felt sorrow and shame and panic and great bitterness. At the same time—it was 111 GIOVANNrS ROOM

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

  Objection 2: Further, if contemplation were the proper and essential cause of devotion, the higher objects of contemplation would arouse greater devotion. But the contrary is the case: since frequently we are urged to greater devotion by considering Christ’s Passion and other mysteries of His humanity than by considering the greatness of His Godhead. Therefore contemplation is not the proper cause of devotion. Objection 3: Further, if contemplation were the proper cause of devotion, it would follow that those who are most apt for contemplation, are also most apt for devotion. Yet the contrary is to be noticed, for devotion is frequently found in men of simplicity and members of the female sex, who are defective in contemplation. Therefore contemplation is not the proper cause of devotion. On the contrary, It is written (Ps. 38:4): “In my meditation a fire shall flame out.” But spiritual fire causes devotion. Therefore meditation is the cause of devotion. I answer that, The extrinsic and chief cause of devotion is God, of Whom Ambrose, commenting on Lk. 9:55, says that “God calls whom He deigns to call, and whom He wills He makes religious: the profane Samaritans, had He so willed, He would have made devout.” But the intrinsic cause on our part must needs be meditation or contemplation. For it was stated above [3004](A[1]) that devotion is an act of the will to the effect that man surrenders himself readily to the service of God. Now every act of the will proceeds from some consideration, since the object of the will is a good understood. Wherefore Augustine says (De Trin. ix, 12; xv, 23) that “the will arises from the intelligence.” Consequently meditation must needs be the cause of devotion, in so far as through meditation man conceives the thought of surrendering himself to God’s service. Indeed a twofold consideration leads him thereto. The one is the consideration of God’s goodness and loving kindness, according to Ps. 72:28, “It is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God”: and this consideration wakens love [*’Dilectio,’ the interior act of charity; cf. Q[27]] which is the proximate cause of devotion. The other consideration is that of man’s own shortcomings, on account of which he needs to lean on God, according to Ps. 120:1,2, “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me: my help is from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth”; and this consideration shuts out presumption whereby man is hindered from submitting to God, because he leans on His strength. Reply to Objection 1: The consideration of such things as are of a nature to awaken our love [*’Dilectio,’ the interior act of charity; cf. Q[27]] of God, causes devotion; whereas the consideration of foreign matters that distract the mind from such things is a hindrance to devotion.

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

  Now this same grace must needs be something in the man who is graced, something by way of form and perfection. For that which is being directed to an end, must have a continuous order thereto: because the mover causes a continuous change in the thing moved, until the latter by its movement reaches the end. Since then man, as we proved above, is directed to his last end by the assistance of the divine grace, it follows that he must possess this assistance continuously, until he reach his end. But this would not be the case were man to share in this assistance by way of motion or passion, and not by way of a form, abiding and reposing, as it were, within him: for such motion and passion would not be in man except when he is actually turned towards his end, and this is not always so in man, as may be seen especially when he is asleep. Therefore sanctifying grace is a form and perfection abiding in man, even when he is doing nothing. Again. God’s love causes the good that is in us: even as man’s love is evoked and caused by some good in the beloved. Now, man is incited to love someone especially, on account of some good already existing in the beloved. Consequently where there is special love of God for man, we must suppose some special good bestowed on man by God. Since, then, according to what we have been saying, sanctifying grace denotes God’s special love for man, it must in consequence imply the presence of some special goodness and perfection in man. Also. Everything is directed to a suitable end in proportion to its form: since different species have different ends. Now, the end whereto man is directed by the assistance of divine grace is above human nature. Therefore man needs, over and above, a supernatural form and perfection, so as to be suitably directed to that same end. Besides. It behoves man to reach his last end by means of his own actions. Now, everything acts in proportion to its form. Therefore, in order that man may be brought to his last end by means of his own actions, he needs to receive an additional form, whereby his actions may be rendered effective in meriting his last end. Further. Divine providence provides for each thing according to the mode of its nature, as we have shown above. Now, the mode proper to man is that, for the perfection of his operations, he needs, besides his natural powers, certain perfections and habits, to enable him to do the good well as it were connaturally and with both ease and pleasure. Therefore the assistance of grace which man receives from God that he may obtain his last end, denotes a form and perfection abiding in man.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  You ain't right, child!" With which stern put down, she would hand me another drink and launch into a brilliant analysis of just why I wasn't "right." I would often stagger down her stairs as the sun came up, usually in the middle of a paragraph and always in the middle of a laugh. That marvelous laugh. That marvelous face. I loved her, she was my sister and my comrade. Her going did not so much make me lonely as make me realize how lonely we were. We had that respect for each other which perhaps is only felt by people on the same side of the barricades, listening to the accumulating thunder of the hooves of horses and the treads of tanks. The first time I ever saw Lorraine was at the Actors' Studio, in the Winter of ' 5 8-' 59 . She was there as an observer of the Workshop Production of Giovanni)s Room. She sat way up in the bleachers, taking on some of the biggest names in the American theatre because she had liked the play and they, in the main, hadn't. I was enormously grateful to her, she seemed to speak for me; and afterward she talked to me with a gentleness and generosity never to be forgotten. A small, shy, determined person, with that strength dictated by abso- 757 758 OTHER ESSAYS lutely impersonal ambition: she was not trying to "make it" she was trying to keep the faith. We really met, however, in Philadelphia, in 1959, when A Raisin In The Sttn was at the beginning of its amazing career. Much has been written about this play; I personally feel that it will demand a far less guilty and constricted people than the present-day Americans to be able to assess it at all; as an his torical achievement, anyway, no one can gainsay its impor tance. What is relevant here is that I had never in my life seen so many black people in the theatre. And the reason was that never in the history of the American theatre had so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage. Black people ignored the theatre because the theatre had always ig nored them. But, in Raisin, black people recognized that house and all the people in it-the mother, the son, the daughter and the daughter-in-law-and supplied the play with an interpretative element which could not be present in the minds of white people: a kind of claustrophobic terror, created not only by their knowledge of the house but by their knowledge of the streets. And when the curtain came down, Lorraine and I found ourselves in the backstage alley, where she was imme diately mobbed.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Everything in this job is personal: it is government on the ground, journeys of many days with a band of men across deserts or through sudden floods & then the instantaneous fields of flowers. It is not sitting at a desk: it is standing in scant shade & deciding between one naked tribesman and another. It is not bookish & bureaucratic: it takes place in open spaces almost without end, in which the rare, unobvious & beautiful people materialise out of the quivering heat. Their beauty of course is neither here nor there: their heads could grow beneath their shoulders … But when I went back through the doorless aperture into the room where Taha was, asleep, unaware, & yet tormented, like some saint in ecstasy or martyrdom, I felt all my vague, ideal emotions about Africa & my wandering, autocratic life here take substance before my bleary eyes. He lay with his head back, half off the pillow, an arm flung out, the fingers twitching with his pulse, only an inch above the floor … At once I saw he was my responsibility made flesh: he was all the offspring I will never have, all my futurity. He became so beautiful to me that my mouth went dry, & when he woke he found me staring at him. I’m not sure if he was the one I prayed for or the one to whom I made my intercession. I am very, very drunk. It is half past two in the morning. I tiptoe in with fantastical caution, & see him sleeping quietly. Everything I have an impulse to do wd wake him—& that wd be inexcusable. All my love to him goes out in a sweet bedside gesture of self-denial, a kind of blessing, a sweeping of the arms that comes from I don’t know where and is lost into the air. And in a mood of certainty & faint ridiculousness, I stagger to bed. June 1, 1926: A terrible head this morning. I cancelled all engagements, such as they were, & fell into a routine of parallel convalescence with my boy. Hassan evidently foully jealous.

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

  Objection 4: Further, religious are bound by a vow which they may not break to fulfil the observances of religion. Now in accordance with those observances they are hindered from supporting their parents, both on the score of poverty, since they have nothing of their own, and on the score of obedience, since they may not leave the cloister without the permission of their superior. Therefore the duties of piety towards one’s parents should be omitted for the sake of religion. On the contrary, Our Lord reproved the Pharisees (Mat. 15:3–6) who taught that for the sake of religion one ought to refrain from paying one’s parents the honor we owe them. I answer that, Religion and piety are two virtues. Now no virtue is opposed to another virtue, since according to the Philosopher, in his book on the Categories (Cap. De oppos.), “good is not opposed to good.” Therefore it is impossible that religion and piety mutually hinder one another, so that the act of one be excluded by the act of the other. Now, as stated above ([3154]FS, Q[7], A[2]; [3155]FS, Q[18], A[3]), the act of every virtue is limited by the circumstances due thereto, and if it overstep them it will be an act no longer of virtue but of vice. Hence it belongs to piety to pay duty and homage to one’s parents according to the due mode. But it is not the due mode that man should tend to worship his father rather than God, but, as Ambrose says on Lk. 12:52, “the piety of divine religion takes precedence of the claims of kindred.” Accordingly, if the worship of one’s parents take one away from the worship of God it would no longer be an act of piety to pay worship to one’s parents to the prejudice of God. Hence Jerome says (Ep. ad Heliod.): “Though thou trample upon thy father, though thou spurn thy mother, turn not aside, but with dry eyes hasten to the standard of the cross; it is the highest degree of piety to be cruel in this matter.” Therefore in such a case the duties of piety towards one’s parents should be omitted for the sake of the worship religion gives to God. If, however, by paying the services due to our parents, we are not withdrawn from the service of God, then will it be an act of piety, and there will be no need to set piety aside for the sake of religion.

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

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cx. 4) Nor is this said, however, as if to mean that the Father was not in us, or we in the Father. He only means to say, that He is Mediator between God and man. And what He adds, That they may be made perfect in one, shews that the reconciliation made by this Mediator, was carried on even to the enjoyment of everlasting blessedness. So what follows, That the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, must not be taken to mean the same as the words just above, That the world may believe. For as long as we believe what we do not see, we are not yet made perfect, as we shall be when we have merited to see what we believe. So that when He speaks of their being made perfect, we are to understand such a knowledge as shall be by sight, not such as is by faith. These that believe are the world, not a permanent enemy, but changed from an enemy to a friend; as it follows: And hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me. The Father loves us in the Son, because He elected us in Him. These words do not prove that we are equal to the Only Begotten Son; for this mode of expression, as one thing so another, does not always signify equality. It sometimes only means, because one thing, therefore another. And this is its meaning here: Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me, i. e. Thou hast loved them, because Thou hast loved Me. There is no reason for God loving His members, but that He loves him. But since He hateth nothing that He hath made, who can adequately express how much He loves the members of His Only Begotten Son, and still more the Only Begotten Himself. 17:24–2624. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. 25. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxii. 2) After He has said that many should believe on Him through them, and that they should obtain great glory, He then speaks of the crowns in store for them; Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  235 The stories of the second day are about fate and its sudden reversals. As an example, we may take Andreuccio of Perugia, who went to Naples with 500 fl orins to buy horses. He got mixed up with a prostitute who robbed him after he fell into a latrine. Covered with feces, he fell in with two robbers who planned to strip the grave of the recently deceased archbishop. Eventually, he tricked his companions, who had tried to trick him, and he went home with a ruby ring worth more than his lost 500 fl orins. The stories of the fourth and fi fth days are about love, sometimes as a destructive force, or a challenge, or an opportunity. As an example, we may tell the story of Tancredi, the prince of Salerno, and his daughter, Ghismunda. Tancredi and his daughter loved each other tenderly; she married reluctantly, then was soon widowed. She returned to her father’s house and, at his court, observed many men, none of whom pleased her, except for a handsome, debonair servant, Guiscardo. They fell in love, Tancredi discovered the affair, Guiscardo was killed, and his heart was sent to Ghismunda. She delivered a remarkable speech on the power of love, then poisoned herself. The stories of the sixth day are often about language or storytelling. The fi rst story of this day has the noble lady Oretta going out to the countryside. A noble man offers to give her a ride on his horse and to entertain her with a story, but he botches it wretchedly and she fi nally asks him to put her down, claiming that the horse’s trot makes her uncomfortable. The man realizes his gaffe. The stores of the seventh and eighth days are about love again but focus on the tricks adulterous women play on their husbands. The second story of day seven is about beautiful young Peronella, who has an old but dutiful husband. Predictably, she takes a lover, Gianello. One day, her husband returns home unexpectedly and, fi nding the door locked from the inside, is joyous about his virtuous wife. She, meanwhile, is with her lover, whom she hides in a barrel. The husband tells her that he has sold the barrel for fi ve silver coins to the man who has accompanied him. Peronella scolds her husband for not being able to get more for the barrel, because she has sold it for seven coins to the man who is just now inside it inspecting it. Giannello actually gets the husband to clean the barrel for him.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  214 Lecture 30: Dante Alighieri—Life and Works career: He self-consciously comments on poetry in general and on his poetry in particular. La vita nuova consists of poems, some old and some new, arranged by Dante within a frame, or a running prose commentary. The tradition of commenting at length on a set text was very old and very conventional. As the poems and commentary evolve through 42 sections, convention gives way to novelty. The troubadour poetry of France had fi rst taken root in Italy in Palermo in the court of Emperor Frederick II and was conventional in themes and content but innovative in form: Giacomo da Lentini devised the sonnet. Sicilian poetry was imitated, then superseded by a group of northern poets, chief among whom were Guido Guinizzelli (d. 1276), Cino da Pistoia (1270–1336), and Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1250–1300). The poets wrote in what came to be called il dolce stil nuovo (“the sweet new style”—hence, the stilnovisti). Previously, Italian poetry had stuck closely to French conventions and issues. Fundamental was the notion that love of a lady and love of God were somehow incompatible. The stilnovisti “theologized” French poetry by asserting that the lady might lead a man to God. On one level, La vita nuova narrates Dante’s love for Beatrice from their initial encounter, to the time she fi rst greeted him, to a wedding feast where he swooned in her presence, to her death, to his attempts to love others, to his dawning understanding—perhaps re-understanding of love. On the most Dante Alighieri, great writer and literary innovator who infl uenced generations of writers. Corel Stock Photo Library.

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

  Now this may be viewed with respect to our “furtherance in good.” First, with regard to faith, which is made more certain by believing God Himself Who speaks; hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xi, 2): “In order that man might journey more trustfully toward the truth, the Truth itself, the Son of God, having assumed human nature, established and founded faith.” Secondly, with regard to hope, which is thereby greatly strengthened; hence Augustine says (De Trin. xiii): “Nothing was so necessary for raising our hope as to show us how deeply God loved us. And what could afford us a stronger proof of this than that the Son of God should become a partner with us of human nature?” Thirdly, with regard to charity, which is greatly enkindled by this; hence Augustine says (De Catech. Rudib. iv): “What greater cause is there of the Lord’s coming than to show God’s love for us?” And he afterwards adds: “If we have been slow to love, at least let us hasten to love in return.” Fourthly, with regard to well-doing, in which He set us an example; hence Augustine says in a sermon (xxii de Temp.): “Man who might be seen was not to be followed; but God was to be followed, Who could not be seen. And therefore God was made man, that He Who might be seen by man, and Whom man might follow, might be shown to man.” Fifthly, with regard to the full participation of the Divinity, which is the true bliss of man and end of human life; and this is bestowed upon us by Christ’s humanity; for Augustine says in a sermon (xiii de Temp.): “God was made man, that man might be made God.”

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

  I answer that, As stated above [3819](A[1]), the religious state is directed to the perfection of charity, which extends to the love of God and of our neighbor. Now the contemplative life which seeks to devote itself to God alone belongs directly to the love of God, while the active life, which ministers to our neighbor’s needs, belongs directly to the love of one’s neighbor. And just as out of charity we love our neighbor for God’s sake, so the services we render our neighbor redound to God, according to Mat. 25:40, “What you have done [Vulg.: ‘As long as you did it’] to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me.” Consequently those services which we render our neighbor, in so far as we refer them to God, are described as sacrifices, according to Heb. 13:16, “Do not forget to do good and to impart, for by such sacrifices God’s favor is obtained.” And since it belongs properly to religion to offer sacrifice to God, as stated above (Q[81], A[1], ad 1; A[4], ad 1), it follows that certain religious orders are fittingly directed to the works of the active life. Wherefore in the Conferences of the Fathers (Coll. xiv, 4) the Abbot Nesteros in distinguishing the various aims of religious orders says: “Some direct their intention exclusively to the hidden life of the desert and purity of heart; some are occupied with the instruction of the brethren and the care of the monasteries; while others delight in the service of the guesthouse,” i.e. in hospitality. Reply to Objection 1: Service and subjection rendered to God are not precluded by the works of the active life, whereby a man serves his neighbor for God’s sake, as stated in the Article. Nor do these works preclude singularity of life; not that they involve man’s living apart from his fellow-men, but in the sense that each man individually devotes himself to things pertaining to the service of God; and since religious occupy themselves with the works of the active life for God’s sake, it follows that their action results from their contemplation of divine things. Hence they are not entirely deprived of the fruit of the contemplative life.

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

  2. Again, election is of those who exist. But predestination is also of those who do not exist, since predestination is from eternity. There must therefore be some who are predestined without being elected. 3. Again, election implies discrimination. But it is said in 1 Tim. 2:4: “ Who will have all men to be saved. ” Thus predestination preordains all men to salvation. It is therefore without election. On the other hand: it is said in Eph. 1:4: “ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. ” I answer: predestination presupposes election by its very nature, and election presupposes love. The reason for this is that predestination is part of providence, as we observed in Art. 1. We also said that providence, like prudence, is the reason preconceived in the mind for the ordination of things to an end (Q. 22, Art. 2). Now the ordination of something to an end cannot be preconceived unless the end is already willed. The predestination of some to eternal salvation therefore means that God has already willed their salvation. This involves both election and love. It involves love, because God wills the good of eternal salvation for them, to love being the same as to will good for someone (Q. 20, Arts. 2, 3). It involves election, because he wills this good for some in preference to others, some being rejected, as we said in Art. 3. But election and love are not the same in God as they are in ourselves. Our will is not the cause of the good in what we love. We are induced to love by good which exists already. We thus choose someone whom we shall love, and our choice precedes our love. With God, it is the reverse. When God wills some good to one whom he loves, his will is the cause of this good being in him, rather than in any other. It is plain, then, that the very meaning of election presupposes love, and that predestination presupposes election. All who are predestined are therefore elected, and loved also. On the first point: we said in Q. 6, Art. 4, that there is nothing which does not share something of God ’ s goodness. There is therefore no election in the universal bestowal of God ’ s goodness, if this is what we have in mind. But if we are thinking of the bestowal of one particular good or another, this is not without election, since God gives certain good things to some which he does not give to others. Election is likewise involved in the bestowal of grace and glory.

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

  Moreover man performs certain sensible actions, not to arouse God, but to arouse himself to things divine: such as prostrations, genuflexions, raising of the voice and singing. Such things are not done as though God needed them, for He knows all things, and His will is unchangeable, and He looks at the affection of the heart, and not the mere movement of the body: but we do them for our own sake, that by them our intention may be fixed on God, and our hearts inflamed. At the same time we thereby confess that God is the author of our soul and body, since we employ both soul and body in the worship we give Him. Hence we must not wonder that heretics who deny that God is the author of our body, decry the offering of this bodily worship to God. Wherein it is clear that they forget that they are men, inasmuch as they deem the presentation of sensible objects to be unnecessary for interior knowledge and affection. For experience shows that by acts of the body the soul is aroused to a certain knowledge or affection. Wherefore it is evidently reasonable that we should employ bodies in order to raise our minds to God. The offering of these bodily things to God is called the worship (cultus) of God. For we speak of cultivating those things to which we give our thought in the shape of deeds. Now, we give our thought to God in our actions, not indeed that we may be of advantage to Him, as when we cultivate other things by our actions: but because by such actions we advance towards God. And since by internal acts we tend to God directly, therefore properly speaking we worship God by internal acts. Nevertheless external acts also belong to the divine worship, forasmuch as by these acts the mind is raised to God, as we have said. This divine worship is also called religion: because by these acts man tethers (ligat) himself, as it were, lest he stray from God. Also, because by a kind of natural instinct he feels himself obliged in his own way to show reverence to God, from whom flows His being and every good. Wherefore religion is called piety. Because by piety we give due honour to those who begot us. Hence it would seem reasonably to belong to piety to honour God the Father of all. For this reason those who are averse to the worship of God are said to be impious.