Pride As Defense

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 From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Mr. Patterson’s thick fingers strummed against his desk. Pretty picked up the pattern and bobbed his head every time he heard the thud. He wasn’t going to answer automatically. He felt the transition of power. He had something Mr. Patterson wanted. The knowledge of Mr. Patterson’s self. Mr. Patterson thought everyone loved him. He thought no one ever said anything bad about him. Sure he ran this ship like a slave one, but he gave out great Christmas gifts. He gave rewards like Scooby snacks when people met quotas. He pampered on his own time. Pretty held on to the information like an informant did to get a better deal. What was it worth to Mr. Patterson? He watched Mr. Patterson glance at him through his bluest eye. Mr. Patterson’s voice was huge. “Well?” “Tell me your proposition first.” Pretty wasn’t going to let Mr. Patterson string this proposition out for hours. He wanted to know what was going on. He needed to know the particulars. “Enough of the bullshit, Jarvis. This proposition benefits you more than it would me.” He spoke slowly, and with conviction. “What do they call me?” Pretty laughed. “Mr. Fatterson!” He fell back into his seat and awaited his response. He figured Mr. Patterson would want to know who it was. He thought Mr. Patterson would be angry and disturbed that someone would actually call him such names. Instead, Mr. Patterson chuckled loudly. “They’ve always called me that. They couldn’t think of anything new? I’ve heard that all of my life.” He patted his stomach. “Well, since I’ve grown this. A stomach doesn’t make a man, Jarvis.” Pretty laughed with him. This was the first thing they’d ever shared. And it happened to come at Mr. Patterson’s expense. “Come back to my office at exactly one-thirty if you want to hear the proposition,” he said plainly. He offered Pretty the door. He knew that he’d put enough in Pretty’s head to stimulate it. He never said what it was, and he knew that would get Pretty interested. He couldn’t run a ship so tight without being smart. • • • At one-thirty Pretty knocked twice. “Come in, Jarvis.” Pretty walked in and found Mr. Patterson standing by a makeshift bar, with a drink in hand. The shabby silver cart housed two big bottles of liquor, a long slender bottle of red wine, and three glasses: one shot glass, a wineglass, and a wide glass people used when they swirled around expensive scotch. Mr. Patterson held his glass in the air. “Scotch, Jarvis?” Pretty stopped in his tracks. He looked up toward the ceiling and searched for hidden cameras. “No, thank you. I’m good.” Mr. Patterson noticed the apprehension and walked near. “Who runs this establishment, Jarvis?” He took great pleasure in saying the name “Jarvis.” He knew he wanted to be called Pretty, but it wouldn’t be by him. Every chance he got, he would let Pretty’s government name put him in his place.

• From The Girls (2016)

  I had never spent much time with Teddy, beyond the familiarity of being young at neighborhood parties, anyone under age eighteen herded together in a forced march to friendship. Sometimes I’d see him riding his bike along the fire road with a boy in glasses: he’d once let me pet a barn kitten they’d found, holding the tiny thing under his shirt. The kitten’s eyes were leaky with pus, but Teddy had been gentle with it, like a little mother. That was the last time I’d spoken to him. “Hey,” I said when Teddy opened the door. “Your dog.” Teddy was gaping at me like we hadn’t been neighbors our whole lives. I rolled my eyes a little at his silence. “He was in our yard,” I went on. The dog moved against my hold. It took Teddy a second to speak, but before he did, I saw him cut a helpless look at my swimsuit top, the exaggerated swell of cleavage. Teddy saw that I had noticed and got more flustered. He scowled at the dog, taking his collar. “Bad Tiki,” he said, hustling the animal into the house. “Bad dog.” The thought that Teddy Dutton might be somehow nervous around me was a surprise. Though I hadn’t even owned a bikini the last time I’d seen him, and my breasts were bigger now, pleasing even to me. I found his attention almost hilarious. A stranger had once shown Connie and me his dick by the movie theater bathrooms—it had taken a moment to understand why the man was gasping like a fish for air, but then I saw his penis, out of his zipper like an arm out of a sleeve. He’d looked at us like we were butterflies he was pinning to a board. Connie had grabbed my arm, and we’d turned and run, laughing, the Raisinets clutched in my hand starting to melt. We recounted our disgust to each other in strident tones, but there was pride, too. Like the satisfied way Patricia Bell had once asked me after class whether I’d seen how Mr. Garrison had been staring at her, and didn’t I think it was weird ? “His paws are all wet,” I said. “He’s gonna mess up the floors.” “My parents aren’t home. It doesn’t matter.” Teddy stayed in the doorway, awkward with an air of expectancy; did he think we were going to hang out? He stood there, like the unhappy boys who sometimes got erections at the chalkboard for no reason at all—he was obviously under the command of some other force. Maybe the proof of sex was visible on me in a new way. “Well,” I said. I worried I would start laughing—Teddy looked so uncomfortable. “See you.” Teddy cleared his throat, trying to throttle his voice deeper. “Sorry,” he said. “If Tiki was bothering you.” How did I know I could mess with Teddy? Why did my mind range immediately to that option?

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  2. Philip Neri: Playful Pragmatist Philip’s Unique Style Stories grew of Philip performing miraculous healings. He was on call not only for confession, healings, and last rites but also for childbirths that were going badly. He was also known to have visions and go into ecstasies, especially while celebrating mass. Philip yielded center stage readily to his disciples. He identified and cultivated their strengths, allowing them to develop as speakers or encouraging them as scholars. As musicians from the papal court began to attend, he encouraged them to share their talents. The community became a center for innovation in church music. His sermons took after his own style of speaking, which emblematized the principles of the Counter-Reformation. He addressed the theological and moral debates of the day, discussed Protestant claims and propaganda, and explored Christian doctrine. But by far the most popular of his exercises were Philip’s pilgrimage walks. The most well known was the Walk of the Seven Churches. This procession began as a small gathering of perhaps 30 people, but it eventually swelled to 2,000 people or more and stayed that size for much of Philip’s life. Philip had a horror of being considered a saint, and he did ridiculous things to convince people he wasn’t: He had his hair cut in church during mass, appeared disheveled, and played children’s games in the street. He even used his odd behavior to try to convince cardinals and popes that he wasn’t fit for high office. 13

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  What’s more, the cat’s whiskers were gilded. ‘Well, what’s all this now?’ exclaimed Woland. ‘Why have you gilded your whiskers? And what the devil do you need the bow-tie for, when you’re not even wearing trousers?’ ‘A cat is not supposed to wear trousers, Messire,’ the cat replied with great dignity. ‘You’re not going to tell me to wear boots, too, are you? Puss-in-Boots exists only in fairy tales, Messire. But have you ever seen anyone at a ball without a bow-tie? I do not intend to put myself in a ridiculous situation and risk being chucked out! Everyone adorns himself with what he can. You may consider what I’ve said as referring to the opera glasses as well, Messire!’ ‘But the whiskers? . . .’ ‘I don’t understand,’ the cat retorted drily. ‘Why could Azazello and Koroviev put white powder on themselves as they were shaving today, and how is that better than gold? I powdered my whiskers, that’s all! If I’d shaved myself, it would be a different matter! A shaved cat—now, that is indeed an outrage, I’m prepared to admit it a thousand times over. But generally,’ here the cat’s voice quavered touchily, ‘I see I am being made the object of a certain captiousness, and I see that a serious problem stands before me—am I to attend the ball? What have you to say about that, Messire?’ And the cat got so puffed up with offence that it seemed he would burst in another second. ‘Ah, the cheat, the cheat,’ said Woland, shaking his head. ‘Each time his game is in a hopeless situation, he starts addling your pate like the crudest mountebank on a street corner. Sit down at once and stop slinging this verbal muck.’ ‘I shall sit down,’ replied the cat, sitting down, ‘but I shall enter an objection with regard to your last. My speeches in no way resemble verbal muck, as you have been pleased to put it in the presence of a lady, but rather a sequence of tightly packed syllogisms, the merit of which would be appreciated by such connoisseurs as Sextus Empiricus, Martianus Capella, 4 and, for all I know, Aristotle himself.’ ‘Your king is in check,’ said Woland. ‘Very well, very well,’ responded the cat, and he began studying the chessboard through his opera glasses. ‘And so, donna,’ Woland addressed Margarita, ‘I present to you my retinue. This one who is playing the fool is the cat Behemoth.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “You know Chocolate be having these bitches acting all out of character,” Hog added. Hog had gotten his nickname because his nose resembled a pig’s snout. He looked like a slightly more handsome version of the Notorious B.I.G., with a shaved head. “Y’all niggaz always got jokes,” I said, plopping down on the chair closest to Max. “Where the fuck is Reggie?” “He dipped out about twenty minutes ago. He went to see that stripper bitch he met last month,” Max informed me. “Sucker-for-love-ass nigga,” I laughed. “I know a lot of niggaz who done paid for pussy a time or two, but Reg is making that shit a regular occurrence. What is that, like the third time he’s seen her this week?” “Fourth,” Hog said. “Silly muthafucka took off work the other day to get a shot of that.” Max shook his head sadly. “That boy is gonna take himself to the poorhouse.” “Anybody ever seen this chick?” I asked. “Nah, we weren’t with him when he met her. He was fucking with Tay and them niggaz from the hill,” Hog said. “She must have some bomb-ass pussy, because she’s got this nigga acting like a schoolgirl.” “Let him tell it, she’s got fairy dust tucked in her twat,” Max joked. “This dude told me that she licked his ass cleaner than Martha Stewart’s kitchen.” “Shit, I wouldn’t mind getting a shot of that,” I admitted. Hog pushed me playfully. “Nigga, your hands are full enough. You got a girl and you’re still fucking everything on two legs. One day your dick is gonna fall off.” “You know these hoes can’t get enough of Chocolate,” I said, referring to myself in third person, as I was known to do. “They pay like they weigh, my dude.” “You pop that shit now, but what you gonna do when these females get together and try to burn your ass at the stake?” Hog said, in his gravelly voice. “I wish the fuck they would. My dick is like crack, and these chicks know who got the best product in town. They all pay homage to the king,” I boasted. “These bitches got you gassed,” Max said. “Chocolate, I ain’t never met a nigga as stuck on himself as you.” “Stop hating, fool, you know how I do. My show, my way. Recognize!” We exchanged high fives and ordered another round of drinks. Though my niggaz loved me, I know that sometimes they got a little jealous. I was young, fine, and doing me in a major way. I got more pussy on a weekly basis than some of them got in a month, and still I had a bad bitch who was madly in love with me. My game was on a million and it was only gonna get tighter, or so I thought. • • •

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  233 Innocent III • A full century later, we meet another super-pope, Innocent III (1160–1216; r. 1198–1216), who displayed an even more aggressive assertion of papal authority in matters both secular and religious. • Born in the papal states of Italy of a noble family that over time produced nine popes, Lotario di Segni was educated in Rome, Paris, and Bologna, with a specific concentration on canon law. He took on a number of roles in the papal service, became a cardinal in 1190, and was elected pope by the College of Cardinals in 1198. • As pope, Innocent III was obsessed with the plenitudo potestatis (“fullness of power”) of the papacy; he was the first pope to designate himself as “vicar of Christ” and spoke of himself as “between God and man; lower than God but higher than man.” He demanded absolute obedience from both bishops and kings. o In his encyclical letter “Venerabilem” (1202), Innocent asserted the right to examine those chosen by the imperial electors and then to appoint them; thus, he made Frederick II king of Sicily when the ruler recognized fealty to the pope. o Similarly, when King John of England was willing to recognize Innocent as his feudal overlord, the pope helped establish him in his reign. o Innocent called for the Fourth Crusade to liberate the Holy Land and saw its disastrous turn that led to the sacking of Constantinople and the establishment of Latin rule there. o He then declared a crusade against the heretics called the Albigensians—the “Cathars,” located in southern France, who represented a version of Gnostic Christianity. Innocent called for the armed crusade when a series of preaching missions against them failed. The resulting war extended for decades.

• From The Girls (2016)

  Her daughter, who had always been good, even if that was more disappointing than being great. I’m surprised that I felt so little guilt. On the contrary—there was something righteous in the way I hoarded my mother’s money. I was picking up some of the ranch bravado, the certainty that I could take what I wanted. The knowledge of the hidden bills allowed me to smile at my mother the next morning, to act like we hadn’t said the things we’d said the night before. To stand patiently when she brushed at my bangs without warning. “Don’t hide your eyes,” my mother said, her breath close and hot, her fingers raking at my hair. I wanted to shake her off, to step back, but I didn’t. “There,” she said, pleased. “There’s my sweet daughter.” —I was thinking of the money while I kicked in the pool, my shoulders above the waterline. There was a purity to the task, amassing the bills in my little zip purse. When I was alone, I liked to count the money, each new five or ten a particular boon. I folded the crisper bills on top, so the bundle looked nicer. Imagining Suzanne’s and Russell’s pleasure when I brought the money to them, lulled into the sweet wayward fog of daydreams. My eyes were closed as I floated, and I only opened them when I heard thrashing beyond the tree line. A deer, maybe. I tensed, stirring uneasily in the water. I didn’t think that it could be a person: we didn’t worry about those kinds of things. Not until later. And it was a dalmatian anyway, the creature that came trotting out of the trees and right up to the pool’s edge. He regarded me soberly, then started to bark. The dog was strange looking, speckled and spotted, and it barked with high, human alarm. I knew it belonged to the neighbors on our left, the Dutton family. The father had written some movie theme song, and at parties I had heard the mother hum it, mockingly, to a gathered group. Their son was younger than me—he often shot his BB gun in the yard, the dog yelping in agitated chorus. I couldn’t remember the dog’s name. “Get,” I said, splashing halfheartedly. I didn’t want to have to haul myself out of the water. “Go on.” The dog kept barking. “Go,” I tried again, but the dog just barked louder. —My cutoffs were damp from my swimsuit by the time I made it to the Dutton house. I’d put on my cork sandals, grimed with the ghost of my feet, and taken the dog by the collar, the ends of my hair dripping. Teddy Dutton answered the door. He was eleven or twelve, his legs studded with scabs and scrapes. He’d broken his arm last year falling from a tree, and my mother had been the one to drive him to the hospital: she’d muttered darkly that his parents left him alone too much.

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  Augustine did not expect attack from this quarter. Julian was the son and son-in-law of bishops and a friend of the saintly Paulinus of Nola. In fact, Paulinus wrote a poem for Julian’s wedding to a bishop’s daughter, hoping their marriage would produce a whole line of bishops. In 408, Julian’s father asked Augustine for a copy of his book Music to give to his son, who was then a young deacon. Augustine, while sending the book, invited Julian to come visit him at Hippo—perhaps to recruit badly needed talent for the African clergy. Augustine did not know yet that Julian was contemptuous of Africa—perhaps for forcing Pope Zosimus (who had consecrated Julian a bishop by 418) to back down and condemn Pelagius. In the years of bitter verbal battle coming up, Julian took every opportunity to ridicule Augustine’s “Punic donkeys”—but the aging bishop would answer him quip for quip (U 6.18): Don’t, out of pride in your earthly ancestry, dismiss one who monitors and admonishes you, just because I am Punic. Your Apulian birth is no pledge of victory over Punic forces, where not what your ancestors have wrought but what you have thought [non gente sed mente] is what matters. You should fear a punitive not a Punic outcome [poenas non Poenos]. You cannot escape Punic thought, no matter how you boast of your own powers, for it was a Punic saint, Cyprian, who said, “We should never crow, since we are nothing.”

• From The Girls (2016)

  kept up a vivid catalog of happy data: the fact that I was sitting beside Suzanne, our friendly silence. My perverse pride that I’d been with Russell. I took pleasure in replaying the facts of the act, even the messy and boring parts. The odd lulls while Russell made himself hard. There was some power in the bluntness of human functions. Like Russell had explained to me: your body could hurtle you past your hang-ups, if you let it. Suzanne smoked steadily as she drove, occasionally offering her cigarette to me with serene ritual. The quiet between us wasn’t slack or uncomfortable. Outside the car, olive trees flashed by, the scorched summer earth. Far-off waterways, sloughing to the sea. Suzanne kept changing the radio station until she abruptly snapped it off. “We need gas,” she announced. We, I echoed silently, we need gas. Suzanne pulled into the Texaco, empty except for a teal-and-white pickup towing a boat trailer. “Hand me a card,” Suzanne said. Nodding at the glove box. I scrambled to open it, loosing a jumble of credit cards. All with different names. “The blue one,” she said. She seemed impatient. When I handed her the card, she saw my confusion. “People give them to us,” she said. “Or we take them.” She fingered the blue card. “Like this one is Donna’s. She lifted it from her mom.” “Her mom’s gas card?” “Saved our ass—we would’ve starved,” Suzanne said. She gave me a look. “Like you hustling that toilet paper, right?” I flushed at the mention. Maybe she’d known I had lied, but I couldn’t tell from her shuttered face—maybe not. “Besides,” she continued, “it’s better than what they’d do with it—more crap, more stuff, more me, me, me. Russell’s trying to help people. He’s not judgmental, that’s not his trip. He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor.” It made a kind of sense, what Suzanne was saying. They were just trying to equalize the forces in the world. “It’s ego,” she went on, leaning against the car but keeping a sharp eye on the gas gauge: none of them ever filled up a tank more than a quarter

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  perfection of the bore. But it wasn’t enough. From cleaning the rifle I went to marching around the apartment with it, and then to striking brave poses in front of the mirror. Roy had saved one of his army uniforms and I sometimes dressed up in this, together with martial-looking articles of hunting gear: fur trooper’s hat, camouflage coat, boots that reached nearly to my knees. The camouflage coat made me feel like a sniper, and before long I began to act like one. I set up a nest on the couch by the front window. I drew the shades to darken the apartment, and took up my position. Nudging the shade aside with the rifle barrel, I followed people in my sights as they walked or drove along the street. At first I made shooting sounds—kyoo! kyoo! Then I started cocking the hammer and letting it snap down. Roy stored his ammunition in a metal box he kept hidden in the closet. As with everything else hidden in the apartment, I knew exactly where to find it. There was a layer of loose .22 rounds on the bottom of the box under shells of bigger caliber, dropped there by the handful the way men drop pennies on their dressers at night. I took some and put them in a hiding place of my own. With these I started loading up the rifle. Hammer cocked, a round in the chamber, finger resting lightly on the trigger, I drew a bead on whoever walked by— women pushing strollers, children, garbage collectors laughing and calling to each other, anyone—and as they passed under my window I sometimes had to bite my lip to keep from laughing in the ecstasy of my power over them, and at their absurd and innocent belief that they were safe. But over time the innocence I laughed at began to irritate me. It was a peculiar kind of irritation. I saw it years later in men I served with, and felt it myself, when unarmed Vietnamese civilians talked back to us while we were herding them around. Power can be enjoyed only when it is recognized and feared. Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it. One afternoon I pulled the trigger. I had been aiming at two old people, a man and a woman, who walked so slowly that by the time they turned the comer at the bottom of the hill my little store of self-control was exhausted. I had to shoot. I looked up and down the street. It was empty. Nothing moved but a pair of squirrels chasing each other back and forth on the telephone wires. I followed one in my sights. Finally it stopped for a moment and I fired. The squirrel dropped straight into the road. I pulled back into the shadows and waited for something to happen, sure that someone must have heard the shot or seen the squirrel fall. But the sound that was so loud to me probably seemed to our neighbors no more than the bang of a cupboard slammed shut. After a while I

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

  Further, if religious be dispensed from work, the dispensation ought to be granted in order to give them opportunity for sacred psalmody, for prayer, for preaching, and for reading. But, it is not for these reasons that religious are exempted from labour. Therefore, they are bound to work. St. Augustine, in his book De opere monachorum, proves this obligation in the following words: “How do they employ themselves who will not labour with their hands? Gladly would I know what they do? They say that they devote themselves to psalmody, to prayer, to reading and to the Word of God.” The author then proceeds to examine each of these excuses. Speaking of prayer, he says: “One prayer from the lips of an obedient man will be heard more speedily than ten made by one that is scornful.” He, thus insinuates that he who will not work with his hands is proud and unworthy of being listened to by God. Next, speaking of those who say that instead of labouring they are singing sacred canticles, he says: “It is easy to chant and to work at the same time.” He then asks, “What is to prevent a servant of God, while employed in labour, from meditating on the law of the ‘Lord, and singing to the name of the Most High?” Thirdly, referring to reading, he says: “Do not they who say that they devote their time to reading find in the Scriptures the Apostolic precept to work? How great is their perversity! These men wish to read, but will not heed what is written. They desire to prolong the time for reading what is virtuous, but they will not accomplish the good works of which they read. Who does not know that he makes the most profit by his reading who is the swiftest to put it into practice?” Fourthly, the saint remarks about preaching: “Although one monk may have to preach, and therefore may not have time for work, all the brethren in the monastery cannot preach. If then they cannot all preach, why, on the pretext of preaching, should they all leave their work? But, even supposing that they can all preach, they ought to do so in turn, both in order that some may be left to do the necessary work, and because one speaker suffices to many listeners.”

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

  2. Also another advantage is thence derived, to wit, the repression of presumption, which is the mother of error. For there are some so presumptuous of their own genius as to think that they can measure with their understanding the whole nature of the Godhead, thinking all that to be true which seems true to them, and that to be false which does not seem true to them. In order then that the human mind might be delivered from this presumption, and attain to a modest style of enquiry after truth, it was necessary for certain things to be proposed to man from God that altogether exceeded his understanding. 3. There is also another evident advantage in this, that any knowledge, however imperfect, of the noblest objects confers a very high perfection on the soul. And therefore, though human reason cannot fully grasp truths above reason, nevertheless it is much perfected by holding such truths after some fashion at least by faith. And therefore it is said: Many things beyond the understanding of man are shown to thee (Ecclus iii, 23). And, The things that are of God, none knoweth but the Spirit of God: but to us God hath revealed them through his Spirit (1 Cor. ii, 10, 11). CHAPTER VI

• From The City of God

  However, the very origin of the name suggests something worthy of consideration, if we compare it with the divine books. They are called demons from a Greek word meaning knowledge.[353] Now the apostle, speaking with the Holy Spirit, says, "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up."[354] And this can only be understood as meaning that without charity knowledge does no good, but inflates a man or magnifies him with an empty windiness. The demons, then, have knowledge without charity, and are thereby so inflated or proud, that they crave those divine honours and religious services which they know to be due to the true God, and still, as far as they can, exact these from all over whom they have influence. Against this pride of the demons, under which the human race was held subject as its merited punishment, there was exerted the mighty influence of the humility of God, who appeared in the form of a servant; but men, resembling the demons in pride, but not in knowledge, and being puffed up with uncleanness, failed to recognise Him. 21. _To what extent the Lord was pleased to make Himself known to the demons._

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  Those who think that sinning does not apply to them are called “free” by the world. Knowledge of the truth makes such people arrogant.… It even gives them a sense of superiority over everyone else.63 The author goes on to quote and interpret Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, saying, “Love builds up” [1 Corinthians 8:1b] … in fact, one who is really free through knowledge is a servant for the sake of love to those who have not yet been able to attain to the freedom of gnosis. 64 But how was the gnostic Christian to deal with the actual experience of evil—and, in particular, evil found within himself or herself? Orthodox Christians often attempted to prescribe rules for the whole community, but the author of Philip suggests that one can deal with evil only in oneself: As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one, and let one pluck it out of one’s heart from the root. It will be plucked out, if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our heart; it masters us.… it is powerful because we have not recognized it.65 The author advises, then, that each person practice self-examination and look for such potential sources of evil as envy, lust, anger, in his or her own intentions, words, and acts. What transforms one spiritually, according to the Gospel of Philip, is continual self-awareness and acknowledging the evil within oneself wherever one finds it.66 This suggests that Valentinian Christians indeed may have rejected the bishops’ commands, ignored community regulations, and followed their inner guidance, insisting that moral acts are essentially private matters that every person, or at least every mature person, must deal with independently. Such independence, as we have seen, threatened church unity and discipline. Bishop Irenaeus charged that Valentinian Christians were concerned only for their own spiritual advantage, indifferent to the church as an institution. He accused them of “having no respect for others” (does he mean for the bishops in particular?) and for “thinking that they are better than any one else.”67 But what bothered Irenaeus even more than the gnostics’ rejection of moral absolutism or their violation of church discipline was that gnostic readings of Genesis threatened the message of freedom that had made Christianity so powerfully compelling to so many converts. This debate over Genesis revealed a major disagreement among second-century Christians, a disagreement whose outcome would shape church doctrine ever after.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  The point of law raised by your attorney-general is familiar to me; it obtains here, in England, and in other Western countries. I mean, whether a book should be condemned in toto because of objectionable passages, or whether the objectionable parts should be regarded from the standpoint of the author’s ultimate intention. It is the author’s “integrity,” it seems to me, which the interpreters of the law seek to establish. Speaking strictly for myself, I would say that it may one day happen that I might question the wisdom of my own point of view, but I could never modify my stand, never compromise. I have staked my whole career on my right as a human being to employ freedom of speech, and I have paid the price for it. With regard to the work in question, Sexus , there is no question but that this book, as the title indicates, is a work freighted with sex. The second book of the trilogy (Plexus ), on the other hand, is almost free of it; there may be four or five censorable pages—a passage en bloc—in the entire book. As for Nexus , which I am still in the process of writing—I have not advanced very far—I am unable to predict at this point how much or how little the sexual content of it will be. In writing I follow my nose: “it” decides, not me. It may be interesting to note that, as I observed in “Obscenity in Literature,” I never set out to write a trilogy . Nor did I have in mind, when beginning this work known as The Rosy Crucifixion , that I would give to the separate parts the titles of Sexus, Plexus and Nexus . The over-all title was the one which had significance for me. Through being crucified one may be resurrected—or “transformed,” if you like. My thought, very simply, was to tell, no matter how many pages it took, the story of the most crucial period of my life, namely, the seven years preceding my voluntary flight to France. A goodly part of the narrative has to do with my struggle to express myself in words—I started late!—my difficulties in earning a living, the fight with my own complex being, my encounters with other men and women as a “roving cultural desperado,” and so on. And more than anything, perhaps, my effort to understand the pattern of my life, its purpose and significance.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  resumed after the parenthesis QTroioe,, etc. The apostle doubt- less had in mind when he began the sentence 7rape\a/3ov ovS& (cf. i12) or some equivalent expression. The sentence seems not adversative, but continuative; to the statement that when the pillar apostles took up, in a sense, the cause of the false brethren, he did not for a moment yield to the latter, he adds as further evidence of his entire independence of the apostles that (in this discussion) they taught him nothing new. — oTroZo/ TTore fj<rav ovS^v fMoi SicKJzepee, — "what they once were matters not to me." ojroloi, a qualitative word, meaning "of what kind" (cf. i Thes. i9 i Cor. 313 Jas. i24), here evidently refers not to personal character but to rank or standing, and doubtless specifically to that standing which the three here referred to had by reason of their personal relation to Jesus while he was in the flesh, in the case of James as his brother, in the case of Peter and John as his personal followers. This fact of their past history was undoubtedly appealed to by the oppo- nents of Paul as giving them standing and authority wholly superior to any that he could claim. Cf, 2 Cor. s16 io7. Paul answers here substantially as afterwards to the Corinthians in reply to much the same argument, that facts of this sort do not concern him, have no significance. Apostleship rests on a present relation to the heavenly Christ, a spiritual experience, open to him equally with them. The whole parenthetical sen- tence, though introduced without a conjunction, serves as a justification of the depreciation of the apostles which he had begun to express in the preceding clause—or perhaps more exactly as an answer in advance to the thought which the apos- tle foresaw would be raised by that statement when completed, viz,: But if you received nothing from them, that is certainly to your disadvantage; were they not personal companions of Jesus, the original and authoritative bearers of the gospel? What valid commission or message can you have except as you derived it from them? With a verb of past time WOT! (enclitic) may mean (a) "ever,1* **at any time"; (b) "at some time," a Grace," "formerly"; (c) "ever,11 with e, like the Latin cung[u$t and the English "ever" in <f who- 38 GALATIANS

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  The presumption consists in imagining that, by means of the sacrament, one can constrain God; that man thereby has a hold on him and that it suffices to go through baptism to obtain a certain, total, and definitive pardon. Such a misconception would make a “servitude” out of God’s grace. Tertullian does not assume that those who come to baptism with these deficient or bad dispositions are not actually redeemed; he does not call into question the efficacy of the rite. But he does assume that those one later sees relapsing, breaking the commitment they have made and returning to the sins that were forgiven, are precisely the ones who thus “slipped into baptism.” They were able to “fool men,” but they don’t escape the one who sees all: they will fall again. The redemption that man obtains in baptism must be seen as the effect of God’s liberalitas—both the generosity that forgives and the freedom to forgive. Right at the beginning of De paenitentia, Tertullian gives the fall and the forgiveness a very significant interpretation: God, having seen all the crimes of human recklessness, exemplified by Adam, had delivered a judgment against man, had expelled him from paradise and subjected him to death. But he had come around to mercy and had himself “repented.”25 The pardon that God grants men should be understood as a kind of metanoia in which God decides, freely, to suspend the effects of his wrath. Taking this pardon as the necessary effect of a rite to which man would decide to submit—this constitutes the presumption in question.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  Nor do I wish to defend the Rabbis against the charge of arrogance. 11 The Rabbis were no more plagued by arrogance than any other people who have held a doctrine of election; indeed, the idea that suffering was entailed in the election (to be discussed below) helps to give quite a non-arrogant tone to Rabbinic thought on election. The idea of being privileged as children of Abraham may have been abused, but abuses were criticized by the Rabbis themselves. Smugness was resisted. 12 But leaving such matters aside, we may tum immediately to Rabbinic explana- tions of the election. We have already seen passages in which God's election was thought of as being totally gratuitous, without prior cause in those being elected. But the Rabbis regarded God as reasonable, as the just judge who, while he may temper his judgments with mercy, is neither capricious nor arbitrary. Thus one finds that the Rabbis could not rest content with simply saying that God chose Israel, but inquired why he did so. They wished to explain that it was not 'odd of God to choose the Jews'. There are basically three kinds of answers given by the Rabbis to the question of why God chose Israel. One answer is that God offered the covenant (and the commandments attached to it) to all, but only Israel accepted it. The second answer is that God chose Israel because of some merit found either in the patriarchs or in the exodus generation or on the condition of future obedience. The third answer is really not an answer at all; that is, it does not in fact give a reason 8 See especially B. W. Helfgott, The Doctrine of Election in Tannaitic Literature. He shows that the conception of being the chosen people remained stable during the period, while varying in the precise form of elaboration and degree of emphasis from one Rabbi to another. He reasons that the Christian challenge caused the doctrine to be insisted on in certain ways, especially between 70 and 135 c.e. 9 Mek. Mishpatim 20 (Kaspa 4) (334; III, 185; to 23.17). 10 In addition to Helfgott's study cited above, see especially Schechter, Aspects, pp. 46-56. Cf. also Moore, Judaism I, pp. 398f.; K. Hruby, 'Le concept de Revelation dans la theologie rabbinique', Orient Syrien I 1, 1966, pp. 17-50. 11 See Schechter's comment on Luther, Aspects, p. 5 r n. 3. 12 Cf Marmorstein, Merits, p. 38. 88 Tannaitic Literature [I beyond God's own will: it is that God chose Israel for his name's sake. We may deal with each of these in turn.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  This text merits some commentary. Tertullian—and he returns to this often19—doesn’t mean to contest the efficacy of the rite, nor to pass the crux of the operation over to man purifying himself. De baptismo is explicitly directed against a sect of Cainites who refused to accept that “a little water could wash away death.”20 Tertullian replies to them with a “eulogy of water” in which he recalls its spiritual values, manifested in the Scripture: water that was the seat of the Spirit before the Creation; water that God used to mix the clay to fashion man in his image; water that purified the earth in the Flood, freed the Hebrews from their Egyptian pursuers, slaked the thirst of the chosen people, healed the sick ones in the pool of Bethsaida.21 Endowed with such powers in the ancient law, how could this water not still have them, now that the Holy Spirit, inaugurating another law, has descended upon it to baptize Christ?22 The water of baptism assumes all the functions that the Scripture had prefigured: it heals, it nurtures, it liberates, it purifies, it makes it possible to refashion man, and it makes the soul of the baptized the throne of God. But these functions are now integrated into the economy of salvation. Tertullian can therefore recall, in the first lines of De baptismo, the principle that the baptismal water washes away sin, in a formula that follows the second-century wording very closely: “Happy is our sacrament of water that, in washing away the defilements of our former blindness, liberates us into eternal life.”23 The problem, then, is to determine the place and meaning of this prior purification, of which De paenitentia speaks, if it is true, as De baptismo says, that it is the water of baptism that has the power to cleanse us of our defilements. There is a reproach that Tertullian addresses to those who ask for a baptism that can put them on the right path. He criticizes the candidates for baptism who are content to regret some of the wrongs they have committed—thinking that this is quite sufficient for God to forgive all the others—and then hasten to request baptism. Others, on the contrary, seek to delay it as long as possible; knowing that they won’t have the right to sin after receiving the sacrament, but knowing that this sacrament will erase all their sins, whatever they may be, they postpone the moment of baptism so they can sin.24 Now, in these two attitudes there is both presumption and pride. And behind that, two serious mistakes.

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

  On the other hand, Rome had no reputation as a centre either of piety or of letters. Convents became noted for religious warmth, and Bologna, Paris, and other localities acquired a fame for intellectual culture, but Rome’s reputation was based solely upon her authority as a seat of ecclesiastical prerogative. The sin of the popes was hierarchical pride, and yet we cannot help but be attracted by those imposing figures whose ideals of universal dominion equalled in ambition the boldest projects of the greater Roman emperors, but differed widely from theirs in the moral element which entered into them.1852 In this period the loftiest claims ever made for the papacy were realized in Western Europe. The pope was recognized as supreme in the Church over all bishops, and with some exceptions as the supreme ruler in temporal affairs. Protest there was against the application of both prerogatives, but the general sentiment of Europe supported the claims. To him belonged fulness of authority in both realms—plenitudo potestatis. The Pope and the Church. – favorite illustration used by Innocent III. to support the claim of supremacy in the Church was drawn from the relation the head sustains to the body. As the head contains the plenitude of the forces of the body, and has dominion over it, so Peter’s successor, as the head of the Church, possesses the fulness of her prerogatives and the right of rule over her. The pope calls others to share in the care of the Church, but in such a way that there is no loss of authority to the head.1853 Innocent II., in opening the second Lateran Council, had used the same figure, and declared that no ecclesiastical dignity was lawfully held except by permission of the Roman pontiff. According to Gregory VII., he can depose and appoint bishops as he wills. The principle that the Apostolic see is subject to no human jurisdiction, stated by Gelasius, 493, was accepted by Bernard, though Bernard protested against the pope’s making his arbitrary will the law of the Church.1854 The Roman church, said Lanfranc, 1072, is, as it were, the sum of all churches, and all other churches are, as it were, parts of it. The arrangement of all church matters is only authoritative when approved by Peter’s successors.1855 The Fourth Lateran formally pronounced the Roman Church the mother and teacher of all believers, and declared its bishop to be above the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria in rank and authority. Leo IX., d. 1054, asserted this pretension against Caerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople.1856 Innocent III. vindicated it by substituting a Latin patriarch for the Greek patriarch in that venerable see. The second council of Lyons, 1274, demanded that the Greeks should sign a document acknowledging the "full primacy" of the Roman pontiff and his right to rule over the universal Church. This theory of papal absolutism found full theological and canonical recognition from Thomas Aquinas and Gratian.