Pride
Pride is the upright feeling — the chest lifting, the spine straightening, the quiet or open satisfaction in something done, made, or belonged to. It is the emotion the tradition is most divided about, named a sin in one inheritance and a dignity in another. Vela reads pride as a primary emotion that runs both ways, distinct from the defensive pride that only braces against shame, and follows the writers who have held its honest version.
Working definition · Upright satisfaction in self, lineage, or work—earned or defended.
3462 passages · 1 Vela essay · in 2 clusters
Vela’s read on this emotion
Pride is the emotion with the longest moral rap sheet, and the reading takes that history seriously without accepting its verdict. The pride the contemplative tradition warned against is real, but so is the pride a person earns by surviving, by making, by refusing to be made small — and the two are not the same feeling.
The reading splits along that seam. The memoir of escape and self-making reads pride as something reclaimed — the pride of having left, of having built a self the family or the system did not authorize. Trevor Noah's Born a Crime and the memoir of leaving hold a pride that is inseparable from dignity. The contemplative inheritance reads the other pride: Augustine of Hippo named superbia — pride — as the first and root sin, the self curving in toward itself, and the Western moral imagination has argued with that ranking ever since. The literature of identity and belonging — the pride claimed by those a culture tried to shame — reads pride as a political act, a refusal of the assigned verdict.
Pride is not the same as vanity, arrogance, or pride-as-defense. Vanity needs an audience; pride can be private. Arrogance compares and ranks; pride can simply stand. Pride-as-defense is pride mobilized to shield against shame — the upright posture held precisely because the ground feels unsafe — and the reading gives it its own page. The four are kin and the reading keeps them separate, because the difference between earned pride and defended pride is the whole moral question.
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From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)
This is an idea to which the writer to the Hebrews returns again and again. For now, we set down only the fundamental basis of what he means. The Latin for a priest is pontifex , which means a bridge-builder . The priest is the person who builds a bridge between men and women and God. To do that, the priest must know both human nature and God, and must be able to speak to God for men and women and in turn to speak to them for God. Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is perfectly human and perfectly God; he can represent us to God and God to us. He is the one person through whom we come to God and God comes to us. Wherein does the superiority of Jesus over Moses lie? The picture in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews is this. He thinks of the world as God’s house and God’s family. We use the word house in a double sense. We use it in the sense of a building and also in the sense of a family. The Greeks used oikos in the same double sense. The world is God’s house, and we are God’s family. But he has already shown us the picture of Jesus as the creator of God’s universe. Now, Moses was only part of God’s universe, part of the house. But Jesus is the creator of the house, and the creator is bound to stand above the house itself. Moses did not create the law; he only passed it on to the people. Moses did not create the house; he only served in it. Moses did not speak of himself; all that he ever said was only a pointer to the greater things that Jesus Christ would some day say. In short, Moses was the servant ; but Jesus was the Son . Moses knew a little about God; Jesus was God. Therein lies the secret of his superiority. Now, the writer to the Hebrews uses another picture. True, the whole world is God’s house; but in a special sense the Church is God’s house, for in a special sense God brought it into being. That is a picture the New Testament loves (cf. 1 Peter 4:17; 1 Timothy 3:15; and especially 1 Peter 2:5). That building of the Church will stand and be indestructible only when every stone is firm; that is to say, when every member is strong in the proud and confident hope that he or she has in Jesus Christ.
From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)
Looking at Jesus, we can say: ‘That is what God is like.’ What is more, the life and death of Jesus was an act of perfect obedience and, therefore, the only perfect sacrifice . All Scripture, at its deepest, declares that the only sacrifice God desires is obedience; and, in the life and death of Jesus, that is precisely the sacrifice that God received. Perfection cannot be improved upon. In Jesus, there is at one and the same time the perfect revelation of God and the perfect offering of obedience. Therefore, his sacrifice cannot and need not ever be made again. The priests must go on with their weary routine of animal sacrifice; but the sacrifice of Christ was made once and for all. (2) He stresses the exaltation of Jesus . It is with care that he chooses his words. The priests stand offering sacrifice; Christ sits at the right hand of God. Theirs is the position of a servant; his is the position of a monarch. Jesus is the King who has come home, his task accomplished and his victory won. There is a wholeness about the life of Jesus to which we perhaps ought to give more thought. His life is incomplete without his death; his death is incomplete without his resurrection; his resurrection is incomplete without his return to glory. It is the same Jesus who lived and died and rose again and is at the right hand of God. He is not simply a saint who lived a lovely life, not simply a martyr who died a heroic death, not simply a risen figure who returned to keep company with his friends. He is the Lord of glory. His life is like a panelled tapestry; to look at one panel is to see only a little bit of the story. The tapestry must be looked at as a whole before the full greatness is disclosed. (3) He stresses the final triumph of Jesus . He awaits the final overcoming of his enemies; in the end, there must come a universe in which he is supreme. How that will come is not ours to know; but it may be that this final overcoming will consist not in the extinction of his enemies but in their submission to his love. It is not so much the power but the love of God which must conquer in the end. Finally, as is his habit, the writer to the Hebrews clinches his argument with a quotation from Scripture.
From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)
Bailey took it upon himself to answer every question, and from a corner of his lively imagination wove a tapestry of entertainment for them that I was sure was as foreign to him as it was to me. He, as usual, spoke precisely. “They have, in the North, buildings so high that for months, in the winter, you can't see the top floors.” “Tell the truth.” “They've got watermelons twice the size of a cow's head and sweeter than syrup.” I distinctly remember his intent face and the fascinated faces of his listeners. “And if you can count the watermelon's seeds, before it's cut open, you can win five zillion dollars and a new car.” Momma, knowing Bailey, warned, “Now Ju, be careful you don't slip up on a not true.” (Nice people didn't say “lie.”) “Everybody wears new clothes and have inside toilets. If you fall down in one of them, you get flushed away into the Mississippi River. Some people have iceboxes, only the proper name is Cold Spot or Frigidaire. The snow is so deep you can get buried right outside your door and people won't find you for a year. We made ice cream out of the snow.” That was the only fact that I could have supported. During the winter, we had collected a bowl of snow and poured Pet milk over it, and sprinkled it with sugar and called it ice cream. Momma beamed and Uncle Willie was proud when Bailey regaled the customers with our exploits. We were drawing cards for the Store and objects of the town's adoration. Our journey to magical places alone was a spot of color on the town's drab canvas, and our return made us even more the most enviable of people. High spots in Stamps were usually negative: droughts, floods, lynchings and deaths. Bailey played on the country folks' need for diversion. Just after our return he had taken to sarcasm, picked it up as one might pick up a stone, and put it snufflike under his lip. The double entendres, the two-pronged sentences, slid over his tongue to dart rapier-like into anything that happened to be in the way. Our customers, though, generally were so straight thinking and speaking that they were never hurt by his attacks. They didn't comprehend them. “Bailey Junior sound just like Big Bailey. Got a silver tongue. Just like his daddy.” “I hear tell they don't pick cotton up there. How the people live then?” Bailey said that the cotton up North was so tall, if ordinary people tried to pick it they'd have to get up on ladders, so the cotton farmers had their cotton picked by machines. For a while I was the only recipient of Bailey's kindness. It was not that he pitied me but that he felt we were in the same boat for different reasons, and that I could understand his frustration just as he could countenance my withdrawal.
From The Well of Loneliness (1928)
It was hard on the young, she had thought so herself, but some came through all right, though a few might go under. Nature was trying to do her bit; inverts were being born in increasing numbers, and after a while their numbers would tell, even with the fools who still ignored Nature. They must just bide their time—recognition was coming. But meanwhile they should all cultivate more pride, should learn to be proud of their isolation. She found little excuse for poor fools like Pat, and even less for drunkards like Wanda. As for those who were ashamed to declare themselves, lying low for the sake of a peaceful existence, she utterly despised such of them as had brains; they were traitors to themselves and their fellows, she insisted. For the sooner the world came to realize that fine brains very frequently went with inversion, the sooner it would have to withdraw its ban, and the sooner would cease this persecution. Persecution was always a hideous thing, breeding hideous thoughts—and such thoughts were dangerous. As for the women who had worked in the war, they had set an example to the next generation, and that in itself should be a reward. She had heard that in England many such women had taken to breeding dogs in the country. Well, why not? Dogs were very nice people to breed. ‘Plus je connais les hommes, plus j’aime les chiens.’ There were worse things than breeding dogs in the country. It was quite true that inverts were often religious, but church-going in them was a form of weakness; they must be a religion unto themselves if they felt that they really needed religion. As for blessings, they profited the churches no doubt, apart from which they were just superstition. But then of course she herself was a pagan, acknowledging only the god of beauty; and since the whole world was so ugly these days, she was only too thankful to let it ignore her. Perhaps that was lazy—she was rather lazy. She had never achieved all she might have with her writing. But humanity was divided into two separate classes, those who did things and those who looked on at their doings. Stephen was one of the kind that did things—under different conditions of environment and birth she might very well have become a reformer.
From The Pisces (2018)
Now this was getting crazy. Was I a sorcerer? Had I conjured all of this? What was he trying to do? It was like I was the other woman and Megan was the one he was stuck with. I suddenly no longer felt hurt that he was with her. I liked being the desirable one. Also, I liked playing with him. I was going to ignore him. Already high on Garrett and our impending date, I would be able to do it. This was what I needed—multiple men at all times. Then I wouldn’t need any of them. Put me naked in a clamshell. Let them all fawn around me. 16.“You’re absolutely glowing! You’re not dating anyone, are you?” asked Annika. She was standing on the balcony of her hotel wearing a long embroidered caftan. Through video chat I could see the Provence sunset behind her. “No, I’m keeping to myself.” “Good,” she said. “Get that kundalini shakti recharged. Don’t go scattering that chi anywhere and you’ll be a warrior by the time I get back. How is the group?” “A nightmare,” I said. “But you’re going?” “I’m going.” “Let me see my baby.” I held the computer screen up to Dominic. She made cooing noises and he pawed it, whined a little. “He looks a touch sad,” she said. “You’re spending ample time with him?” “We’re thick as thieves.” “Good,” she said. “Maybe add a bit of coconut oil to his dry food. It keeps his coat nice and shiny.” “Already doing it.” “Thanks, and you should cook for him. That turkey, zucchini, and peas dish I left the recipe for out on the counter. He loves it. Vegetables are good for his blood sugar.” “Will do.” “I hate being separated from him for so long. You don’t think I’m a bad mother, do you?” “No, it’s the twenty-first century, don’t be a helicopter parent.” “But—” “That’s just patriarchal guilt. Enjoy your trip, Aunt Lucy is taking great care of him.” When we hung up I felt like an asshole. Annika had always tried to be a good sister to me. By the time my mother died she was already in college, out of the house, but she tried her best. She called often to check in on me and never made me feel like I had been forgotten. She sent me mix tapes, weed, and makeup, so that I could feel cool in high school. Before she was even rich she paid for the abortion I had at nineteen so I wouldn’t have to ask my father for the money. How was I repaying her? By neglecting the most beloved thing in her life for strangers on the Internet.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
He was of the earth earthy, but with his bold face lifted to heaven. He was not a polished diamond, but a rough block cut out from a granite mountain and well fitted for a solid base of a mighty structure. He laid the foundation, and others finished the upper stories. § 19. Luther in the University of Erfurt. At the age of eighteen, in the year 1501, he entered, as "Martinus Ludher ex Mansfeld," the University of Erfurt, which had been founded a hundred years before (1392) and was then one of the best in Germany.117 By that time his father was able to assist him so that he was free of care and could acquire a little library. He studied chiefly scholastic philosophy, namely: logic, rhetoric, physics and metaphysics. His favorite teacher was Truttvetter, called "Doctor Erfordiensis."118 The palmy days of scholasticism which reared those venerable cathedrals of thought in support of the traditional faith of the church in the thirteenth century, had passed away, and were succeeded by the times of barren disputes about Realism and Nominalism or the question whether the general ideas (the universalia) had an objective reality, or a merely nominal, subjective existence in the mind. Nominalism was then the prevailing system. On the other hand the humanistic studies were reviving all over Europe and opened a new avenue of intellectual culture and free thought. The first Greek book in Greek letters (a grammar) which was published in Germany, appeared in Erfurt. John Crotus Rubeanus (Jäger) who studied there since 1498 and became rector of the University in 1520 and 1521, was one of the leaders of humanism and the principal author of the first part of the famous anti-monkish Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515); he was at first an intimate friend of Hutten and Luther, and greeted the latter on his way to Worms (1521) as the man who "first after so many centuries dared to strangle the Roman license with the sword of the Scripture," but afterward he fell away from the Reformation (1531) and assailed it bitterly.119 Luther did not neglect the study of the ancient classics, especially Cicero, Vergil, Plautus, and Livy.120 He acquired sufficient mastery of Latin to write it with clearness and vigor, though not with elegance and refinement. The knowledge of Greek he acquired afterward as professor at Wittenberg. In classical culture he never attained the height of Erasmus and Melanchthon, of Calvin and Beza; but in original thought and in the mastery of his own mother tongue he was unrivalled. He always regarded the languages as the sheath for the sword of the Spirit. Beside his literary studies he cultivated his early love for music. He sang, and played the lute right merrily. He was a poet and musician as well as a theologian. He prized music as a noble gift of God, as a remedy against sadness and evil thoughts, and an effective weapon against the assaults of the devil.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
Every Christian man could henceforth go to the fountain-head of inspiration, and sit at the feet of the Divine Teacher, without priestly permission and intervention. This achievement of the Reformation was a source of incalculable blessings for all time to come. In a few years Luther’s version had more readers among the laity than ever the Latin Vulgate had among priests; and the Protestant Bible societies circulate more Bibles in one year than were copied during the fifteen centuries before the Reformation. We must remember, however, that this wonderful progress was only made possible by the previous invention of the art of printing and by the subsequent education of the people. The Catholic Church had preserved the sacred Scriptures through ages of ignorance and barbarism; the Latin Bible was the first gift of the printing press to the world; fourteen or more editions of a German version were printed before 1518; the first two editions of the Greek Testament we owe to the liberality of a Spanish cardinal (Ximenes), and the enterprise of a Dutch scholar in Basel (Erasmus); and the latter furnished the text from which, with the aid of Jerome’s Vulgate, the translations of Luther and Tyndale were made. The Roman church, while recognizing the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible, prefers to control the laity by the teaching priesthood, and allows the reading of the Scriptures in the popular tongues only under certain restrictions and precautions, from fear of abuse and profanation. Pope Innocent III. was of the opinion that the Scriptures were too deep for the common people, as they surpassed even the understanding of the wise and learned. Several synods in Gaul, during the thirteenth century, prohibited the reading of the Romanic translation, and ordered the copies to be burnt. Archbishop Berthold, of Mainz, in an edict of January 4th, 1486, threatened with excommunication all who ventured to translate and to circulate translations of sacred books, especially the Bible, without his permission. The Council of Constance (1415), which burnt John Hus and Jerome of Prague, condemned also the writings and the hopes of Wiclif, the first translator of the whole Bible into the English tongue, to the flames: and Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England, denounced him as that "pestilent wretch of damnable heresy who, as a complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of the
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
He was dead to the world and was willing to be buried out of the sight of men that he might win eternal life. His latter opponents who knew him in convent, have no charge to bring against his moral character except a certain pride and combativeness, and he himself complained of his temptations to anger and envy.124 It was not without significance that the order which he joined, bore the honored name of the greatest Latin father who, next to St. Paul, was to be Luther’s chief teacher of theology and religion; but it is an error to suppose that this order represented the anti-Pelagian or evangelical views of the North African father; on the contrary it was intensely catholic in doctrine, and given to excessive worship of the Virgin Mary, and obedience to the papal see which conferred upon it many special privileges. St. Augustin, after his conversion, spent several weeks with some friends in quiet seclusion on a country-seat near Tagaste, and after his election to the priesthood, at Hippo in 391, he established in a garden a sort of convent where with like-minded brethren and students he led an ascetic life of prayer, meditation and earnest, study of the Scriptures, yet engaged at the same time in all the public duties of a preacher, pastor and leader in the theological controversies and ecclesiastical affairs of his age. His example served as an inspiration and furnished a sort of authority to several monastic associations which arose in the thirteenth century. Pope Alexander IV. (1256) gave them the so-called rule of St. Augustin. They belonged to the mendicant monks, like the Dominicans, Franciscans and Carmelites. They laid great stress on preaching. In other respects they differed little from other monastic orders. In the beginning of the sixteenth century they numbered more than a hundred settlements in Germany. The Augustinian congregation in Saxony was founded in 1493, and presided over since 1503 by John von Staupitz, the Vicar-General for Germany, and Luther’s friend. The convent at Erfurt was the largest and most important next to that at Nürnberg. The monks were respected for their zeal in preaching, pastoral care, and theological study. They lived on alms, which they collected themselves in the town and surrounding country. Applicants were received as novices for a year of probation, during which they could reconsider their resolution; afterward they were bound by perpetual vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience to their superiors. Luther was welcomed by his brethren with hymns of joy and prayer. He was clothed with a white woollen shirt, in honor of the pure Virgin, a black cowl and frock, tied by a leathern girdle. He assumed the most menial offices to subdue his pride: he swept the floor, begged bread through the streets, and submitted without a murmur to the ascetic severities. He said twenty-five Paternosters with the Ave Maria in each of the seven appointed hours of prayer.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
And I shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets; which they can not. I can translate; which they can not .... Therefore the word allein shall remain in my New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys (Papstesel) should get furious and foolish, they shall not turn it out."466 The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther’s New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation.467 It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17).468 The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic translators used the same liberty of marginal annotations and pictorial illustrations in favor of the doctrines and usages of their own church. Emser’s New Testament is full of anti-Lutheran glosses. In Rom. 3:28, he protests on the margin against Luther’s allein, and says, "Paul by the words ’without works of the law’ does not mean that man is saved by faith alone, without good works, but only without works of the law, that is, external circumcision and other Jewish ceremonies." He therefore confines the "law" here to the ritual law, and "works" to Jewish works; while, according to the best modern commentators, Paul means the whole law, moral as well as ceremonial, and all works commanded by the law. And yet even in the same chapter and throughout the whole Epistle to the Romans, Emser copies verbatim Luther’s version for whole verses and sections; and where he departs from his language, it is generally for the worse. The same may be said of the other two German Catholic Bibles of the age of the Reformation. They follow Luther’s language very closely within the limits of the Vulgate, and yet abuse him in the notes. Dr. Dietenberger adds his comments in smaller type after the chapters, and agrees with Emser’s interpretation of Rom. 3:28.469 Dr. Eck’s German Bible has few notes, but a strongly anti-Protestant preface.470
From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)
It’s not just that MTF spectrum folks need feminism, but that feminism needs to embrace MTF experiences and perspectives. The fact that the lion’s share of the anti-trans sentiment specifically targets those of us on the MTF spectrum indicates that we are marked, not for failing to conform to gender norms per se but because we “choose” to be female and/or feminine. For feminism to ignore the society-wide effemimania and trans-misogyny we face is to allow one of the most pervasive forms of traditional sexism to go unchecked. Indeed, for feminists to continue to dismiss effemimania solely because it targets those who are male-bodied is particularly shortsighted. After all, as previously mentioned, much of the sexist behavior exhibited by cissexual men arises directly out of their being forced to disavow and mystify femininity from an early age. In this respect, MTF spectrum folks can provide feminism with crucial insight into the workings of effemimania and offer strategies to potentially challenge it. Additionally, those of us who transition to female can provide firsthand accounts of the very different ways that women and men are treated in the world—a perspective that is especially relevant today given how common it is for people to naively claim that we as a society have transcended sexism and moved into a “postfeminist” era. But perhaps most of all, what MTF spectrum trans people can offer feminism is a very different and far more empowering perspective on femininity. Over the years, many feminists have argued that femininity undermines women, or that it’s purposefully designed to subordinate women to men. Such a view no doubt stems from the experiences of those women who have felt that the expectation of femininity has been forced upon them against their will. But those of us on the MTF spectrum who have had the reciprocal experience—of inexplicably being inclined or compelled to express femininity that we were taught to avoid or repress—cannot so easily dismiss femininity as an artifice whose sole purpose is to devalue and disempower women. Because we come to embrace our own femininity for ourselves rather than to appease others, we are able to appreciate the many ways in which femininity can be freeing and empowering for those who gravitate toward it on their own. Many of us reject all of the inferior meanings and connotations that others project onto femininity—that it is weak, artificial, frivolous, demure, and passive—because for us, there has been no act more bold and daring than embracing our own femininity. In a world that is awash in antifeminine sentiment, we understand that embracing and empowering femininity can potentially be one of the most transformative and revolutionary acts imaginable. 18 Barrette Manifesto
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
than an encyclical from Rome. Protestantism had reached a very critical juncture. Luther or Carlstadt, reformation or revolution, the written Word or illusive inspirations, order or confusion: that was the question. Luther was in the highest and best mood, full of faith in his cause, and also full of charity for his opponents, strong in matter, sweet in manner, and completely successful. He never showed such moderation and forbearance before or after. He preached eight sermons for eight days in succession, and carried the audience with him. They are models of effective popular eloquence, and among the best he ever preached. He handled the subject from the stand-point of a pastor, with fine tact and practical wisdom. He kept aloof from coarse personalities which disfigure so many of his polemical writings. Not one unkind word, not one unpleasant allusion, escaped his lips. In plain, clear, strong, scriptural language, he refuted the errors without naming the errorists. The positive statement of the truth in love is the best refutation of error.493 The ruling ideas of these eight discourses are: Christian freedom and Christian charity; freedom from the tyranny of radicalism which would force the conscience against forms, as the tyranny of popery forces the conscience in the opposite direction; charity towards the weak, who must be trained like children, and tenderly dealt with, lest they stumble and fall. Faith is worthless without charity. No man has a right to compel his brother in matters that are left free; and among these are marriage, living in convents, private confession, fasting and eating, images in churches. Abuses which contradict the word of God, as private masses, should be abolished, but in an orderly manner and by proper authority. The Word of God and moral suasion must be allowed to do the work. Paul preached against the idols in Athens, without touching one of them; and yet they fell in consequence of his preaching. "Summa summarum," said Luther, "I will preach, speak, write, but I will force no one; for faith must be voluntary. Take me as an example. I stood up against the Pope, indulgences, and all papists, but without violence or uproar. I only urged, preached, and declared God’s Word, nothing else. And yet while I was asleep, or drinking Wittenberg beer with my Philip Melanchthon and Amsdorf, the Word inflicted greater injury on popery than prince or emperor ever did. I did nothing, the Word did every thing. Had I appealed to force, all Germany might have been deluged with blood; yea, I might have kindled a conflict at Worms, so that the Emperor would not have been safe. But what would have been the result? Ruin and desolation of body and soul. I therefore kept quiet, and gave the Word free course through the world. Do you know what the Devil thinks when he sees men use violence to propagate the gospel?
From The Well of Loneliness (1928)
Anna wrote from Morton. She wrote to Puddle, but now Stephen took those letters and read them. The agent had enlisted and so had the bailiff. Old Mr. Percival, agent in Sir Philip’s lifetime, had come back to help with Morton. Jim the groom, who had stayed on under the coachman after Raftery’s death, was now talking of going; he wanted to get into the cavalry, of course, and Anna was using her influence for him. Six of the gardeners had joined up already, but Hopkins was past the prescribed age limit; he must do his small bit by looking after his grape vines—the grapes would be sent to the wounded in London. There were now no men-servants left in the house, and the home farm was short of a couple of hands. Anna wrote that she was proud of her people, and intended to pay those who had enlisted half wages. They would fight for England, but she could not help feeling that in a way they would be fighting for Morton. She had offered Morton to the Red Cross at once, and they had promised to send her convalescent cases. It was rather isolated for a hospital, it seemed, but would be just the place for convalescents. The Vicar was going as an army chaplain; Violet’s husband, Alec, had joined the Flying Corps; Roger Antrim was somewhere in France already; Colonel Antrim had a job at the barracks in Worcester. Came an angry scrawl from Jonathan Brockett, who had rushed back to England post-haste from the States: ‘Did you ever know anything quite so stupid as this war? It’s upset my apple-cart completely—can’t write jingo plays about St. George and the dragon, and I’m sick to death of “Business as usual!” Ain’t going to be no business, my dear, except killing, and blood always makes me feel faint.’ Then the postscript: ‘I’ve just been and gone and done it! Please send me tuck-boxes when I’m sitting in a trench; I like caramel creams and of course mixed biscuits.’ Yes, even Jonathan Brockett would go—it was fine in a way that he should have enlisted. Morton was pouring out its young men, who in their turn might pour out their life-blood for Morton. The agent, the bailiff, in training already. Jim the groom, inarticulate, rather stupid, but wanting to join the cavalry—Jim who had been at Morton since boyhood. The gardeners, kindly men smelling of soil, men of peace with a peaceful occupation; six of these gardeners had gone already, together with a couple of lads from the home farm. There were no men servants left in the house. It seemed that the old traditions still held, the traditions of England, the traditions of Morton.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
By the Jews they are attacked as aliens, and by the Greeks persecuted; and the cause of the enmity their enemies cannot tell. In short, what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world. The soul is diffused through all the members of the body, and the Christians are spread through the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but it is not of the body; so the Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world. The soul, invisible, keeps watch in the visible body; so also the Christians are seen to live in the world, but their piety is invisible. The flesh hates and wars against the soul, suffering no wrong from it, but because it resists fleshly pleasures; and the world hates the Christians with no reason, but that they resist its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh and members, by which it is hated; so the Christians love their haters. The soul is inclosed in the body, but holds the body together; so the Christians are detained in the world as in a prison; but they contain the world. Immortal, the soul dwells in the mortal body; so the Christians dwell in the corruptible, but look for incorruption in heaven. The soul is the better for restriction in food and drink; and the Christians increase, though daily punished. This lot God has assigned to the Christians in the world; and it cannot be taken from them." The community of Christians thus from the first felt itself, in distinction from Judaism and from heathenism, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city of God set on a hill, the immortal soul in a dying body; and this its impression respecting itself was no proud conceit, but truth and reality, acting in life and in death, and opening the way through hatred and persecution even to an outward victory over the world. The ante-Nicene age has been ever since the Reformation a battle-field between Catholic and Evangelical historians and polemics, and is claimed by both for their respective creeds. But it is a sectarian abuse of history to identify the Christianity of this martyr period either with Catholicism, or with Protestantism. It is rather the common root out of which both have sprung, Catholicism (Greek and Roman) first, and Protestantism afterwards. It is the natural transition from the apostolic age to the Nicene age, yet leaving behind many important truths of the former (especially the Pauline doctrines) which were to be derived and explored in future ages. We can trace in it the elementary forms of the Catholic creed, organization and worship, and also the germs of nearly all the corruptions of Greek and Roman Christianity. In its relation to the secular power, the ante-Nicene church is simply the continuation of the apostolic period, and has nothing in common either with the hierarchical, or with the Erastian systems.
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Such building and planting, such good living and dressing, such enterprise in commerce, such a stir in all the arts, has not been since Christ came into the world. And how numerous are the sharp and intelligent people who leave nothing hidden and unturned: even a boy of twenty years knows more nowadays than was known formerly by twenty doctors of divinity." The same may be said with even greater force of the nineteenth century, which is eminently an age of discovery and invention, of enquiry and progress. And both then as now the enthusiasm for light and liberty takes two opposite directions, either towards skepticism and infidelity, or towards a revival of true religion from its primitive sources. But Christianity triumphed then, and will again regenerate the world. The Protestant Reformation assumed the helm of the liberal tendencies and movements of the renaissance, directed them into the channel of Christian life, and saved the world from a disastrous revolution. For the Reformation was neither a revolution nor a restoration, though including elements of both. It was negative and destructive towards error, positive and constructive towards truth; it was conservative as well as progressive; it built up new institutions in the place of those which it pulled down; and for this reason and to this extent it has succeeded. Under the motherly care of the Latin Church, Europe had been Christianized and civilized, and united into a family of nations under the spiritual government of the Pope and the secular government of the Emperor, with one creed, one ritual, one discipline, and one sacred language. The state of heathenism and barbarism at the beginning of the sixth century contrasts with the state of Christian Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century as midnight darkness compared with the dawn of the morning. But the sun of the day had not yet arisen. All honor to the Catholic Church and her inestimable services to humanity. But Christianity is far broader and deeper than any ecclesiastical organization. It burst the shell of mediaeval forms, struck out new paths, and elevated Europe to a higher plane of intellectual, moral and spiritual culture than it had ever attained before. § 2. Protestantism and Romanism. Protestantism represents the most enlightened and active of modern church history, but not the whole of it. Since the sixteenth century Western Christendom is divided and runs in two distinct channels. The separation may be compared to the Eastern schism of the ninth century, which is not healed to this day; both parties being as firm and unyielding as ever on the doctrinal question of the Filioque, and the more important practical question of Popery. But Protestantism differs much more widely from the Roman church than the Roman church differs from the Greek, and the Protestant schism has become the fruitful mother of minor divisions, which exist in separate ecclesiastical organizations. We must distinguish between Catholicism and Romanism.
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Rome was the battle-field of orthodoxy and heresy, and a resort of all sects and parties. It attracted from every direction what was true and false in philosophy and religion. Ignatius rejoiced in the prospect of suffering for Christ in the centre of the world; Polycarp repaired hither to settle with Anicetus the paschal controversy; Justin Martyr presented there his defense of Christianity to the emperors, and laid down for it his life; Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian conceded to that church a position of singular pre-eminence. Rome was equally sought as a commanding position by heretics and theosophic jugglers, as Simon Magus, Valentine, Marcion, Cerdo, and a host of others. No wonder, then, that the bishops of Rome at an early date were looked upon as metropolitan pastors, and spoke and acted accordingly with an air of authority which reached far beyond their immediate diocese. Clement of Rome. The first example of the exercise of a sort of papal authority is found towards the close of the first century in the letter of the Roman bishop Clement (d. 102) to the bereaved and distracted church of Corinth. This epistle, full of beautiful exhortations to harmony, love, and humility, was sent, as the very address shows,217 not in the bishop’s own name, which is not mentioned at all, but in that of the Roman congregation, which speaks always in the first person plural. It was a service of love, proffered by one church to another in time of need. Similar letters of instruction, warning and comfort were written to other congregations by Ignatius, Polycarp, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus. Nevertheless it can hardly be denied that the document reveals the sense of a certain superiority over all ordinary congregations. The Roman church here, without being asked (as far as appears), gives advice, with superior administrative wisdom, to an important church in the East, dispatches messengers to her, and exhorts her to order and unity in a tone of calm dignity and authority, as the organ of God and the Holy Spirit.218 This is all the more surprising if St. John, as is probable, was then still living in Ephesus, which was nearer to Corinth than Rome. The hierarchical spirit arose from the domineering spirit of the Roman church, rather than the Roman bishop or the presbyters who were simply the organs of the people.219 But a century later the bishop of Rome was substituted for the church of Rome, when Victor in his own name excommunicated the churches of Asia Minor for a trifling difference of ritual. From this hierarchical assumption there was only one step towards the papal absolutism of a Leo and Hildebrand, and this found its ultimate doctrinal climax in the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility. Ignatius.
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Into this empire "all the life of the ancient world was gathered; out of it all the life of the modern world arose."256 The Empire and the Papacy, The Two Ruling Powers of the Middle Ages. Henceforward the mediaeval history of Europe is chiefly a history of the papacy and the empire. They were regarded as the two arms of God in governing the church and the world. This twofold government was upon the whole the best training-school of the barbarian for Christian civilization and freedom. The papacy acted as a wholesome check upon military despotism, the empire as a check upon the abuses of priestcraft. Both secured order and unity against the disintegrating tendencies of society; both nourished the great idea of a commonwealth of nations, of a brotherhood of mankind, of a communion of saints. By its connection with Rome, the empire infused new blood into the old nationalities of the South, and transferred the remaining treasures of classical culture and the Roman law to the new nations of the North. The tendency of both was ultimately self-destructive; they fostered, while seeming to oppose, the spirit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The discipline of authority always produces freedom as its legitimate result. The law is a schoolmaster to lead men to the gospel. Otho the Great. In the opening chapter of the history of the empire we find it under the control of a master-mind and in friendly alliance with the papacy. Under the weak successors of Charlemagne it dwindled down to a merely nominal existence. But it revived again in Otho I. or the Great (936–973), of the Saxon dynasty. He was master of the pope and defender of the Roman church, and left everywhere the impress of an heroic character, inferior only to that of Charles. Under Henry III. (1039–1056), when the papacy sank lowest, the empire again proved a reforming power. He deposed three rival popes, and elected a worthy, successor. But as the papacy rose from its degradation, it overawed the empire. Henry IV. and Gregory VII. Under Henry IV. (1056–1106) and Gregory VII. (1073–1085) the two power; came into the sharpest conflict concerning the right of investiture, or the supreme control in the election of bishops and abbots. The papacy achieved a moral triumph over the empire at Canossa, when the mightiest prince kneeled as a penitent at the feet of the proud successor of Peter (1077); but Henry recovered his manhood and his power, set up an antipope, and Gregory died in exile at Salerno, yet without yielding an inch of his principles and pretensions. The conflict lasted fifty years, and ended with the Concordat of Worms (Sept. 23, 1122), which was a compromise, but with a limitation of the imperial prerogative: the pope secured the right to invest the bishops with the ring and crozier, but the new bishop before his consecration was to receive his temporal estates as a fief of the crown by the touch of the emperor’s sceptre.
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The heir of the theocracy of Hildebrand repeated Hildebrand’s language without possessing his moral qualities. He claimed for the papacy supreme authority in temporal as well as spiritual matters. In his address to the cardinals against the Colonna he exclaimed: "How shall we assume to judge kings and princes, and not dare to proceed against a worm! Let them perish forever, that they may understand that the name of the Roman pontiff is known in all the earth and that he alone is most high over princes."16 The Colonna, in one of their proclamations, charged Boniface with glorying that he is exalted above all princes and kingdoms in temporal matters, and may act as he pleases in view of the fulness of his power—plenitudo potestatis. In his official recognition of the emperor, Albrecht, Boniface declared that as "the moon has no light except as she receives it from the sun, so no earthly power has anything which it does not receive from the ecclesiastical authority." These claims are asserted with most pretension in the bulls Boniface issued during his conflict with France. Members of the papal court encouraged him in these haughty assertions of prerogative. The Spaniard, Arnald of Villanova, who served Boniface as physician, called him in his writings lord of lords—deus deorum. On the other hand, Philip the Fair stood as the embodiment of the independence of the state. He had behind him a unified nation, and around him a body of able statesmen and publicists who defended his views.17 The conflict between Boniface and Philip passed through three stages: (1) the brief tilt which called forth the bull Clericis laicos; (2) the decisive battle, 1301–1303, ending in Boniface’s humiliation at Anagni; (3) the bitter controversy which was waged against the pope’s memory by Philip, ending with the Council of Vienne.18 The conflict originated in questions touching the war between France and England. To meet the expense of his armament against Edward I., Philip levied tribute upon the French clergy. They carried their complaints to Rome, and Boniface justified their contention in the bull Clericis laicos, 1296. This document was ordered promulged in England as well as in France. Robert of Winchelsea, archbishop of Canterbury, had it read in all the English cathedral churches. Its opening sentence impudently asserted that the laity had always been hostile to the clergy. The document went on to affirm the subjection of the state to the papal see. Jurisdiction over the persons of the priesthood and the goods of the Church in no wise belongs to the temporal power. The Church may make gratuitous gifts to the state, but all taxation of Church property without the pope’s consent is to be resisted with excommunication or interdict.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
"I pray you," he said, "leave my name alone, and do not call yourselves Lutherans, but Christians. Who is Luther? My doctrine is not mine. I have not been crucified for any one. St. Paul would not that any one should call themselves of Paul, nor of Peter, but of Christ. How, then, does it befit me, a miserable bag of dust and ashes, to give my name to the children of Christ? Cease, my dear friends, to cling to those party names and distinctions,—away with them all! and let us call ourselves only Christians, after Him from whom our doctrine comes. It is quite proper, that the Papists should bear the name of their party; because they are not content with the name and doctrine of Jesus Christ, they will be Papists besides. Well, let them own the Pope, as he is their master. For me, I neither am, nor wish to be, the master of any one. I and mine will contend for the sole and whole doctrine of Christ, who is our sole master." § 79. Reflections on Clerical Family Life. The Reformers present to us the first noted examples of clerical family life in the Christian Church. This is a new and important chapter in the history of civilization. They restored a natural right founded in the ordinance of God. The priests and high priests of the Jewish theocracy down to the father of John the Baptist, as well as the patriarchs, Moses, and some of the prophets, lived in wedlock. The prince of the apostles, whom Roman Catholics regard as the first pope, was a married man, and carried his wife with him on his missionary journeys.610 Paul claimed the same right as "other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas," though he renounced it for personal reasons. From the pastoral Epistles we may infer that marriage was the rule among the bishops and deacons of the apostolic age. It is therefore plainly a usurpation to deprive the ministers of the gospel of this right of nature and nature’s God. But from the second century the opinion came to prevail, and still prevails in the papal communion, which is ruled by an unmarried priest, that marriage is inconsistent with the sacerdotal office, and should be forbidden after ordination. This view was based on the distinction between a lower and higher morality with corresponding merit and reward, the one for the laity or the common people; the other for priests and monks, who form a spiritual nobility. All the church fathers, Greek and Latin, even those who were themselves married (as Tertullian, Gregory of Nyssa, Synesius), are unanimous in praising celibacy above marriage; and the greatest of them are loudest in this praise, especially St. Jerome. And yet the mothers of Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Augustin, are the brightest examples of Christian women in the ancient Church.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
PROPAGATION AND PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTISM IN GERMANY TILL 1530. § 91. Causes and Means of Progress. The Reformation spread over Germany with the spontaneous and irresistible impulse of a great historical movement that struck its roots deep in the wants and necessities of the church. The only propaganda of Luther was the word and the pen, but these he used to the utmost of his time and strength. "There was no need of an arrangement," says Ranke, "or of a concerted agreement, or of any special mission. As at the first favor of the vernal sun the seed sprouts from the ploughed field, so the new convictions, which were prepared by all what men had experienced and heard, made their appearance on the slightest occasion, wherever the German language was spoken."744 The chief causes of progress were the general discontent with papal tyranny and corruption; the desire for light, liberty, and peace of conscience; the thirst for the pure word of God. The chief agencies were the German Bible, which spoke with Divine authority to the reason and conscience, and overawed the human authority of the pope; the German hymns, which sang the comforting doctrines of grace into the hearts of the people; and the writings of Luther, who discussed every question of the day with commanding ability and abundant knowledge, assuring the faith of friends, and crushing the opposition of foes. The force and fertility of his genius as a polemic are amazing, and without a parallel among fathers, schoolmen, and modern divines. He ruled like an absolute monarch in the realm of German theology and religion; and, with the gospel for his shield and weapon, he was always sure of victory.745 What Luther did for the people, Melanchthon accomplished, in his gentle and moderate way, for scholars. In their united labors they were more than a match for all the learning, skill, and material resources of the champions of Rome. No such progress of new ideas and principles had taken place since the first introduction of Christianity. No power of pope or emperor, no council or diet, could arrest it. The very obstacles were turned into helps. Had the Emperor and his brother favored the cause of progress, all Germany might have become nominally Lutheran. But it was better that Protestantism should succeed, in spite of their opposition, by its intellectual and moral force. A Protestant Constantine or Charlemagne would have extended the territory, but endangered the purity, of the Reformation. Secular and selfish motives and passions were mingled with the pure enthusiasm for the gospel. Violence, intrigues, and gross injustice were sometimes employed in the suppression of the old, and the introduction of the new, faith.746 But, human sin and imperfection enter into all great movements of history. Wherever God builds a church, the Devil is sure to build a chapel close by. The Devil is mighty; but God is almighty, and overrules the wrath and outwits the wit of his great enemy.
From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)
He has much to say about matters of outward conformity to Roman authority and usages and about small questions of casuistry, such as whether it was right to eat horse flesh, rabbits, storks, meat offered to idols, to marry a widow after standing god-father to her son, how often the sign of the cross should be made in preaching. In his strength and his weakness, his loyalty, to Rome, and in the importance of the work he accomplished, he resembled Augustin, the Roman apostle of his Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Boniface succeeded by indomitable perseverance, and his work survived him. This must be his vindication. In judging of him we should remember that the controversy between him and his French and Scotch-Irish opponents was not a controversy between Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism (which was not yet born), but between organized Catholicism or Romanism and independent Catholicism. Mediaeval Christianity was very weak, and required for its self-preservation a strong central power and legal discipline. It is doubtful whether in the barbarous condition of those times, and amid the commotions of almost constant civil wars, the independent and scattered labors of the anti-Roman missionaries could have survived as well and made as strong an impression upon the German nation as a consolidated Christianity with a common centre of unity, and authority. Roman unity was better than undisciplined independency, but it was itself only a preparatory school for the self-governing freedom of manhood. After Boniface had nearly completed his work, a political revolution took place in France which gave it outward support. Pepin, the major domus of the corrupt Merovingian dynasty, overthrew it with the aid of Pope Zacharias, who for his conquest of the troublesome Lombards rewarded him with the royal crown of France (753). Fifty years afterwards this political alliance of France and Germany with the Italian papacy was completed by Charlemagne and Leo III., and lasted for many centuries. Rome had the enchantment of distance, the prestige of power and culture, and promised to furnish the strongest support to new and weak churches. Rome was also the connecting link between mediaeval and ancient civilization, and transmitted to the barbarian races the treasures of classical literature which in due time led to the revival of letters and to the Protestant Reformation. § 26. The Pupils of Boniface. Willibald, Gregory of Utrecht, Sturm of Fulda. Boniface left behind him a number of devoted disciples who carried on his work. Among these we mention St. Willibald, the first bishop of Eichstädt. He was born about A.D. 700 from a noble Anglo-Saxon family and a near relative of Boniface. In his early manhood he made a pilgrimage to Rome and to the Holy Land as far as Damascus, spent several years among the Benedictines in Monte Casino, met Boniface in Rome, joined him in Germany (A.D. 740) and became bishop of Eichstädt in Bavaria in 742. He directed his attention chiefly to the founding of monasteries after the Benedictine rule.