Pride

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.

Page 23 of 174 · 20 per page

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

  21)."224 When Eulogius, in return for this exaltation of his own see, afterwards addressed Gregory as "universal pope," he strongly repudiated the title, saying: "I have said that neither to me nor to any one else (nec mihi, nec cuiquam alteri) ought you to write anything of the kind. And lo! in the preface of your letter you apply to me, who prohibited it, the proud title of universal pope; which thing I beg your most sweet Holiness to do no more, because what is given to others beyond what reason requires is subtracted from you. I do not esteem that an honor by which I know my brethren lose their honor. My honor is that of the universal Church. My honor is the solid strength of my brethren. I am then truly honored when all and each are allowed the honor that is due to them. For, if your Holiness calls me universal pope, you deny yourself to be that which you call me universally [that is, you own yourself to be no pope]. But no more of this: away with words which inflate pride and wound charity!" He even objects to the expression, "as thou hast commanded," which had occurred in hid correspondent’s letter. "Which word, ’commanded,’ I pray you let me hear no more; for I know what I am, and what you are: in position you are my brethren, in manners you are my, fathers. I did not, therefore, command, but desired only to indicate what seemed to me expedient."225 On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Gregory, while he protested in the strongest terms against the assumption by the Eastern patriarchs of the antichristian and blasphemous title of universal bishop, claimed and exercised, as far as he had the opportunity and power, the authority and oversight over the whole church of Christ, even in the East. "With respect to the church of Constantinople," he asks in one of his letters, "who doubts that it is subject to the apostolic see?" And in another letter: "I know not what bishop is not subject to it, if fault is found in him." "To all who know the Gospels," he writes to emperor Maurice, "it is plain that to Peter, as the prince of all the apostles, was committed by our Lord the care of the whole church (totius ecclesiae cura) .... But although the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and to loose, were intrusted to him, and the care and principality of the whole church (totius ecclesiae cura et principatus), he is not called universal bishop; while my most holy fellow-priest (vir sanctissimus consacerdos meus) John dares to call himself universal bishop. I am compelled to exclaim: O tempora, O mores!"226 We have no right to impeach Gregory’s sincerity. But he was clearly inconsistent in disclaiming the name, and yet claiming the thing itself. The real objection is to the pretension of a universal episcopate, not to the title.

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

  "Here I stand. [I can not do otherwise.] God help me! Amen."373 The sentence, if not strictly historical, is true to the situation, and expresses Luther’s mental condition at the time,—the strength of his conviction, and prayer for God’s help, which was abundantly answered. It furnishes a parallel to Galileo’s equally famous, but less authenticated, "It does move, for all that" (E pur si muove). The Emperor would hear no more, and abruptly broke up the session of the Diet at eight o’clock, amid general commotion. On reaching his lodgings, Luther threw up his arms, and joyfully exclaimed, "I am through, I am through? "To Spalatin, in the presence of others, he said, "If I had a thousand beads, I would rather have them all cut off one by one than make one recantation." The impression he made on the audience was different according to conviction and nationality. What some admired as the enthusiasm of faith and the strength of conviction, appeared to others as fanaticism and heretical obstinacy. The Emperor, a stranger to German thought and speech,374 declared after the first hearing: "This man will never make a heretic of me." He doubted the authorship of the famous books ascribed to him.375 At the second hearing he was horrified at the disparagement of general Councils, as if a German monk could be wiser than the whole Catholic Church. The Spaniards and Italians were no doubt of the same opinion; they may have been repelled also by his lowly appearance and want of refined manners. Some of the Spaniards pursued him with hisses as he left the room. The papal legates reported that he raised his hands after the manner of the German soldiers rejoicing over a clever stroke, and represented him as a vulgar fellow fond of good wine.376 They praised the Emperor as a truly Christian and Catholic prince who assured them the next day of his determination to treat Luther as a heretic. The Venetian ambassador, otherwise impartial, judged that Luther disappointed expectations, and showed neither much learning, nor much prudence, nor was he blameless in life.377 But the German delegates received a different impression. When Luther left the Bishop’s palace greatly exhausted, the old Duke Erik of Brunswick sent him a silver tankard of Eimbeck beer, after having first drunk of it himself to remove suspicion. Luther said, "As Duke Erik has remembered me to-day, may the Lord Jesus remember him in his last agony." The Duke thought of it on his deathbed, and found comfort in the words of the gospel: "Whosoever shall give unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward." The Elector Frederick expressed to Spalatin the same evening his delight with Luther’s conduct: "How excellently did Father Martin speak both in Latin and German before the Emperor and the Estates!

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

  It brings out the whole wealth, force, and beauty of the German language. It is the first German classic, as King James’s version is the first English classic. It anticipated the golden age of German literature as represented by Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller,—all of them Protestants, and more or less indebted to the Luther-Bible for their style. The best authority in Teutonic philology pronounces his language to be the foundation of the new High German dialect on account of its purity and influence, and the Protestant dialect on account of its freedom which conquered even Roman Catholic authors.459 The Protestant Spirit of Luther’s Version. Dr. Emser, one of the most learned opponents of the Reformation, singled out in Luther’s New Testament several hundred linguistic blunders and heretical falsifications.460 Many of them were silently corrected in later editions. He published, by order of Duke George of Saxony, a new translation (1527) for the purpose of correcting the errors of "Luther and other heretics."461 The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated again and again by her controversialists and historians.462 The same objection has been raised against the Authorized English Version.463 In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions. The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther’s version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness.464 But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art"). He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,465 "makes much useless fuss about the word sola, allein, tell him at once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so, and says: Papist and donkey are one thing; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. For we do not want to be pupils and followers of the Papists, but their masters and judges." Then he goes on in the style of foolish boasting against the Papists, imitating the language of St. Paul in dealing with his Judaizing opponents (2 Cor. 11:22 sqq.): "Are they doctors? so am I. Are they learned? so am I. Are they preachers? so am I. Are they theologians? so am I. Are they disputators? so am I. Are they philosophers? so am I. Are they the writers of books? so am I.

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

  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)

  father, to tease the Pope, and to vex the Devil. Beneath was a deeper and nobler motive, to rescue the oldest ordinance of God on earth from the tyranny of Rome, and to vindicate by his own example the right of ministers to the benefit of this ordinance. Under this view, his marriage is a public event of far- reaching consequence. It created the home life of the evangelical clergy. He had long before been convinced that vows of perpetual celibacy are unscriptural and unnatural. He held that God has created man for marriage, and that those who oppose it must either be ashamed of their manhood, or pretend to be wiser than God. He did not object to the marriage of Carlstadt, Jonas, Bugenhagen, and other priests and monks. But he himself seemed resolved to remain single, and continued to live in the convent. He was now over forty years of age; eight years had elapsed since he opened the controversy with Rome in the Ninety-Five Theses; and, although a man of powerful passions, he had strictly kept his monastic and clerical vow. His enemies charged him with drinking beer, playing the lute, leading a worldly life, but never dared to dispute his chastity till after his marriage. As late as Nov. 30, 1524, he wrote to Spalatin I shall never take a wife, as I feel at present. Not that I am insensible to my flesh or sex (for I am neither wood nor stone); but my mind is averse to wedlock, because I daily expect the death of a heretic."576 But on April 10, 1525, he wrote to the same friend: "Why do you not get married? I find so many reasons for urging others to marry, that I shall soon be brought to it myself, notwithstanding that enemies never cease to condemn the married state, and our little wiseacres (sapientuli) ridicule it every day."577 He got tired of his monastic seclusion; the convent was nearly emptied, and its resources cut off; his bed, as Melanchthon tells us, was not properly made for months, and was mildewed with perspiration; he lived of the plainest food; he worked himself nearly to death; he felt the need of a helpmate. In April, 1523, nine nuns escaped from the convent of Nimptsch near Grimma, fled to Wittenberg, and appealed to Luther for protection and aid. Among them was Catharina von Bora,578 a virgin of noble birth, but poor, fifteen years younger than Luther,579 not remarkable for beauty or culture, but healthy, strong, frank, intelligent, and high-minded. In looking at the portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Luther in their honeymoon, we must remember that they were painted by Cranach, and not by Raphael or Titian.580 Catharina had been attached and almost engaged to a former student of Wittenberg from Nürnberg; but he changed his mind, to her great grief, and married a rich wife (1523). After this Luther arranged a match between her and Dr.

• 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.

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

  probably have made his mark among the great ruling pontiffs. His nationality also was against him. The French had little heart in supporting a Spaniard and, at Clement’s death, the relations between the French king and the Avignon pope at once lost their cordiality. Peter was energetic of mind and in action, a shrewd observer, magnified his office, and never yielded an inch in the matter of papal prerogative. Through the administrations of three Roman pontiffs, he held on firmly to his office, outlived the two Reformatory councils of Pisa and Constance, and yielded not up this mortal flesh till the close of the first quarter of the fifteenth century, and was still asserting his claims and maintaining the dignity of pope at the time of his death. Before his election, he likewise entered into a solemn compact with his cardinals, promising to bend every effort to heal the unholy schism, even if the price were his own abdication. The professions of both popes were in the right direction. They were all that could be desired, and all that remained was for either of them or for both of them to resign and make free room for a new candidate. The problem would thus have been easily settled, and succeeding generations might have canonized both pontiffs for their voluntary self-abnegation. But it took ten years to bring Gregory to this state of mind, and then almost the last vestige of power had been taken from him. Peter de Luna never yielded. Undoubtedly, at the time of the election of Gregory XII., the papacy was passing through one of the grave crises in its history. There were not wanting men who said, like Langenstein, vice-chancellor of the University of Paris, that perhaps it was God’s purpose that there should be two popes indefinitely, even as David’s kingdom was divided under two sovereigns.263 Yea, and there were men who argued publicly that it made little difference how many there were, two or three, or ten or twelve, or as many as there were nations.264 At his first consistory Gregory made a good beginning, when he asserted that, for the sake of the good cause of securing a united Christendom, he was willing to travel by land or by sea, by land, if necessary, with a pilgrim’s staff, by sea in a fishing smack, in order to come to an agreement with Benedict. He wrote to his rival on the Rhone, declaring that, like the woman who was ready to renounce her child rather than see it cut asunder, so each of them should be willing to cede his authority rather than be responsible for the continuance of the schism.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  But in this situation maybe she wouldn’t. Also, I didn’t want to hear myself say it. “I don’t think that will work,” I said. “I’m sorry.” 26. “There’s a light on in your eyes,” said Brianne. “Have you been doing inner-child work?” “Definitely not,” I said. “Trauma work?” clucked Chickenhorse suspiciously. I shook my head no. “Must be the self-dating,” she said. “You actually look alive for once.” “Thanks, I guess.” I let them know that I was doing well and had blocked Adam and Garrett in my phone. I made no mention of Theo or the rocks, as the group would deem it poor self-care that I had been wandering around there so late at night in the dark. Chickenhorse would probably call it self-harm. But everyone was suffering too much today to focus on me for long. Chickenhorse had been forced to move back in with her parents, which was traumatizing for her. Actually, she said it was “retraumatizing” and calling up trauma from earlier in life. “My mother doesn’t accept my pit bulls. Or, she accepts them, but she doesn’t like them. Which is exactly the way she was about me as a child. She just tolerated me. But she didn’t think I was special. Also, now that I’m living at home I obviously can’t start conscious-dating anytime soon.” “Your feelings are certainly understandable. But with regard to the conscious dating, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true,” said Dr. Jude. “Of course it’s true!” neighed Chickenhorse. “You don’t know my mother. She has no boundaries. She’ll want to know exactly what’s going on, who I’m with, what family he is from, and then she’ll find some way to involve herself. So, sorry, now that I’m homeless we will have to put off dating again.” Brianne’s dating life was going no better. “Things have gone a little south with the man from OkCupid,” she murmured, adjusting one knee sock. “He sent me an email the other day letting me know that he couldn’t return to the States yet, because he was waiting for a business deal to close and temporarily was out of funds. Then he asked if I could loan him some funds.” The group gasped in unison. “I’m not sure what to do. One of the items I put on my vision board is that I want a man who is financially stable. I don’t want to compromise my vision board. I’m supposed to be manifesting. My life is simply too abundant to take on someone who is living a life of lack. But at the same time, because of that abundance, I can’t help but think that it might be the kind thing to help him out—especially if it will allow us to go on our date.” “Mmmmmm,” said Dr.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  “But I won’t be able to afford it!” “Marry well,” I say, and am instantly horrified that these words have come from my empowered, feminist mouth. “Wait, pretend you didn’t hear that, I take it back. Make your own money, then you can take your husband here someday.” She says that’s not what I did, and she wants to follow in my footsteps. “Daddy and I met when we were so young, and then once we had Daisy and Hudson, I wanted to be with them all the time so I stopped working. I think I could have been as financially successful as Daddy is now, but we made a decision together and I gave up my career. You could do that too if you want to. I just want you to figure out who you are first,” I say. “Didn’t you know who you were when you met Daddy?” she asks, and I raise my eyebrows at her and twist my lips, pondering how to answer. I am continually stunned by the way children can hone in on the heart of the matter, how they so earnestly ask questions that astonish with their simplicity. “That’s a really good question. I did know who I was and I knew I wanted a life with Daddy. But imagine, I wasn’t much older than Daisy is right now, and over the years I changed and Daddy changed, and we grew up but not in a way that made it easy for us to be together anymore. I wouldn’t change a thing, because if I did, I might not be a mom to my three amazing children, and truly all I ever wanted was a family. It’s really hard for you to understand this right now, but I think someday you will,” I say, and she solemnly nods her head. “But we’re not a family anymore.” “Oh, we’re still a family, my love. We look different from how we used to look because we don’t all live together anymore, but the love we have for each other will always be strong and that makes us a family,” I say, and as I speak the words, I realize that I actually believe them, that they’re not mere platitudes I am using to bandage her back together. All my childhood and into early adulthood, I mourned that I did not have a cohesive family, a nuclear unit that did not include stepparents and stepsiblings and half-siblings, a complex family tree that branched off in confusing directions. I wanted to create the family that I hadn’t had and had felt deprived of, and when Michael and I separated, I felt he had stolen from me this chance to get it right. It wasn’t just that he had irrevocably altered my present – he had forced me to reconsider my past and to reshape my future. I think back to the fury and despondency I felt a year ago.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Then in June 2005, I self-released a chapbook called On the Outside Looking In: a trans woman’s perspective on feminism and the exclusion of trans women from lesbian and women-only spaces, which included “Skirt Chasers,” as well as essays that would later form the basis of “Trans Woman Manifesto” and Chapter 12 : “Bending Over Backwards” in this book. 4 It was in that collection that I first introduced the concept of trans-misogyny (now typically written “transmisogyny”) , which has subsequently become one of the main ideas that Whipping Girl has become known for. I believe that I coined the term, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it appeared independently elsewhere, as it perfectly encapsulates the interplay of transphobia and misogyny that I was striving to articulate. Over the course of writing Whipping Girl , I broadened this scope further, describing most instances of gender-based discrimination as involving some combination of oppositional sexism (the delegitimization gender non-conformity) and/or traditional sexism (the delegitimization of femaleness and femininity). I was particularly proud of this conceptualization at the time, as it allowed me to unite the long-time concerns of both transgender activists and feminists, while also making it clear how this system might be especially unforgiving with regards to trans women and others on the trans female/feminine spectrum. Also in 2005, through a bit of right-place-right-time serendipity, Seal Press became aware of and took an interest in my work. I used On the Outside Looking In as an example of the type of book I was hoping to write, and on the strength of that, they offered me a book contract. The manuscript deadline was to be in December 2006 (about a year and a half out). Aside from the aforementioned essays, I had a handful of slam poems that fit with the theme of the book and which subsequently became chapters (“Deconstructive Surgery,” “Self-Deception,” “Submissive Streak,” and “Barrette Manifesto”). But the rest of the book was written during that interim year and a half. One of the biggest hurdles facing trans writers and activists is that most people in our culture believe that there are natural and essential differences between women and men. So I knew that I would need to call these assumptions into question if I wanted readers to understand trans people’s circumstances and perspectives.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  One good way to get this third speaker adjusted to its proper volume is to think of the four gospels as deliberately composed foundational documents for the new movement. They are, in this quite proper sense, “myths”—not in the sense of “stories that didn’t happen,” but in the sense of “stories communities tell to explain and give direction to their own lives.” In my country, the story of the Battle of Britain has become, in that sense, a “myth,” not because it didn’t happen (it did), but because the way it has been told is designed not only to remember things that happened in the early 1940s, but to celebrate something of the character of Britain as it understands itself, a little embattled offshore European island standing pluckily against tyranny and barbarism. The great debates about Darwinian evolution that have continued to be such a feature of American public life are not about the question of whether Darwinian evolution is a “myth”; there is no doubt about that. It is a powerful story told again and again in order to reinforce one particular view of the world and human life. The question is whether the “myth” corresponds to reality. Well, the question of the gospels is whether the “myth” that they convey corresponds to reality. Early Christians would have said that the test of this was the reality not simply of their historical memories, but of their community life. When they told the stories in the gospels, they told them not simply as a way of reminding one another of things that had happened, however interesting. They were reminding one another of things that had happened through which the new movement of which they were a part had come into being and through which it had gained its sense of direction. Their whole raison d’être depended on these stories. If, then, with the sound coming from the first speaker, we observed the church telling the story of Jesus as the story of how Israel’s story came to fulfillment, part of the reason for that was that this is the very foundation of the new movement that then sprang up. The early Christians believed that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, not, as some Jewish apologists today have absurdly said, “the Christian Messiah.” There was, and is, no such independent thing. The fulfillment of Israel’s story in the story of the Messiah is the foundational charter of the church.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  We have this treasure in earthenware pots, so that the extraordinary quality of the power may belong to God, not to us. We are under all kinds of pressure, but we are not crushed completely; we are at a loss, but not at our wits’ end; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are cast down, but not destroyed. We always carry the deadness of Jesus about in the body, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. Although we are still alive, you see, we are always being given over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal humanity. So this is how it is: death is at work in us—but life in you! (2 Cor. 4:7–12) Right now I’m having a celebration—a celebration of my sufferings, which are for your benefit! And I’m steadily completing, in my own flesh, what is presently lacking in the king’s afflictions on behalf of his body, which is the church. (Col. 1:24) Yes, it may well be necessary that, for a while, you may have to suffer trials and tests of all sorts. But this is so that the true value of your faith may be discovered. It is worth more than gold, which is tested by fire even though it can be destroyed. The result will be praise, glory, and honor when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. (1 Pet. 1:6–7) Beloved, don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is coming upon you to test you, as though this were some strange thing that was happening to you. Rather, celebrate! You are sharing the sufferings of the Messiah. Then, when his glory is revealed, you will celebrate with real, exuberant joy. (1 Pet. 4:12–13) Now at last has come salvation and power: the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah! The accuser of our family has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before God day and night. They conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, because they did not love their lives unto death. (Rev. 12:10–11)

• From How God Became King (2012)

  In my country, the story of the Battle of Britain has become, in that sense, a “myth,” not because it didn’t happen (it did), but because the way it has been told is designed not only to remember things that happened in the early 1940s, but to celebrate something of the character of Britain as it understands itself, a little embattled offshore European island standing pluckily against tyranny and barbarism. The great debates about Darwinian evolution that have continued to be such a feature of American public life are not about the question of whether Darwinian evolution is a “myth”; there is no doubt about that. It is a powerful story told again and again in order to reinforce one particular view of the world and human life. The question is whether the “myth” corresponds to reality. Well, the question of the gospels is whether the “myth” that they convey corresponds to reality. Early Christians would have said that the test of this was the reality not simply of their historical memories, but of their community life. When they told the stories in the gospels, they told them not simply as a way of reminding one another of things that had happened, however interesting. They were reminding one another of things that had happened through which the new movement of which they were a part had come into being and through which it had gained its sense of direction. Their whole raison d’être depended on these stories. If, then, with the sound coming from the first speaker, we observed the church telling the story of Jesus as the story of how Israel’s story came to fulfillment, part of the reason for that was that this is the very foundation of the new movement that then sprang up. The early Christians believed that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, not, as some Jewish apologists today have absurdly said, “the Christian Messiah.” There was, and is, no such independent thing. The fulfillment of Israel’s story in the story of the Messiah is the foundational charter of the church. That is why I speak of the gospels as telling the story of the launching of God’s renewed people. It is wrong to imagine that the gospels (or Jesus, for that matter) were concerned with “founding the church,” which is the way some people have said it. There already was a “people of God.” We saw, with the first speaker, that the gospels were telling the story of Jesus as the climax of that people’s story. Jesus came, they indicate, to rescue and renew that people, not to destroy it and replace it with something else. Israel is to be fulfilled, not replaced. (There is of course a lot of sensitivity about this question just now, but it does no good to pretend that things are other than they are.) This phrase about “renewal” is therefore much more than a mere alternative way of saying “found the church.”

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  And while we credit previous feminist movements for helping to create a society where most sensible people would agree with the statement “women and men are equals,” we lament the fact that we remain light-years away from being able to say that most people believe that femininity is masculinity’s equal. Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sex—otherwise there would not be feminine boy and masculine girl children. We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism. We must challenge all those who insist that women who act or dress in a feminine manner take on a submissive or passive posture. For many of us, dressing or acting feminine is something we do for ourselves, not for others. It is our way of reclaiming our own bodies and fearlessly expressing our own personalities and sexualities. It is not us who are guilty of trying to reduce our bodies to mere playthings, but rather those who foolishly assume that our feminine style is a signal that we sexually subjugate ourselves to men. In a world where masculinity is assumed to represent strength and power, those who are butch and boyish are able to contemplate their identities within the relative safety of those connotations. In contrast, those of us who are feminine are forced to define ourselves on our own terms and develop our own sense of self-worth. It takes guts, determination, and fearlessness for those of us who are feminine to lift ourselves up out of the inferior meanings that are constantly being projected onto us. If you require any evidence that femininity can be more fierce and dangerous than masculinity, all you need to do is ask the average man to hold your handbag or a bouquet of flowers for a minute, and watch how far away he holds it from his body. Or tell him that you would like to put your lipstick on him and watch how fast he runs off in the other direction. In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self. But it is not enough for us to empower femaleness and femininity.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  This assumption denies any possibility that those who are feminine might wish to adorn themselves for their own benefit or pleasure. After all, feminine self-presentation tends to highly correlate with a more general desire to surround oneself with beautiful or aesthetically pleasing objects and materials—whether in decorating one’s home or adorning one’s body. The idea that this trait exists primarily to pique men’s interest seems unlikely to me, as most straight men I know seem rather disinterested in the way their homes are decorated, and often are completely oblivious when their female partners don new outfits or hairstyles. It’s safe to say that most heterosexual men are far more interested in women’s physical bodies than they are in the clothing and accessories that cover them. The idea that feminine self-presentation exists primarily to attract heterosexual men is further undermined by the fact that femme dykes dress in a feminine manner despite their disinterest in attracting men. And some gay men also dress very femininely despite the fact that the gay male community has a history of idolizing and fetishizing hypermasculine images and bodies rather than feminine ones. As someone who’s not interested in attracting men, I often enjoy dressing femininely; I simply feel more alive and self-empowered when I do. Whenever people (male or otherwise) assume that women who dress in a feminine manner do so in order to elicit male attention, it always sounds like a slightly toned-down version of that arrogant claim that women who dress provocatively are somehow asking to be raped. Clearly, it’s the idea that feminine self-presentation exists for men’s benefit that is oppressive to women, not the acts of self-presentation themselves.The issue of feminine self-presentation also brings up another way in which feminine traits are undermined: They are often cast as being dependent on masculinity and maleness. This sentiment seems to be projected onto virtually all aspects of femaleness and femininity. It can be seen in the way men are often cast as the “protectors” of women, either because they are typically physically stronger or because women are seen as being “emotionally frail.” The stereotypic and mythic image of the damsel in distress who requires a masculine man to save her seems to impart an air of helplessness, fragility, and passivity onto virtually all aspects of femininity and female sexuality.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Because of the transsexual-focused nature of this book, I primarily used “cissexual” throughout this text, although “cisgender” is more frequently used today. While cis terminology has become fairly commonplace, back when I first started using it, very few trans people were even aware of it, as it had only been used infrequently and sporadically up to that point. In fact, I believe that Whipping Girl was the first book to employ cis terminology on a consistent basis, and it is generally credited with popularizing this language. 9 While I initially worried about introducing language that most readers would find unfamiliar, I ultimately decided to use it, not only because “cis” is less awkward to use than “non-trans” (the term that I had been using up to that point in my writing and activism), but because it allowed me to discuss cissexism —the double standard that leads people to view, interpret, and treat trans people differently (and less legitimately) than they do our cis counterparts. And I devoted an entire chapter (“Dismantling Cissexual Privilege”) to dissecting this double standard and explaining how it plays out in trans people’s lives—upon completing it, I felt that it was the most important thing that I had written up to that point. Finally, Whipping Girl has also become known for is its unapologetic defense of feminine gender expression. Once again, at the risk of overgeneralizing, feminism circa the ’70s and ’80s was largely disdainful of femininity, portraying it as a set of artificial behaviors that women were coerced into achieving in order to appease men. By the ’90s, this view was increasingly challenged by third-wave feminism and the femme movement. While I was certainly influenced by these latter movements, I was often disappointed by how they only tended to defend certain “re-appropriations” of femininity. For instance, they would praise riot grrrl fashions, or femmes who are paired with butches, for being nontraditionally feminine and/or for re-working femininity toward feminist or queer ends. This, of course, implied that traditional and/or heterosexual expressions of femininity remain suspect. As a trans woman who was never socialized nor encouraged to be feminine, and who grew up trying to hide any feminine tendencies I had, the premise that femininity is inherently artificial and only exists for men’s benefit struck me as not only false, but patently sexist. Drawing on my previously described vantage points (e.g., my intrinsic inclinations model, and how we project certain meanings and assumptions onto some expressions of gender but not others), I was able to make the case that the wholesale condemning of femininity is one of the more unfortunate missteps in the history of feminism. I have since expanded on these ideas in Excluded and in other subsequent writings. 10 In preparation for writing this preface, I re-read Whipping Girl . While many of the problems that I chronicle (e.g., antifeminine sentiment, cissexism, trans-misogyny, oppositional and traditional sexism) still persist today, many of the specific details that I delve into have changed considerably.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  It’s not that I don’t think I’m attractive – I think I’m pretty but not conventionally beautiful, that I have a nice figure but not one that commands attention. I’m petite with a voluminous head of curly hair, neither sleek nor statuesque. When I look at photos of myself, I see a genuine smile, complete with dimples, but one that makes my eyes disappear. So not until now has it occurred to me that I might be attractive according to the literal definition of the word – not necessarily beautiful, but appealing to people – and that that appeal is not because of my hair color or figure or blue eyes but from something as subtle as the way I sit or smile. Or maybe it comes from something I have only just learned about myself: I hold my head high. I’m proud to be myself, to be recovering from this broken mess of a year, to be present and alive when the alternative of closing into myself would have been so much easier and more comfortable. I’m bruised but not shattered as I’ve been regarding myself, my head is most certainly not hanging low, and if I’m not actually a shadow of my former self, can it be that I’m stronger and more capable than I ever knew? #3 is sweet, gentle and, as he has pointed out, nervous. He puts on a brave face and the condom he’s opened and when I orgasm and he doesn’t, he is embarrassed and apologetic. “Please don’t worry,” I say. “I basically forced myself on you, so it’s only fair you weren’t ready for me.” I can’t help noting that this is the second time this has happened, so my track record is starting to take on a troubling pattern: I come, but the men can’t. Is it the condoms? Am I doing something wrong? Is it possible I’ve had it all wrong, thinking men could come on a dime but women had to really work for it? Should I feel the guilt that rises up in me that I am leaving these experiences sexually satisfied but the men are not? “Can I see you again?” he asks. “I need to get my head in the right place. It’ll be better next time, I assure you. I really liked spending time with you.” I nod my head and smile. It’s late, after two in the morning, and I have to be en route to retrieve Georgia in six hours. He walks me outside in the muggy night air, crickets serenading us, and opens my car door for me. Pausing before I get in, I tell him that I think I will be available on Sunday afternoon. We both softly chuckle at my usage of the word “available”, knowing I mean it in more than one way, and I fold myself into my car.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now hounds were moving away towards cover, tails waving—they looked like an army with banners. ‘Hi, Starbright—Fancy! Get in, little bitch! Hi, Frolic, get on with it, Frolic!’ The long lashes shot out with amazing precision, stinging a flank or stroking a shoulder, while the four-legged Amazons closed up their ranks for the serious business ahead. ‘Hi, Starbright!’ Whips cracked and horses grew restless; Stephen’s mount required undivided attention. She had no time to think of her muscles or her grievance, but only of the creature between her small knees. ‘All right, Stephen?’ ‘Yes, Father.’ ‘Well, go steady at your fences; it may be a little bit slippery this morning.’ But Sir Philip’s voice did not sound at all anxious; indeed there was a note of deep pride in his voice. ‘He knows that I’m not just a rag doll, like Violet; he knows that I’m different to her!’ thought Stephen. 3 The strange, implacable heart-broken music of hounds giving tongue as they break from cover; the cry of the huntsman as he stands in his stirrups; the thud of hooves pounding ruthlessly forward over long, green, undulating meadows. The meadows flying back as though seen from a train, the meadows streaming away behind you; the acrid smell of horse sweat caught in passing; the smell of damp leather, of earth and bruised herbage—all sudden, all passing—then the smell of wide spaces, the air smell, cool yet as potent as wine. Sir Philip was looking back over his shoulder: ‘All right, Stephen?’ ‘Oh, yes—’ Stephen’s voice sounded breathless. ‘Steady on! Steady on!’ They were coming to a fence, and Stephen’s grip tightened a little. The pony took the fence in his stride, very gaily; for an instant he seemed to stay poised in mid-air as though he had wings, then he touched earth again, and away without even pausing. ‘All right, Stephen?’ ‘Yes, yes!’ Sir Philip’s broad back was bent forward over the shoulder of his hunter; the crisp auburn hair in the nape of his neck showed bright where the winter sunshine touched it; and as the child followed that purposeful back, she felt that she loved it utterly, entirely. At that moment it seemed to embody all kindness, all strength, and all understanding. 4 They killed not so very far from Worcester; it had been a stiff run, the best of the season. Colonel Antrim came jogging along to Stephen, whose prowess had amused and surprised him. ‘Well, well,’ he said, grinning, ‘so here you are, madam, still with a leg on each side of your horse—I’m going to tell Violet she’ll have to buck up. By the way, Philip, can Stephen come to tea on Monday, before Roger goes back to school? She can? Oh, splendid!