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.

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• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  One of the things that must change is the relationship that we have with our “memories.” But I’m Proud to Be a Survivor There ain’t no future in the past — Country-western song We trauma sufferers search for memories of abuse in order to explain our feelings of victimization and helplessness. We also need to take pride in ourselves as survivors. Being able to recall a terrible scenario and to know that you have survived it is an important element in building self-esteem. Important as that element is, it pales beside the healthy sense of resolution, mastery, and empowerment that accompanies true healing and transformation. “Survivor’s pride” is an indication that healthy functioning is trying to assert itself. Knowing that you have survived feels good because it enables the constricted (traumatized) sense of self to enjoy some em-powerment and expansion. It can provide us with a source of identity. It hints at completion, and is a good place to begin the healing journey. Giving up the idea that memories are concrete and accurate representations of actual past events doesn’t mean foregoing the experience of expansion and affirmation of life that comes with traveling the survivor route. One of my clients, while working through his childhood abuse at the hands of “barrio” gang members, said it this way: “I don’t have to justify my experience with memories any more.” Feelings of pleasure and expansion are evidence that the organism is moving into the healing vortex. The key to letting the healing vortex support the process of transformation lies in the ability to let go of preconceived ideas about how an event “should be” remembered. In other words, you have to be able to give the felt sense free license to communicate without censoring what it has to say. Paradoxically, this doesn’t negate the liberating significance of acknowledging “what really happened.” This truth is experienced in moving fluidly between the healing and trauma vortices. There is a deep acceptance of the emotional impact of events in our lives along with a simultaneous quality of waking up from a nightmare. One awakens from this dream with a sense of wonder and gladness. The Courage to Feel If you want to know whether an event “really” happened, all I can do is wish you well and tell you what you already know. You may have taken on an impossible task. In my view, neither this book nor anything else will help you know the truth of what you are seeking.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Eventually however the Master made the same request to Buffalmacco that he had previously made to Bruno, whereupon Buffalmacco pretended to be very angry and subjected Bruno to a torrent of abuse, saying: ‘By the great tall God of Passignano, 15 I swear I’ve a good mind to give you such a pasting over the face that your nose would end up in your boots, traitor that you are, for you alone can have revealed these secrets to the Master.’ But Bruno was stoutly defended by the physician, who swore and affirmed that he had heard about these things from another source, and eventually succeeded in mollifying Buffalmacco with a goodly quantity of his pearls of wisdom, after which Buffalmacco turned to him and said: ‘It’s quite plain that you’ve been at Bologna, my dear Master, and that you came back here with a pair of well-sealed lips. Moreover you obviously didn’t learn your alphabet from a blackboard, as many an ignoramus has done, but from a blackamoor; and unless I’m mistaken, you were christened on a Sunday. 16 Bruno tells me you were studying medicine up there in Bologna, but it seems to me that you studied how to capture men’s minds, for what with your wisdom and your singular ways, you’re a better exponent of that particular art than any other man I ever saw.’ But at this point he was interrupted by the physician, who turned to Bruno and said: ‘What a thing it is to meet and converse with men of wisdom! Who but this worthy man would have been so prompt to read all my thoughts? You were not nearly so quick as Buffalmacco to appreciate my excellence; but you might at least tell him what I said to you when you told me he took a delight in the company of the wise: do you think I’ve been as good as my word?’ ‘Better,’ said Bruno. The Master then turned to Buffalmacco, saying: ‘You’d have had a lot more to say if you’d seen me in Bologna, where there wasn’t a single person, great or small, student or professor, who didn’t worship the very ground beneath my feet, such was the pleasure I was able to give to each and every one of them with my wise and witty conversation. And I can tell you this, that whenever I opened my mouth, I made everybody laugh because I was so popular. When the time came for me to leave Bologna, they were all heartbroken and wanted me to stay. In fact they were so anxious to keep me there that they offered to let me do all the teaching in the faculty of medicine. But I declined the offer because I’d made up my mind to return to the huge estates that my family has always owned in this part of the world.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Trauma is so arresting that traumatized people will focus on it compulsively. Unfortunately, the situation that defeated them once will defeat them again and again. Body sensations can serve as a guide to reflect where we are experiencing trauma, and to lead us to our instinctual resources. These resources give us the power to protect ourselves from predators and other hostile forces. Each of us possesses these instinctual resources. Once we learn how to access them we can create our own shields to reflect and heal our traumas. In dreams, mythical stories, and lore, one universal symbol for the human body and its instinctual nature is the horse. Interestingly enough, when Medusa was slain, two things emerged from her body: Pegasus, the winged horse, and Chrysaor, a warrior with a golden sword. We couldn’t find a more appropriate metaphor. The sword symbolizes absolute truth, the mythic hero's ultimate weapon of defense. It conveys a sense of clarity and triumph, of rising to meet extraordinary challenges, and of ultimate resourcefulness. The horse symbolizes instinctual grounding, while wings create an image of movement, soaring, and rising above an earth-bound existence. Since the horse represents instinct and body, the winged horse speaks of transformation through embodiment. Together the winged horse and the golden sword are auspicious symbols for the resources traumatized people discover in the process of vanquishing their own Medusas. As we begin the healing process we use what is known as the “felt sense,” or internal body sensations. These sensations serve as a portal through which we find the symptoms, or reflections of trauma. In directing our attention to these internal body sensations, rather than attacking the trauma head-on, we can unbind and free the energies that have been held in check. The Felt Sense Our feelings and our bodies are like water flowing into water. We learn to swim within the energies of the (body) senses. Tarthang Tulku Just as Perseus used his shield to confront Medusa, so may traumatized people use their shield-equivalent of sensation, or the “felt sense,” to master trauma. The felt sense encompasses the clarity, instinctual power, and fluidity necessary to transform trauma. According to Eugene Gendlin, who coined the term “felt sense” in his book Focusing [7] : A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one. Physical. A bodily awareness of a situation or person or event. An internal aura that encompasses everything you feel and know about the given subject at a given tim e— encompasses it and communicates it to you all at once rather than detail by detail. The felt sense is a difficult concept to define with words, as language is a linear process and the felt sense is a non-linear experience. Consequently, dimensions of meaning are lost in the attempt to articulate this experience.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘This is a dispute for you to settle, Dioneo. Be so good, therefore, when we come to the end of our storytelling, to pronounce the last word on the subject.’ ‘Madam,’ Dioneo swiftly replied, ‘the last word has already been spoken. In my opinion, Licisca is right. I believe it is just as she says; and Tindaro is a fool.’ Hearing this, Licisca burst out laughing, and, turning back to Tindaro, she said: ‘There! What did I tell you? Now get along, and stop thinking you know more than I do, when you’re hardly out of your cradle. Thanks be to God, I haven’t lived for nothing, believe you me!’ But for the fact that the queen sternly commanded her to be silent, told her not to shout or argue any more unless she wanted to be whipped, and sent her back to the kitchen with Tindaro, there would have been nothing else to do for the rest of the day but listen to her prattle. And when they had withdrawn, the queen enjoined Filomena to tell the first story, whereupon Filomena gaily began, as follows: FIRST STORYA knight offers to take Madonna Oretta riding through the realm of narrative, but makes such a poor job of it that she begs him to put her down. Tender ladies, as stars bedeck the heavens on cloudless nights, and in the spring the green meadows are adorned with flowers, and hillsides with saplings newly come into leaf, so likewise are graceful manners and polite discourse enriched by shafts of wit. These, being brief, are much better suited to women than to men, since it is more unseemly for a woman to make long speeches than it is for a man. But for some reason or other, whether because we are lacking in intelligence or because all the women of our generation were born under an unlucky star, few if any women now remain who can produce a witticism at the right moment, or who, on hearing a witticism uttered, can understand its meaning. Since Pampinea has already spoken at some length on this subject,1 I do not propose to elaborate further upon it. But in order to show you how exquisite these sayings can be if proffered at the right moment, I should like to tell you about the courteous way in which a lady imposed silence upon a certain knight. *

• From The Decameron (1353)

  by Giorgio Padoan. 9 The fact that already, in the pages of the Comedía delle ninfe fiorentine, he had employed in rudimentary outline just such a structural scheme, and that the seven young nymphs of the earlier work were explicitly presented as embodying the seven virtues, seems significant in this connection, implying as it does that he had similar allegorical intentions in planning the structure of his major work. The Prologue is the first of three passages in the Decameron in which the author explicitly addresses his readers concerning his aims and intentions, the others being the Introduction to the Fourth Day and the author’s concluding remarks (Conclusione dell’autore). All three of these passages are characterized by an ambivalent, tongue-in-cheek intonation, and it would be unwise to interpret them too literally, but the theories they embody concerning the function of literature provide some sort of insight into Boccaccio’s view of art and society. In all three passages, the impression is studiously fostered that the Decameron is written exclusively for ladies suffering from the pangs of unrequited love, and the author claims to be offering them his comfort and advice. But if one probes below the surface of this outward declaration of his intentions, it is very soon apparent that he is addressing himself to a much wider readership, and that the three passages in question, especially the second and third, have a very different object. Their purpose, in fact, is to establish the aesthetic validity of the literary genre, narrative prose fiction, to which the Decameron belongs. Before Boccaccio, no one in western Europe had ever considered prose fiction to be worthy of serious study, and for more than a century after his death it continued to be regarded as a frivolous literary pursuit. One of his most distinguished successors in this branch of literature, Franco Sacchetti (1335–1400), author of the collection of stories known as the Trecentonovelle, describes himself as a ‘uomo discolo e grosso’ (‘a crude, unlearned man’), though in fact he was nothing of the sort. The note of self-deprecation is found in the Prologue to his collection, where a handsome tribute to Boccaccio is qualified by a phrase suggesting that, in some respects, his predecessor’s outstanding genius had been misapplied. No such doubts can ever have assailed Boccaccio, who seems intent, in the three passages he addresses to the reader, on proving the worthiness of the task to which he has committed himself. The Prologue, with its fictive explanation of the origins and the objectives of the Decameron, is marked by a tone of extreme self-assurance and, from a technical viewpoint, by a virtuoso display of several of the most admired procedures of medieval rhetoric, the so- called ars dictandi. The opening words conform to the widely accepted practice of beginning with a proverb, in this case that it is human to take pity on people in distress (umana cosa è aver compassione degli afflitti).

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

  The Toleration of 1689 was an accommodation to a limited number of Dissenters—Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, who were allowed liberty of separate organization and public worship on condition of subscribing thirty-six out of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Roman Catholics and Unitarians were excluded, and did not acquire toleration in England till the nineteenth century, the former by the Act of Emancipation passed April 13, 1829. Even now the Dissenters in England labor under minor disabilities and social disadvantages, which will continue as long as the government patronizes an established church. They have to support the establishment, in addition to their own denomination. Practically, however, there is more religious liberty in England than anywhere on the Continent, and as much as in the United States. 9. The last and most important step in the progress of religious liberty was taken by the United States of America in the provision of the Federal Constitution of 1787, which excludes all religious tests from the qualifications to any office or public trust. The first amendment to the Constitution (1789) enacts that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."102 Thus the United States government is by its own free act prevented from ever establishing a state-church, and on the other hand it is bound to protect freedom of religion, not only as a matter of opinion, but also in its public exercise, as one of the inalienable rights of an American citizen, like the freedom of speech and of the press. History had taught the framers of the Constitution that persecution is useless as well as hateful, and that it has its root in the unholy alliance of religion with politics. Providence had made America a hospitable home for all fugitives from persecution,—Puritans, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Baptists, Quakers, Reformed, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, etc.—and foreordained it for the largest development of civil and religious freedom consistent with order and the well-being of society. When the colonies, after a successful struggle for independence, coalesced into one nation they could not grant liberty to one church or sect without granting it to all. They were thus naturally driven to this result. It was the inevitable destiny of America. And it involved no injustice or injury to any church or sect. The modern German empire forms in some measure a parallel. When it was formed in 1870 by the free action of the twenty or more German sovereignties, it had to take them in with their religion, and abstain from all religious and ecclesiastical legislation which might interfere with the religion of any separate state.

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

  Most of his works, according to internal evidence, fill in the first quarter of the third century, in the Montanistic period of his life, and among these many of his ablest writings against the heretics; while, on the other hand, the gloomy moral austerity, which predisposed him to Montanism, comes out quite strongly even in his earliest productions.1528 His works may be grouped in three classes: apologetic; polemic or anti-heretical; and ethic or practical; to which may be added as a fourth class the expressly Montanistic tracts against the Catholics. We can here only mention the most important: 1. In the Apologetic works against heathens and Jews, he pleads the cause of all Christendom, and deserves the thanks of all Christendom. Preëminent among them is the Apologeticus (or Apologeticum).1529 It was composed in the reign of Septimius Severus, between 197 and 200. It is unquestionably one of the most beautiful monuments of the heroic age of the church. In this work, Tertullian enthusiastically and triumphantly repels the attacks of the heathens upon the new religion, and demands for it legal toleration and equal rights with the other sects of the Roman empire. It is the first plea for religious liberty, as an inalienable right which God has given to every man, and which the civil government in its own interest should not only tolerate but respect and protect. He claims no support, no favor, but simply justice. The church was in the first three centuries a self-supporting and self-governing society (as it ought always to be), and no burden, but a blessing to the state, and furnished to it the most peaceful and useful citizens. The cause of truth and justice never found a more eloquent and fearless defender in the very face of despotic power, and the blazing fires of persecution, than the author of this book. It breathes from first to last the assurance of victory in apparent defeat. "We conquer," are his concluding words to the prefects and judges of the Roman empire, "We conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued .... Many of your writers exhort to the courageous bearing of pain and death, as Cicero in the Tusculans, as Seneca in his Chances, as Diogenes, Pyrrhus, Callinicus. And yet their words do not find so many disciples as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by their deeds. That very obstinacy you rail against is the preceptress. For who that contemplates it is not excited to inquire what is at the bottom of it? Who, after inquiry, does not embrace our doctrines? And, when he has embraced them, desires not to suffer that he may become partaker of the fulness of God’s grace, that he may obtain from God complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood? For that secures the remission of all offences. On this account it is that we return thanks on the very spot for your sentences.

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

  When, after a life of almost uninterrupted health, he felt the approach of death, he was received into the number of catechumens by laying on of hands, and then formally admitted by baptism into the full communion of the church in the year 337, the sixty-fifth year of his age, by the Arian (or properly Semi- Arian) bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, whom he had shortly before recalled from exile together with Arius.52 His dying testimony then was, as to form, in favor of heretical rather than orthodox Christianity, but merely from accident, not from intention. He meant the Christian as against the heathen religion, and whatever of Arianism may have polluted his baptism, was for the Greek church fully wiped out by the orthodox canonization. After the solemn ceremony he promised to live thenceforth worthily of a disciple of Jesus; refused to wear again the imperial mantle of cunningly woven silk richly ornamented with gold; retained the white baptismal robe; and died a few days after, on Pentecost, May 22, 337, trusting in the mercy of God, and leaving a long, a fortunate, and a brilliant reign, such as none but Augustus, of all his predecessors, had enjoyed. "So passed away the first Christian Emperor, the first Defender of the Faith, the first Imperial patron of the Papal see, and of the whole Eastern Church, the first founder of the Holy Places, Pagan and Christian, orthodox and heretical, liberal and fanatical, not to be imitated or admired, but much to be remembered, and deeply to be studied."53 His remains were removed in a golden coffin by a procession of distinguished civilians and the whole army, from Nicomedia to Constantinople, and deposited, with the highest Christian honors, in the church of the Apostles,54 while the Roman senate, after its ancient custom, proudly ignoring the great religious revolution of the age, enrolled him among the gods of the heathen Olympus. Soon after his death, Eusebius set him above the greatest princes of all times; from the fifth century he began to be recognized in the East as a saint; and the Greek and Russian church to this day celebrates his memory under the extravagant title of "Isapostolos," the "Equal of the apostles."55 The Latin church, on the contrary, with truer tact, has never placed him among the saints, but has been content with naming him "the Great," in just and grateful remembrance of his services to the cause of Christianity and civilization. § 3. The Sons of Constantine. A.D. 337–361. For the literature see § 2 and § 4. With the death of Constantine the monarchy also came, for the present, to an end. The empire was divided among his three sons, Constantine II., Constans, and Constantius.

• 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)

  The characteristic traits which Tacitus ascribes to the heathen Germans, contain already the germ of Protestantism. The love of personal freedom was as strong in them as the love of authority was in the Roman race. They considered it unworthy of the gods to confine them within walls, or to represent them by images; they preferred an inward spiritual worship which communes directly with the Deity, to an outward worship which appeals to the senses through forms and ceremonies, and throws visible media between the finite and the infinite mind. They resisted the aggression of heathen Rome, and they refused to submit to Christian Rome when it was forced upon them by Charlemagne. But Christianity as a religion was congenial to their instincts. They were finally Christianized, and even thoroughly Romanized by Boniface and his disciples. Yet they never felt quite at home under the rule of the papacy. The mediaeval conflict of the emperor with the pope kept up a political antagonism against foreign rule; the mysticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nursed the love for a piety of less form and more heart, and undermined the prevailing mechanical legalism; dissatisfaction with the pope increased with his exactions and abuses, until at last, under the lead of a Saxon monk and priest, all the national forces combined against the anti-christian tyranny and shook it of forever. He carried with him the heart of Germany. No less than one hundred grievances against Roman misrule were brought before the Diet of Nürnberg in 1522.107 Erasmus says that when Luther published his Theses all the world applauded him.108 It is not impossible that all Germany would have embraced the Reformation if its force had not been weakened and its progress arrested by excesses and internal dissensions, which gave mighty aid to the Romanist reaction. Next to Germany, little Switzerland, Holland, Scandinavia, England and Scotland, inhabited by kindred races, were most active in completing that great act of emancipation from popery and inaugurating an era of freedom and independence.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  In her large, long, rather low-ceilinged study whose casement windows looked over the river, sat Stephen with her feet stretched out to the fire and her hands thrust into her jacket pockets. Her eyelids drooped, she was all but asleep although it was early afternoon. She had worked through the night, a deplorable habit and one of which Puddle quite rightly disapproved, but when the spirit of work was on her it was useless to argue with Stephen. Puddle looked up from her embroidery frame and pushed her spectacles on to her forehead the better to see the drowsy Stephen, for Puddle’s eyes had grown very long-sighted so that the room looked blurred through her glasses. She thought: ‘Yes, she’s changed a good deal in these two years—’ then she sighed half in sadness and half in contentment, ‘All the same she is making good,’ thought Puddle, remembering with a quick thrill of pride that the long-limbed creature who lounged by the fire had suddenly sprung into something like fame thanks to a fine first novel. Stephen yawned, and readjusting her spectacles Puddle resumed her wool-work. It was true that the two long years of exile had left their traces on Stephen’s face; it had grown much thinner and more determined, some might have said that the face had hardened, for the mouth was less ardent and much less gentle, and the lips now drooped at the corners. The strong rather massive line of the jaw looked aggressive these days by reason of its thinness. Faint furrows had come between the thick brows and faint shadows showed at times under the eyes; the eyes themselves were the eyes of a writer, always a little tired in expression. Her complexion was paler than it had been in the past, it had lost the look of wind and sunshine—the open-air look—and the fingers of the hand that slowly emerged from her jacket pocket were heavily stained with nicotine—she was now a voracious smoker. Her hair was quite short. In a mood of defiance she had suddenly walked off to the barber’s one morning and had made him crop it close like a man’s. And mightily did this fashion become her, for now the fine shape of her head was unmarred by the stiff clumpy plait in the nape of her neck. Released from the torment imposed upon it the thick auburn hair could breathe and wave freely, and Stephen had grown fond and proud of her hair—a hundred strokes must it have with the brush every night until it looked burnished. Sir Philip also had been proud of his hair in the days of his youthful manhood.

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

  The central fact in the work of Christ is the communication of the Gnosis to a small circle of the initiated, prompting and enabling them to strive with clear consciousness after the ideal world and the original unity. According to Valentine, the heavenly Soter brings Achamoth after innumerable sufferings into the Pleroma, and unites himself with her—the most glorious aeon with the Iowest—in an eternal spirit-marriage. With this, all disturbance in the heaven of aeons is allayed, and a blessed harmony and inexpressible delight are restored, in which all spiritual (pneumatic) men, or genuine Gnostics, share. Matter is at last entirely consumed by a fire breaking out from its dark bosom. 4. The Anthropology of the Gnostics corresponds with their theology. Man is a microcosm consisting of spirit, body, and soul reflecting the three principles, God, Matter, and Demiurge, though in very different degrees. There are three classes of men: the spiritual,817 in whom the divine element, a spark of light from the ideal world, predominates; the material,818 bodily, carnal, physical, in whom matter, the gross sensuous principle, rules; and the psychical,819 in whom the demiurgic, quasi-divine rules; principle, the mean between the two preceding, prevails. These three classes are frequently identified with the adherents of the three religions respectively; the spiritual with the Christians, the carnal with the heathens, the psychical with the Jews. But they also made the same distinction among the professors of any one religion, particularly among the Christians; and they regarded themselves as the genuine spiritual men in the full sense of the word; while they looked upon the great mass of Christians820 as only psychical, not able to rise from blind faith to true knowledge, too weak for the good, and too tender for the evil, longing for the divine, yet unable to attain it, and thus hovering between the Pleroma of the ideal world and the Kenoma of the sensual. Ingenious as this thought is, it is just the basis of that unchristian distinction of esoteric and exoteric religion, and that pride of knowledge, in which Gnosticism runs directly counter to the Christian virtues of humility and love. § 118. Ethics of Gnosticism. All the Gnostic heretics agree in disparaging the divinely created body, and over-rating the intellect. Beyond this, we perceive among them two opposite tendencies: a gloomy asceticism, and a frivolous antinomianism; both grounded in the dualistic principle, which falsely ascribes evil to matter, and traces nature to the devil. The two extremes frequently met, and the Nicolaitan maxim in regard to the abuse of the flesh821 was made to serve asceticism first, and then libertinism. The ascetic Gnostics, like Marcion, Saturninus, Tatian, and the Manichaeans were pessimists.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now it happened that a frivolous and scatterbrained young woman, whose name was Monna Lisetta da Ca’ Quirino, the wife of a great merchant who had sailed away to Flanders aboard one of his galleys, came to be confessed by this holy friar of ours accompanied by a number of other ladies. Being a Venetian, and therefore capable of talking the hind leg off a donkey, she had only got through a fraction of her business, kneeling all the time at his feet, when Friar Alberto demanded to know whether she had a lover. ‘What, Master Friar?’ she exclaimed, giving him a withering look. ‘Have you no eyes in your head? Does it seem to you that my charms are to be compared to those of these other women? I could have lovers to spare if I wanted them, but my charms are not at the service of every Tom, Dick or Harry who happens to fall in love with them. How often do you come across anyone as beautiful as I? Why, even if I were in Heaven itself, my charms would be thought exceptional.’ But this was only the beginning, and she droned on interminably, going into such raptures about this beauty of hers that it was painful to listen to her. Friar Alberto had sensed immediately that she was something of a half-wit, and realizing that she was ripe for the picking, he fell passionately in love with her there and then. This was hardly the moment, however, for whispering sweet nothings in her ear, and in order to show her how godly he was, he got up on to his high horse, reproached her for being vainglorious and made her listen to a great deal more of his balderdash. The lady retorted by calling him an ignoramus, and asserting that he was incapable of distinguishing one woman’s beauty from another’s. And since he did not want to irritate her unduly, Friar Alberto, having heard the rest of her confession, allowed her to proceed on her way with the others. After biding his time for a few days, he went with a trusted companion to call upon Monna Lisetta at her own house, and, having got her to take him into a room where nobody could see what he was doing, he threw himself on his knees before her, saying: ‘Madam, in God’s name I beseech you to forgive me for talking to you as I did on Sunday last, when you were telling me about your beauty. That same night, I was punished so severely for my insolence that I have been laid up in bed ever since, and was only able to rise again today for the first time.’ ‘Who was it who punished you, then?’ asked Lady Numskull.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  In the next sequence of events, the true test is made. Empowered and triumphant, he heads back down toward the village. His awareness has expanded. For the first time, he sees and describes the road and the dogs. Previously, these images were not available to him; they were constricted in a form of amnesia. He notices that he’s orienting his movements away from the attacking dogs and towards the electric pole. After experiencing the strength in his legs, Marius is no longer a prisoner of the immobility response. He now has a choice. The ecstatic trembling energy from the kill is transformed into the ability to run. This is just the beginning; he can run but cannot yet escape! I ask him to turn and face his attackers so he doesn’t fall back into immobility. This time he counter-attacks, at first with rage and then with the same triumph that he experienced in the previous sequence of killing and eviscerating the bear. The plan has succeeded. Marius is now victorious and no longer a victim of defeat. However, the renegotiation is still incomplete. In the next sequence, Marius orients himself toward the telephone pole and prepares to run. He had initiated this action years ago, but until this moment, he has not been able to execute it. With his new resources, he completes the escape by running away. This may not make sense in terms of linear time, because he has already killed his attackers. However, the sequence is completely logical to his instincts. He has now completed the immobility response that has been frozen in time since he was eight years old. A year later, I returned to Denmark and learned that Marius no longer suffered from the type of anxiety we had worked on. His renegotiation had resulted in lasting changes. Somatic Experiencing ® — Gradated Renegotiation There are a number of elements in this step-wise and “mythical” renegotiation of Marius’ childhood trauma. More than a thousand sessions have taught me that Marius’ experience was mythically rich not because he is aboriginal, but because it is universally true that the renegotiation of trauma is an inherently mythic-poetic-heroic journey. It is a journey that belongs to all of us because we are human animal s— even those of us who have never set foot outside of a city. The process of resolving trauma can move us beyond our social and cultural confinements toward a greater sense of universality. In contrast to Nancy’s sudden escape from the imaginary tiger, Marius’ renegotiation happened more gradually. Somatic Experiencing is a gentle step-by-step approach to the renegotiation of trauma. The felt sense is the vehicle used to contact and gradually mobilize the powerful forces bound in traumatic symptoms. It is akin to slowly peeling the layers of skin off an onion, carefully revealing the traumatized inner core. A technical understanding of the development of these principles is beyond the scope of this book.

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

  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. 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.

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

  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. He was devoted to the Holy Virgin and even believed, with the Augustinians and Franciscans, in her immaculate conception, or freedom from hereditary sin—a doctrine denied by the Dominicans and not made an article of faith till the year 1854. He regularly confessed his sins to the priest at least once a week. At the same time a complete copy of the Latin Bible was put into his hands for study, as was enjoined by the new code of statutes drawn up by Staupitz. At the end of the year of probation Luther solemnly promised to live until death in poverty and chastity according to the rules of the holy father Augustin, to render obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin Mary, and to the prior of the monastery. He was sprinkled with holy water, as he lay prostrate on the ground in the form of a cross. He was greeted as an innocent child fresh from baptism, and assigned to a separate cell with table, bedstead, and chair.125 The two years which followed, he divided between pious exercises and theological studies. He read diligently the Scriptures, and the later schoolmen,—especially Gabriel Biel, whom he knew by heart, and William Occam, whom he esteemed on account of his subtle acuteness even above St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, without being affected by his sceptical tendency. He acknowledged the authority of Aristotle, whom he afterward denounced and disowned as "a damned heathen."126 He excited the admiration of his brethren by his ability in disputation on scholastic questions. His heart was not satisfied with brain work. His chief concern was to become a saint and to earn a place in heaven. "If ever," he said afterward, "a monk got to heaven by monkery, I would have gotten there." He observed the minutest details of discipline. No one surpassed him in prayer, fasting, night watches, self-mortification. He was already held up as a model of sanctity.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The Prologue, with its fictive explanation of the origins and the objectives of the Decameron , is marked by a tone of extreme self-assurance and, from a technical viewpoint, by a virtuoso display of several of the most admired procedures of medieval rhetoric, the so-called ars dictandi . The opening words conform to the widely accepted practice of beginning with a proverb, in this case that it is human to take pity on people in distress ( umana cosa è aver compassione degli afflitti ). A similar opening statement is found in the Fiammetta , 10 but in the earlier work it was much more elaborate and carried far less impact. Here it is pithy and direct, and rounded off by a rhetorical feature that occurs again and again in the Prologue, and partly accounts for its distinctive tone of high seriousness: the metrical sequence known as the cursus planus , consisting of a dactyl followed by a spondee (e.g. dégli afflítti ). Another rhetorical feature woven into the opening, and reminiscent of the initial sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere , is the nostalgic evocation of an all-consuming love. But whereas in Petrarch, and for that matter in the stilnovisti , where this poetic motif is most extensively explored and elaborated upon, the love is platonic or unrequited or both, in Boccaccio there is a strong suggestion of reciprocity. The reason it caused him so much suffering, he is careful to stress, was not the cruelty of his lady-love, but the immoderate passion engendered within his mind by a craving that was ill-restrained. 11 However, it is in the second ad lectorem passage, the Introduction to the Fourth Day, that the polemical intention of these authorial interventions (i.e. to establish the credentials of the genre in which Boccaccio was writing) can best be observed. It begins with a paragraph on Envy, which is likened to a fiery and impetuous wind whose effects, as the author disingenuously explains in an image borrowed from Dante, are normally felt in the highest of high places. Why then should the stories he has so far written, and which are already in circulation, have attracted so much hostile comment? After all, they are no more than novellette (‘little tales’) which bear no title and are written, not only in the Florentine vernacular and in prose, but in the most homely, unassuming style that anyone could imagine. Whatever the meaning of the phrase senza titolo (and it possibly connotes no more than ‘unpretentious’, though Boccaccio used the same phrase elsewhere to describe Ovid’s Amores , in order to indicate the discontinuity of its material), it is obvious that he is here adopting an extreme defensive posture and that heavy irony is his chosen weapon. For the tales of the first three days, already circulating, are written in a style that is elegant to a fault, and more than worthy of stylistic comparison to any vernacular prose works (including those of Dante) which had preceded them.

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

  Zizka, their first leader, held the sword in the spirit of one of the Judges. After his death, the stricter wing of the Taborites received the name of the Orphans. The moderate party was called now Pragers, from the chief seat of their influence, now Calixtines,—from the word calix or cup,—or Utraquists from the expression sub utraque specie, "under both forms," from their insisting upon the administration of the cup to the laity. The University of Prag took sides with the Calixtines and, in 1420, the four so-called Prag articles were adopted. This compact demanded the free preaching of the Gospel, the distribution of the cup to the laity, the execution of punishment for mortal sins by the civil court, and the return of the clergy to the practice of Apostolic poverty. The Calixtines confined the use of Czech at the church service to the Scripture readings.708 After the disastrous rout of the Catholic army, led by Cardinal Cesarini at Tauss, Aug. 14, 1431, the history of the Bohemian movement passed into a third stage, marked by the negotiations begun by the Council of Basel and the almost complete annihilation of the Taborite party. It was a new spectacle for an oecumenical council to treat with heretics as with a party having rights. Unqualified submission was the demand which the Church had heretofore made. On Oct. 15, 1431, the council invited the Bohemians to a conference and promised delegates safe-conduct. This promise assured them that neither guile nor deceit would be resorted to on any ground whatsoever, whether it be of authority or the privileges of canon law or of the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Siena or any other council.709 Three hundred delegates appointed by the Bohemian diet appeared in Basel. On the way, at Eger, and in the presence of the landgrave of Brandenburg and John, duke of Bavaria, they laid down their own terms, which were sent ahead and accepted by the council.710 These terms, embodied in thirteen articles, dealt with the method of carrying on the negotiations, the cessation of the interdict during the sojourn of the delegates in the Swiss city and the privilege of practising their own religious rites. The leaders of the Bohemian delegation were John Rokyzana of the Utraquist party and the Taborite, Procopius. Rokyzana was the pastor of the Teyn Church in Prag. The council recognized the austere principles of the Hussites by calling upon the Basel authorities to prohibit all dancing and gambling and the appearance of loose women on the streets. On their arrival, Jan. 4, 1433, the Bohemians were assigned to four public taverns, and a large supply of wine and provisions placed at their disposal. Delegations from the council and from the city bade them formal welcome. They followed their own rituals, the Taborites arousing most curiosity by the omission of all Latin from the services and discarding altar and priestly vestments.

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

  § 51. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1099–1187. Literature.—G. T. De Thaumassière: Assises et bons usages du royaume de Jérusalem, etc., Paris, 1690, 1712; Assises de Jérusalem, in Recueil des Historiens des croisades, 2 vols., Paris, 1841–1843.—Hody: Godefroy de Bouillon et les rois Latins de Jérus., 2d ed., Paris, 1859.—Röhricht: Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani, Innsbruck, 1893; Gesch. des Königreichs Jerus. 1100–1291, Innsbruck, 1898.—Lane-Poole: Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerus., N. Y., 1898. The first biography of Saladin in English, written largely from the standpoint of the Arab historians.—C. R. Conder: The Latin Kingd. of Jerus., London, 1899.—F. Kühn: Gesch. der ersten Patriarchen von Jerus., Leipzig, 1886.—Funk: art. Jerusalem, Christl. Königreich, in "Wetzer- Welte," VI. p. 1335 sqq. Eight days after the capture of the Holy City a permanent government was established, known as the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Godfrey was elected king, but declined the title of royalty, unwilling to wear a crown of gold where the Saviour had worn a crown of thorns.386 He adopted the title Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. The kingdom from its birth was in need of help, and less than a year after the capture of the city the patriarch Dagobert made an appeal to the "rich" German nation for reënforcements.387 It had a perturbed existence of less than a century, and in that time witnessed a succession of nine sovereigns. Godfrey extended his realm, but survived the capture of Jerusalem only a year, dying July 18, 1100. He was honored and lamented as the most disinterested and devout among the chieftains of the First Crusade. His body was laid away in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where his reputed sword and spurs are still shown. On his tomb was the inscription:, Here lies Godfrey of Bouillon, who conquered all this territory for the Christian religion. May his soul be at rest with Christ."388 With the Latin kingdom was established the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem. The election of Arnulf, chaplain to Robert of Normandy, was declared irregular, and Dagobert, or Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, was elected in his place Christmas Day, 1099.389 Latin sees were erected throughout the land and also a Latin patriarchate of Antioch. Dagobert secured large concessions from Godfrey, including the acknowledgment of his kingdom as a fief of the patriarch. After the fall of Jerusalem, in 1187, the patriarchs lived in Acre.390 The constitution and judicial procedure of the new realm were fixed by the Assizes of Jerusalem. These were deposited under seal in the church of the Holy Sepulchre and are also called the Letters of the Holy Sepulchre.391 They were afterwards lost, and our knowledge of their contents is derived from the codes of Cyprus and the Latin kingdom of Constantinople, which were founded upon the Jerusalem code. These statutes reproduced the feudal system of Europe. The conquered territory was distributed among the barons, who held their possessions under the king of Jerusalem as overlord.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Young ladies, Panfilo’s mention of the Baronci, with whom, possibly, you are less well acquainted than he is, has reminded me of a story demonstrating their great nobility, and since it falls within the scope of our agreed topic, I should like to relate it to you. In our city, not so very long ago, there was a young man called Michele Scalza, who was the most entertaining and agreeable fellow you could ever wish to meet, and he was always coming out with some new-fangled notion or other, so that the young men of Florence loved to have him with them when they were out on the spree together. Now, one day, he was with some friends of his at Montughi,1 and they happened to start an argument over which was the most ancient and noble family in Florence. Some maintained it was the Uberti, some the Lamberti,2 and various other names were tossed into the discussion, more or less at random. Scalza listened to them for a while, then he started grinning, and said: ‘Get along with you, you ignorant fools, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The most ancient and noble family, not only in Florence but in the whole wide world, is the Baronci.3 All the philosophers are agreed on this point, and anyone who knows the Baronci as well as I do will say the same thing. But in case you think I’m talking about some other family of that name, I mean the Baronci who live in our own parish of Santa Maria Maggiore.’ His companions, who had been expecting him to say something quite different, poured scorn on this idea, and said: ‘You must be joking. We know the Baronci just as well as you do.’ ‘I’m not joking,’ said Scalza. ‘On the contrary I’m telling you the gospel truth. And if there’s anyone present who would care to wager a supper to be given to the winner and six of his chosen companions, I’ll gladly take him up on it. And just to make it easier for you, I’ll abide by the decision of any judge you choose to nominate.’ Whereupon one of the young men, who was called Neri Mannini, said: ‘I am ready to win this supper.’ And having mutually agreed to appoint Piero di Fiorentino, in whose house they were spending the day, as the judge, they went off to find him, being followed by all the others, who were eager to see Scalza lose the wager so that they could pull his leg about it. They told Piero what the argument was all about, and Piero, who was a sensible young man, listened first to what Neri had to say, after which he turned to Scalza, saying: ‘And how do you propose to prove this claim you are making?’