Tenderness

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 119 of 145 · 20 per page

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

  James, who perhaps never went outside of Palestine, far from denying the Christian character of the Gentile converts, would yet keep them at a respectful distance; while Peter, with his impulsive, generous nature, and in keeping with his more general vocation, carried out in practice the conviction he had so boldly professed in Jerusalem, and on a visit to Antioch, shortly after the Jerusalem Council (A.D. 51), openly and habitually communed at table with the Gentile brethren.466

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  This was one of the earliest expressions in Israel of the spirituality of self-surrender, which was at the heart of the Axial ideal. Instead of using religion to shore up their sense of self-worth, the Israelites had to learn to transcend their self-interest and rule with justice and equity. The prophet was a walking example of what the Greeks would call kenosis, “emptying.” Amos felt that his subjectivity had been taken over by God. 12 He was not speaking his own words, but Yahweh’s; the prophet had left himself behind in passionate empathy with his God, who had experienced the injustice committed by Israel as a personal humiliation. 13 This was an important moment. Axial Age religion would be conditioned by a sympathy that enabled people to feel with others. Amos did not experience anger on his own part; he felt the anger of Yahweh himself. Hosea, who was active in the northern kingdom at about the same time as Amos, learned sympathy with Yahweh through a tragedy in his own life, when his wife, Gomer, became a sacred prostitute in the fertility cult of Baal. 14 This, Hosea realized, was what Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, must feel when his people went whoring after other gods. He saw his longing to win Gomer back as a sign that Yahweh also yearned after unfaithful Israel, and was prepared to give her another chance. 15 Here again, Hosea was assailing a cherished tradition—in this case, Baal worship. He would have to convince the people that Yahweh was not simply a god of war but could also bring them a good harvest. Like Elijah, he was trying to oust Baal and persuade Israelites to worship Yahweh alone. But where Elijah had concentrated on purifying the cult, Hosea’s concern was ethical. Baal worship had led to moral decline—to “perjury and lies, slaughter, theft, adultery and violence, murder after murder.” 16 There was sexual laxity, because everybody was frequenting the sacred prostitutes, and sprawling around drunkenly after sacrificial banquets. Instead of giving spiritual and moral guidance, priests consulted idols that were only blocks of wood. 17 All this was caused by a lack of inwardness in Israelite religion. 18 The people followed other gods only because they did not truly know Yahweh. Their understanding of religion was superficial. Like the ritualists of India, Hosea was demanding greater awareness. Religious practices must no longer be taken for granted and performed by rote; people must become more conscious of what they were doing. Hosea was not talking about purely notional knowledge; the verb yada (“to know”) implied an emotional attachment to Yahweh, and an interior appropriation of the divine.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Jains had to cultivate an attitude of positive benevolence toward all beings. All living creatures should help one another. They must approach every single human being, animal, plant, insect, or pebble with friendship, goodwill, patience, and gentleness. Like the yogins, Jains followed five “prohibitions” (yama) and vowed to forgo violence, lying, sex, stealing, and the ownership of property, but Mahavira’s interpretation of these yama was informed by his vision of the life force in all things. Naturally the early Jains concentrated on the first vow, of ahimsa (“harmlessness”), which they practiced in the smallest details of their lives, but the other vows were also informed by the spirit of nonviolence. Not only must Jains refrain from lying, but their speech must be deliberate and controlled, in order to eliminate any hint of unkindness or impatience. Words could lead to blows, so they should talk as little as possible. It was even better not to speak the truth if it would hurt another creature. The Jain vows were designed to create an attitude of watchfulness and care. It was not enough for Jains to forgo stealing; they could not possess anything at all, because each being had its own sacred jiva, which was sovereign and free. 115 At all times, Jains must make themselves aware of the life force in everything around them. If people did not see this, they could not relate properly to their fellow creatures, but this involved Jains in a truly heroic restraint that seemed to curtail their lives at every turn. They could not light fires, dig, or plow. They could drink only filtered water, must inspect their surroundings every time they took a single step, and avoid any thoughtless movement. If the vows were lived in this way, the Jains would find that they had achieved an extraordinary self-control and a compassion that would bring them to enlightenment. Empathy was crucial. First, Mahavira taught, the Jain must acquire “knowledge of the world,” so that he understood that everything had a sacred life force. Once he had acquired this knowledge of the world, he must then cultivate “compassion for it.” 116 Mahavira had arrived at his own version of the Golden Rule. Jains had to treat all others as they would wish to be treated themselves. The dukkha that pervaded the entire world was caused by the actions of ignorant people, who did not realize what they were doing when they injured others. To deny the jiva of your fellow creatures was tantamount to denying your own inner self. 117 Jains wanted friendship with all things and all people—with no exceptions whatsoever. Once they had achieved this attitude, they would immediately attain enlightenment.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The protection of the weak had long been common policy throughout the ancient Near East. 29 As early as the third millennium, the kings of Mesopotamia had insisted that justice for the poor, the orphan, and the widow was a sacred duty, decreed by the sun god Shamash, who listened to their cries for help. The prologue of the Code of Hammurabi (1728–1686) decreed that the sun would shine over the people only if the king and the mighty did not oppress their vulnerable subjects. The kings of Egypt were also commanded to take care of the destitute, 30 because Re, the sun god, was the “vizier of the poor.” 31 In Ugarit, famine and drought could be held at bay only if justice and equity prevailed in the land; the protection of the weak preserved the divine order, achieved by Baal in his battle with Mot. 32 Throughout the Middle East, justice was an essential pillar of religion. It was also good pragmatic policy. There was no point in conquering foreign and cosmic foes if your iniquitous social policies created enemies at home. Elijah and Elisha were both remembered for their acts of practical kindness as well as for their fiery words. These stories are given just as much prominence as Elijah’s battles with Baal. 33 Like the other gods of the Middle East, Yahweh was moved by the plight of the needy and rewarded practical compassion as much as cultic purity. When a poor woman of Sidon shared her last handful of meal and oil with Elijah during a drought, Yahweh promised to keep her supplied with food for as long as the famine lasted. 34 But these tales do not indicate the beginning of a new Axial Age spirituality; social justice was already deeply rooted in the ancient traditions of the region. To the east of Israel, an entirely different kind of empire was slowly coming into being. In 876, the Assyrian king had subdued the Phoenician towns on the Mediterranean coast, and when Shalmaneser III came to the throne in 859, a powerful confederation of local kings, led by Hadadezer of Damascus, tried to block Assyria’s western advance. Ahab contributed a chariot squadron to the army that marched against Assyria in 853 and was defeated at the battle of Qarqar on the river Orontes. Assyria was not yet strong enough to annex territory in the west, however, and Damascus remained the strongest state in the area. Later that year, Ahab tried to challenge its power but died in a battle against his former ally. That was the end of the house of Omri; in a palace coup, Jehu, a candidate supported by Elisha, seized the throne and made an alliance with Assyria. In 841, Assyria defeated Damascus and became master of the region.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The sage must always try to bring a military expedition to an end. “Bring it to a conclusion, but do not boast; bring it to a conclusion, but do not brag; bring it to a conclusion, but do not be arrogant; bring it to a conclusion, but only where there is no choice; bring it to a conclusion, but do not intimidate.” 48 Wu wei, therefore, did not mean total abstinence from action, but an unaggressive, unassertive attitude that prevented the escalation of hatred. The good leader in war is not warlike The good fighter is not impetuous; The best conqueror of the enemy is he who never takes the offensive. The man who gets the most out of men is the one who treats them with humility. 49 This, Laozi concluded, “is what I call the virtue [de] of non-violence,” and by acting in this way, Laozi concluded, the sage warrior “matched the sublimity of Heaven.” 50 It was our attitude, not our action, that determined the outcome of what we did. People were always able to sense the feeling and motivation that lay behind our words and deeds. The sage must learn to absorb hostility; if he retaliated to an atrocity there would certainly be a fresh attack. Challenges must be ignored. “To yield is to be preserved whole. . . . Because [the sage] does not contend, no one in the world is in a position to contend with him.” 51 Tyrants were digging their own grave, because when a prince tried to act upon other human beings, they automatically resisted him, and the result was usually the opposite of what was intended. Wu wei must be combined with humility. The sage did not trumpet his principles from the rooftops; indeed, he had no fixed opinions. The sage did not try to make the people become what he wanted them to be, but “takes as his own the mind of the people.” 52 Laozi was convinced that human nature was originally kind and good. It had become violent only when people had felt coerced by elaborate laws and moral codes. 53 Whenever he encountered the aggression of a bigger state, the sage ruler must ask whether hatred was breeding more hatred, or whether it was weakening in response to compassion, a virtue that Laozi rarely mentioned explicitly but that was implicit in his striving to put himself in the place of the other: The reason there is great affliction is that I have a self. If I had no self, what affliction would I have? Therefore to one who honours the world as his self The world may be entrusted, And to one who loves the world as one’s self The world may be consigned. 54 Laozi was the last great Chinese sage of the Axial Age.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In an act of compassion for the father of the man who had killed his beloved friend, Achilles recovered his humanity and his philotes. He handed back Hector’s corpse with great tact and tenderness, concerned that the heavy body would be too much for the old man. Then, while they shared a meal, the erstwhile enemies contemplated each other in silent awe. Priam, son of Dardanos, gazed upon Achilles, wondering At his size and beauty, for he seemed like an outright vision Of gods. Achilles in turn gazed on Dardanian Priam And wondered, as he saw his brave looks, and listened to him talking.83 This experience of self-emptying sympathy enabled each to see the divine and godlike in the other.84 In this scene, if not in the rest of the poem, Homer had perfectly expressed the spirit of the Axial Age. Homer’s gods, however, felt no compassion. Where some of the Hebrew prophets were beginning to explore the pathos of God, Homer depicted the Olympians as entirely indifferent to the suffering of humanity. If Zeus felt a passing pang for Hector, it was only a fleeting sensation and caused no lasting pain. The gods were mere spectators, who observed the antics of men and women like aristocrats watching a race at the games.85 After the death of Patroclus, Achilles’ divine horses wept for the fallen hero, their warm tears streaming to the ground. Zeus felt a momentary pity, breathed new vigor into them, and immediately they shook the dust from their manes and returned to the field, their transient pain in stark contrast to the wrenching, ugly grief of Achilles. As a result, the gods seem less serious than the human characters in the poem. The gods risked nothing essential; they could not die, and nothing mattered to them very much. When Ares was wounded in battle by one of the Greek warriors, his wound quickly healed, and he was able to take his seat beside Zeus, after this momentary humiliation, exultant in “triumphant glory.”86 When Zeus and Hera quarreled, little damage was done. And when fighting broke out between the gods who supported the Greeks and those who supported the Trojans, there were no serious consequences; the battle was almost comical in comparison to the lethal war being fought by human beings below.87 The gods’ easy lives threw the tragic, limited, and death-bound nature of human life into poignant relief.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  While the li required a son to submit to his father, the father was also obliged to behave fairly, kindly, and courteously to his children. We have no idea how thoroughly the Chinese followed these li in practice. The Record of Rites may have been a utopian rather than a historical reality. Nevertheless, by the seventh century the ideal does seem to have transformed Zhou China from a society addicted to rough extravagance into one that prized moderation and self-control. 89 The ideal would set the Chinese Axial Age in motion, and give it unique direction. At this point, even the less traditional states on the periphery of the great plain—Qi, Jin, Chu, and Qin—accepted the ritual imperative. But times were changing. During the second half of the seventh century, the barbarian tribes of the north began to invade the Chinese states more assiduously than ever before. The new southern state of Chu was also becoming a serious problem. Eager to expand, Chu increasingly ignored the rules of courtly warfare and threatened the principalities. The Zhou king was too weak to provide effective leadership against Chu, so in 679 Prince Huan of Qi called himself the “first noble” (pa) of China and founded a league of defense. 90 At this point, Qi was the most powerful Chinese state and Prince Huan was an enlightened ruler, with Zhou connections. He organized conferences to discuss principles of cooperation between the states; the states and principalities that joined his league bound themselves by an oath, and this gave the political arrangement a religious character. An ox was sacrificed, delegates moistened their lips with the victim’s blood, and everybody present repeated the words of the pact, calling upon the local gods, mountains, rivers, and ancestors: We all, who swear this treaty together, we will not gather up the harvests, we will not monopolise profits, we will not protect the guilty or harbour troublemakers; we will help those who are victims of calamity or disaster. We will have compassion on those in misfortune or trouble. We will have the same friends and the same enemies. We will help the royal house. 91 The purpose was to create solidarity. These rites of alliance created family ties between the princes of the different states, who even promised to observe the funeral rites of their new “kin.” Anyone who betrayed the league risked fearful penalties, which were endorsed by the gods and ancestors: “He shall lose his people, his appointment shall fail, his family perish, and his state and clan will be utterly overthrown.”

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  At all times, Jains must make themselves aware of the life force in everything around them. If people did not see this, they could not relate properly to their fellow creatures, but this involved Jains in a truly heroic restraint that seemed to curtail their lives at every turn. They could not light fires, dig, or plow. They could drink only filtered water, must inspect their surroundings every time they took a single step, and avoid any thoughtless movement. If the vows were lived in this way, the Jains would find that they had achieved an extraordinary self-control and a compassion that would bring them to enlightenment. Empathy was crucial. First, Mahavira taught, the Jain must acquire “knowledge of the world,” so that he understood that everything had a sacred life force. Once he had acquired this knowledge of the world, he must then cultivate “compassion for it.”116 Mahavira had arrived at his own version of the Golden Rule. Jains had to treat all others as they would wish to be treated themselves. The dukkha that pervaded the entire world was caused by the actions of ignorant people, who did not realize what they were doing when they injured others. To deny the jiva of your fellow creatures was tantamount to denying your own inner self.117 Jains wanted friendship with all things and all people—with no exceptions whatsoever. Once they had achieved this attitude, they would immediately attain enlightenment. Moksha was not a reward bestowed on the deserving by an overseeing god. Jains were not interested in this kind of theology. But they found that this practice, rigorously followed, brought them transcendent peace. After his enlightenment, Mahavira preached his first sermon at the shrine of a tree spirit on the outskirts of the city of Champa.118 The first detailed account of this event is found in a relatively late text, of the first century, but it became central to the Jain tradition. The king and queen of Champa attended, together with a huge crowd of gods, ascetics, lay folk, and animals, who all listened intently to Mahavira’s gospel of nonviolence. It was a symbolic moment. In Vedic sacrifice, the gods had gathered to watch human beings slaughtering animals, but at Champa, gods, humans, and beasts assembled to listen to the preaching of ahimsa and formed a single, loving community. This vision of unity and universal empathy was supposed to inform every action of life.

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

  All the Synoptists relate on two distinct occasions Christ’s love for little children, but Mark alone tells us that He "took little children into his arms, and laid his hands upon them."980 Many minor details not found in the other Gospels, however insignificant in themselves, are yet most significant as marks of the autopticity of the narrator

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Go learn it.” 35 The Pharisees wanted no part in the violence that was erupting destructively around them. At the time of the rebellion against Rome, their leader was Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, Hillel’s greatest student. He realized that the Jews could not possibly defeat the Roman empire, and argued against the war, because the preservation of religion was more important than national independence. When his advice was rejected, he had himself smuggled out of Jerusalem hidden in a coffin in order to get past the Jewish Zealots who were guarding the city gates. He then made his way to the Roman camp and asked Vespasian for permission to live with his scholars in Javne, on the coast of southern Palestine. After the destruction of the temple, Javne became the new capital of Jewish religion. In Rabbinic Judaism, the Jewish Axial Age came of age. The Golden Rule, compassion, and loving-kindness were central to this new Judaism; by the time the temple had been destroyed, some of the Pharisees already understood that they did not need a temple to worship God, as this Talmudic story makes clear: It happened that R. Johanan ben Zakkai went out from Jerusalem, and R. Joshua followed him and saw the burnt ruins of the Temple and he said: “Woe is it that the place, where the sins of Israel find atonement, is laid waste.” Then said R. Johanan, “Grieve not, we have an atonement equal to the Temple, the doing of loving deeds, as it is said, ‘I desire love and not sacrifice.’ ” 36 Kindness was the key to the future; Jews must turn away from the violence and divisiveness of the war years and create a united community with “one body and one soul.” 37 When the community was integrated in love and mutual respect, God was with them, but when they quarreled with one another, he returned to heaven, where the angels chanted with “one voice and one melody.” 38 When two or three Jews sat and studied harmoniously together, the divine presence sat in their midst. 39 Rabbi Akiba, who was killed by the Romans in 132 CE, taught that the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” was “the great principle of the Torah.” 40 To show disrespect to any human being who had been created in God’s image was seen by the rabbis as a denial of God himself and tantamount to atheism. Murder was a sacrilege: “Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human blood is regarded as if he had diminished the divine image.” 41 God had created only one man at the beginning of time to teach us that destroying only one human life was equivalent to annihilating the entire world, while to save a life redeemed the whole of humanity. 42 To humiliate anybody—even a slave or a non-Jew—was equivalent to murder, a sacrilegious defacing of God’s image.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  80 Some renouncers broke even more completely with the Vedic system and were denounced as heretics by the Brahmins. Two in particular made a lasting impact, and significantly, both came from the gana- sanghas. Destined for a military career, Vardhamana Jnatraputra (c. 599–527) was the son of a Kshatriya chieftain of the Jnatra clan of Kundagrama, north of modern Patna. At the age of thirty, however, he changed course and became a renouncer. After a long, difficult apprenticeship, he achieved enlightenment and became a jina (“conqueror”); his followers became known as Jains. Even though he went further than anybody else in his renunciation of violence, it was natural for him, as a former warrior, to express his insights in military imagery. His followers called him Mahavira (“Great Champion”), the title of an intrepid warrior in the Rig Veda. Yet his regime was based wholly on nonviolence, one that vanquished every impulse to harm others. For Mahavira, the only way to achieve liberation ( moksha ) was to cultivate an attitude of friendliness toward everyone and everything. 81 Here, as in the Upanishads, we encounter the requirement found in many great world traditions that it is not enough to confine our benevolence to our own people or to those we find congenial; this partiality must be replaced by a practically expressed empathy for everybody, without exception. If this was practiced consistently, violence of any kind—verbal, martial, or systemic—becomes impossible. Mahavira taught his male and female disciples to develop a sympathy that had no bounds, to realize their profound kinship with all beings. Every single creature—even plants, water, fire, air, and rocks—had a jiva, a living “soul,” and must be treated with the respect that we wish to receive ourselves. 82 Most of his followers were Kshatriyas seeking an alternative to the warfare and structural segmentation of society. As warriors, they would have routinely distanced themselves from the enemy, carefully stifling their innate reluctance to kill their own kind. Jains, like the Upanishadic sages, taught their disciples to recognize their community with all others and relinquish the preoccupation with “us” and “them” that made fighting and structural oppression impossible, because a true “conqueror” did not inflict harm of any kind. Later, Jains would develop a complex mythology and cosmology, but in the early period nonviolence was their only precept: “All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure, unchangeable law, which the enlightened ones who know have proclaimed.” 83 Unlike warriors who trained themselves to become impervious to the agony they inflicted, Jains deliberately attuned themselves to the pain of the world.

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

  To these are added petitions to the Virgin, on whom Anselm bestows the most fulsome titles, and to the saints. In this Anselm was fully the child of his age. These devotional exercises, the liturgy of Anselm’s soul, are a storehouse of pious thought to which due appreciation has not been accorded. The mystical element gives him a higher place than his theological treatises, elevated and important as they are.1351 § 99. Peter Abaelard. Literature: Works of Abaelard: ed. first by Duchesne, Paris, 1616. Cousin: Ouvrages inédites d’Abélard, Paris, 1836, containing the Dialectica and Sic et Non; also the Opera omnia, 2 vols. Paris, 1849–1859. Reprod. in Migne, vol. 178.—R. Stölzle: De unitate et trinitate divina, first ed., Freib. im Br., 1891. —Ed. of his Letters by R. Rawlinson, Lond., 1718. Engl. trans. of Letters of Abaelard and Heloise, in Temple Classics. Biographical: Abaelard’s Autobiography: Hist. calamitatum, in Migne, 178. 113–180.—Berengar: Apologeticus contra Bernardum, etc., in Migne, 178. 1856–1870.—Bernard’s letters as quoted below.—Otto of Freising: De Gestis Frid., 47 sqq.—John of Salisbury: Metalog. and Hist. Pontificalis.—Modern Lives by A. F. Gervaise, Paris, 1728; Cousin, in the Ouvrages, 1836; Wilkins, Göttingen, 1855; Ch. de Rémusat, Paris, 1845, 2 vols., new ed., 1855; O. I. de Rochely (Abél. et le rationalisme moderne), Paris 1867; Bonnier (Abél. et S. Bernard), Paris, 1862; Vacandard (P. Abél. et sa lutte avec S. Bernard), Paris, 1881; *S. M. Deutsch (P. Abael, ein kritischer Theologe des 12ten Jahrh., the best exposition of Abaelard’s system, Leip., 1883; A. Hausrath, Leip., 1893; Joseph McCabe, London, 1901.—E. Kaiser: P. Abél. Critique, Freib., 1901.—The story of Abaelard and Heloise has been specially told by Mad. Guizot, 2 vols., Paris 1839; Jacobi, Berl., 1850; Wright, New York, 1853; Kahnis, Leip., 1865, etc.—Compayré, Abél. and the Orig. and Early His. of Universities.—R. L. Poole: P. Abailard in Illustrations of Med. Thought, Lond., 1884, pp. 136–167.—Stöckl: Phil. des Mittelalters, I. 218–272.—Denifle: D. Sentenzen d. Abael. und die Bearbeitungen seiner Theologie vor Mitte des 12ten Jahrh. in Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengesch., etc., 1885, pp. 402–470, 584–624; Hefele, Councils, V. 451–488.—The Histories of Philos. of Ueberweg-Heinze and Ritter — The Lives of St. Bernard by Neander, I. 207–297; II. 1–44; Morison, 254–322; Vacandard, II. 120–181.—The Histories of Doctrine of Schwane, Harnack, Loofs, Fisher, Seeberg, Sheldon. During the first half of the twelfth century, Peter Abaelard, 1079–1142, was one of the most conspicuous characters of Europe. His fame was derived from the brilliance of his intellect. He differed widely from Anselm. The latter was a constructive theologian; Abaelard, a critic. Anselm was deliberate, Abaelard, impulsive and rash. Anselm preferred seclusion; Abaelard sought publicity. Among teachers exercising the spell of magnetism over their hearers, Abaelard stands in the front rank and probably has not been excelled in France. In some of his theological speculations he was in advance of his age. His personal misfortunes give to his biography a flavor of romance which belongs to no other Schoolman.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  19 But not far away, in Montastruc, a small sculpture has been found, carved from a mammoth tusk in about 11,000 BCE, at about the same time as the later Lascaux paintings. Now lodged in the British Museum, it depicts two swimming reindeer. 20 The artist must have watched his prey intently as they swam across lakes and rivers in search of new pastures, making themselves particularly vulnerable to the hunters. He also felt a tenderness toward his victims, conveying the unmistakable poignancy of their facial expressions without a hint of sentimentality. As Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, has noted, the anatomical accuracy of this sculpture shows that it “was clearly made not just with the knowledge of a hunter but also with the insight of a butcher, someone who had not only looked at his animals but had cut them up.” Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, has also reflected insightfully on the “huge and imaginative generosity” of these Paleolithic artists: “In the art of this period, you see human beings trying to enter fully into the flow of life, so that they become part of the whole process of animal life that’s going on all around them … and this is actually a very religious impulse.” 21 From the first, then, one of the major preoccupations of both religion and art (the two being inseparable) was to cultivate a sense of community—with nature, the animal world, and our fellow humans. We would never wholly forget our hunter-gatherer past, which was the longest period in human history. Everything that we think of as most human—our brains, bodies, faces, speech, emotions, and thoughts—bears the stamp of this heritage. 22 Some of the rituals and myths devised by our prehistoric ancestors appear to have survived in the practices of later, literate cultures. In this way, animal sacrifice, the central rite of nearly every ancient society, preserved prehistoric hunting ceremonies and the honor accorded the beast that gave its life for the community. 23 Much of what we now call “religion” was originally rooted in an acknowledgment of the tragic fact that life depended on the destruction of other creatures; rituals were addressed to helping human beings face up to this insoluble dilemma. Despite their real respect, reverence, and even affection for their prey, however, ancient huntsmen remained dedicated killers. Millennia of fighting large aggressive animals meant that these hunting parties became tightly bonded teams that were the seeds of our modern armies, ready to risk everything for the common good and to protect their fellows in moments of danger. 24 And there was one more conflicting emotion to be reconciled: they probably loved the excitement and intensity of the hunt. Here again the limbic system comes into play.

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

  His writings upon practical religious topics have great interest and value. Besides sermons upon Psalm xlviii.,970 on an auspicious year,971 four during Lent,972 in which he specially inveighs against the lax marital customs, and five on different martyrs,973 he wrote an enthusiastic treatise in praise of monasticism974 if properly used, while at the same time he faithfully rebuked the common faults of the monks, their sloth, their hypocrisy and their ignorance, which had made the very name of monk a reproach. To the Stylites,975 he was particularly plain in setting forth their duty. By reason of their supposed sanctity they were sought by all classes as oracles. He seeks therefore to impress them with their responsibility, and tells them always to speak fearlessly, irrespective of person; not flattering the strong nor domineering the weak. He addressed also the laity, not only in the sermons already mentioned, but in separate treatises,976 and with great earnestness and tenderness exhorted them to obedience to their lawful rulers, and rebuked them for their hypocrisy, which was the crying sin of the day, and for their vindictiveness. He laid down the true gospel principle: love is the central point of the Christian life. His letters977 of which 75 have been published, give us a vivid picture of the time, and bear unconscious testimony to his virtue. To his Interpretation of the Pentecostal hymn of John of Damascus Cardinal Mai accords the highest praise.978 § 152. Nicetas Acominatos. I. Nicetas Choniates: Opera, in Migne, Tom. CXXXIX., col. 287—CXL., col. 292. His History was edited by Immanuel Bekker in Scriptores Byzantinae. Bonn, 1835. II. See Allatius in Migne, CXXXIX., col. 287–302. Ceillier, XIV. 1176, 1177. Karl Ullmann: Die Dogmatik der griechischen Kirche im 12. Jahrhundert, reprinted from the "Studien und Kritiken," 1833. Nicetas Acominatos, also called Choniates, to denote his birth at Chonae the old Colossae in Phrygia, was one of the great scholars and authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He was educated at Constantinople, studied law and early rose to prominence at the imperial court. He married a descendant of Belisarius; and at the time when Constantinople was taken by the crusaders (1204) he was governor of Philippopolis. He fled to Nicaea, and there died about 1216. It was during this last period of his life that he composed his Treasury of Orthodoxy,979 for the consolation and instruction of his suffering fellow-religionists. This work was in twenty-seven books, but only five have been published complete, and that only in the Latin translation of Peter Morel, made from the original MS. brought to Paris from Mt. Athos.980 Cardinal Mai has, however, given fragments of Books vi. viii. ix. x. xii. xv. xvii. xx. xxiii. xxiv. xxv., and these Migne has reprinted with a Latin translation. The work is, like the Panoply of Euthymius, a learned text-book of theology and a refutation of heresy, but it has more original matter in it, and being written by a layman and a statesman is more popular.

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

  Among those expelled by the edict of Claudius were Aquila and Priscilla, the hospitable friends of Paul, who were probably converted before they met him in Corinth.497 The Jews, however, soon returned, and the Jewish Christians also, but both under a cloud of suspicion. To this fact Tacitus may refer when he says that the Christian superstition which had been suppressed for a time (by the edict of Claudius) broke out again (under Nero, who ascended the throne in 54). Paul’s Epistle. In the early part of Nero’s reign (54–68) the Roman congregation was already well known throughout Christendom, had several meeting places and a considerable number of teachers.498 It was in view of this fact, and in prophetic anticipation of its future importance, that Paul addressed to it from Corinth his most important doctrinal Epistle (A.D. 58), which was to prepare the way for his long desired personal visit. On his journey to Rome three years later he found Christians at Puteoli (the modern Puzzuolo at the bay of Naples), who desired him to tarry with them seven days.499 Some thirty or forty miles from the city, at Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae (The Three Taverns), he was met by Roman brethren anxious to see the writer of that marvellous letter, and derived much comfort from this token of affectionate regard.500 Paul in Rome. His arrival in Rome, early in the year 61, which two years later was probably followed by that of Peter, naturally gave a great impulse to the growth of the congregation. He brought with him, as he had promised, "the fulness of the blessing of Christ." His very bonds were overruled for the progress of the gospel, which he was left free to preach under military guard in his own dwelling.501 He had with him during the whole or a part of the first Roman captivity his faithful pupils and companions: Luke, "the beloved physician" and historian; Timothy, the dearest of his spiritual sons; John Mark, who had deserted him on his first missionary tour, but joined him at Rome and mediated between him and Peter; one Jesus, who is called Justus, a Jewish Christian, who remained faithful to him; Aristarchus, his fellow-prisoner from Thessalonica; Tychicus from Ephesus; Epaphras and Onesimus from Colossae; Epaphroditus from Philippi; Demas, Pudens, Linus, Eubulus, and others who are honorably mentioned in the Epistles of the captivity.502 They formed a noble band of evangelists and aided the aged apostle in his labors at Rome and abroad. On the other hand his enemies of the Judaizing party were stimulated to counter-activity, and preached Christ from envy and jealousy; but in noble self-denial Paul rose above petty sectarianism, and sincerely rejoiced from his lofty standpoint if only Christ was proclaimed and his kingdom promoted. While he fearlessly vindicated Christian freedom against Christian legalism in the Epistle to the Galatians, he preferred even a poor contracted Christianity to the heathenism which abounded in Rome.503

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The Buddha always entered into the position of the people that he was addressing, even if he did not agree with it. As always, compassion was the key. One of his lay followers was King Pasenadi of Kosala, who remarked one day that he and his wife had recently admitted to each other that nothing was dearer to them than their own selves. Obviously this was not a view that the Buddha could share, but he did not scold the king or launch into a discussion of anatta. Instead he asked Pasenadi to consider this: If he found that there was nothing dearer to him than himself, others must feel the same. Therefore, the Buddha concluded, “a person who loves the self should not harm the self of others.”106 This was his version of the Golden Rule. Laypeople could not extinguish their egotism as thoroughly as a monk, who was devoted to the task full-time, but they could use their experience of selfishness to empathize with other people’s vulnerability. This would take them beyond the excesses of ego and introduce them to the essential value of compassion. Toward the end of his life, King Pasenadi’s wife died and he fell into a chronic depression. He took to driving around the countryside aimlessly, and one day discovered a park full of wonderful old trees. Alighting from his carriage, he walked among their enormous roots and noticed the way that they “inspired trust and confidence.” “They were quiet; no discordant voices disturbed their peace; they gave out a sense of being apart from the ordinary world and offered a retreat from the cruelty of life.” Looking at these marvelous trees, the king immediately thought of the Buddha, jumped into his carriage, and drove for miles until he had reached the house where the Buddha—now an old man of eighty—was staying.107 For many of his contemporaries, the Buddha was a haven of peace in a violent, sorrowful world. The search for a place apart, separate from the world, and yet wondrously within it, that is impartial, utterly fair, calm, and that fills us with a confidence that, against all odds, there is value in our lives, was what many people in the Axial Age sought when they looked for God, brahman, or nibbana. The Buddha seemed to encapsulate this in his own person. People were not repelled by his dispassion, not daunted by his lack of preference for one thing or person over another. He does not seem to have become humorless, grim, or inhuman, but inspired extraordinary emotion in all who met him. His constant, relentless gentleness, serenity, and fairness seemed to touch a chord and resonate with some of their deepest longings. Like Socrates and Confucius, he had become what Karl Jaspers called a paradigmatic personality—somebody who exemplified what a human being could or should be.108 These luminaries of the Axial Age had become archetypal models; imitating them would help other people to achieve the enhanced humanity that they embodied.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Although these limbic emotions would never be as strong as the “me first” drives still issuing from our reptilian core, we humans have evolved a substantial hard-wiring for empathy for other creatures, and especially for our fellow humans. Eventually, the Chinese philosopher Mencius (c. 371–288 BCE) would insist that nobody was wholly without such sympathy. If a man sees a child teetering on the brink of a well, about to fall in, he would feel her predicament in his own body and would reflexively, without thought for himself, lunge forward to save her. There would be something radically wrong with anyone who could walk past such a scene without a flicker of disquiet. For most, these sentiments were essential, though, Mencius thought, somewhat subject to individual will. You could stamp on these shoots of benevolence just as you could cripple or deform yourself physically. On the other hand, if you cultivated them, they would acquire a strength and dynamism of their own.16 We cannot entirely understand Mencius’s argument without considering the third part of our brain. About twenty thousand years ago, during the Paleolithic Age, human beings evolved a “new brain,” the neocortex, home of the reasoning powers and self-awareness that enable us to stand back from the instinctive, primitive passions. Humans thus became roughly as they are today, subject to the conflicting impulses of their three distinct brains. Paleolithic men were proficient killers. Before the invention of agriculture, they were dependent on the slaughter of animals and used their big brains to develop a technology that enabled them to kill creatures much larger and more powerful than themselves. But their empathy may have made them uneasy. Or so we might conclude from modern hunting societies. Anthropologists observe that tribesmen feel acute anxiety about having to slay the beasts they consider their friends and patrons and try to assuage this distress by ritual purification. In the Kalahari Desert, where wood is scarce, bushmen are forced to rely on light weapons that can only graze the skin. So they anoint their arrows with a poison that kills the animal—only very slowly. Out of ineffable solidarity, the hunter stays with his dying victim, crying when it cries, and participating symbolically in its death throes. Other tribes don animal costumes or smear the kill’s blood and excrement on cavern walls, ceremonially returning the creature to the underworld from which it came.17

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  They either ignored the bellicose passages of the Hebrew Bible or gave them a radically new interpretation. They called their exegetical method midrash —a word derived from darash: “to investigate; go in search of something.” The meaning of scripture was not, therefore, self-evident; it had to be ferreted out by diligent study, and because it was God’s word, it was infinite and could not be confined to a single interpretation. Indeed, every time a Jew confronted the sacred text, it should mean something different. 106 The rabbis felt free to argue with God, defy him, and even change the words of scripture to introduce a more compassionate reading. 107 Yes, God was often described as a divine warrior in the Bible, but Jews must imitate only his compassionate behavior. 108 The true hero was no longer a warrior but a man of peace. “Who is the hero of heroes?” asked the rabbis. “He who turns an enemy into a friend.” 109 A “mighty” man did not prove his mettle on the battlefield but was one “who subdues his passions.” 110 When the prophet Isaiah had seemed to praise a soldier “who thrusts back his attacker to the gate,” he was really speaking of “those who thrust a parry in the way of Torah.” 111 The rabbis described Joshua and David as pious Torah scholars and even argued that David had had no interest in warfare at all. 112 When the Egyptian army drowned in the Sea of Reeds, some of the angels had wanted to sing Yahweh’s praises, but he had rebuked them: “My children lie drowned in the sea, and you would sing?” 113 The rabbis acknowledged that there were divinely ordained wars in their scriptures. They concluded that the campaigns against the Canaanites had been “obligatory” wars, but the Babylonian rabbis ruled that because these peoples no longer existed, warfare could no longer be compulsory. 114 The Palestinian rabbis, however, whose position in Roman Palestine was more precarious, argued that Jews were still obliged to fight sometimes—but only in self-defense. 115 David’s territorial wars had been “discretionary,” but the rabbis pointed out that even kings had to ask permission of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish governing body, before taking the field. Yet they concluded that because the monarchy and Sanhedrin were no more, discretionary wars were no longer legitimate.

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

  He followed him to the court of Caiaphas. He alone of all the disciples was present at the crucifixion, and was intrusted by the departing Saviour with the care of his mother. This was a scene of unique delicacy and tenderness: the Mater dolorosa and the beloved disciple gazing at the cross, the dying Son and Lord uniting them in maternal and filial love. It furnishes the type of those heaven-born spiritual relationships, which are deeper and stronger than those of blood and interest. As John was the last at the cross, so he was also, next to Mary Magdalene, the first of the disciples who, outrunning even Peter, looked into the open tomb on the resurrection morning; and he first recognized the risen Lord when he appeared to the disciples on the shore of the lake of Galilee.568 He seems to have been the youngest of the apostles, as he long outlived them all; he certainly was the most gifted and the most favored. He had a religious genius of the highest order—not indeed for planting, but for watering; not for outward action and aggressive work, but for inward contemplation and insight into the mystery of Christ’s person and of eternal life in him. Purity and simplicity of character, depth and ardor of affection, and a rare faculty of spiritual perception and intuition, were his leading traits, which became ennobled and consecrated by divine grace. There are no violent changes reported in John’s history; he grew silently and imperceptibly into the communion of his Lord and conformity to his example; he was in this respect the antipode of Paul. He heard more and saw more, but spoke less, than the other disciples. He absorbed his deepest sayings, which escaped the attention of others; and although he himself did not understand them at first, he pondered them in his heart till the Holy Spirit illuminated them. His intimacy with Mary must also have aided him in gaining an interior view of the mind and heart of his Lord. He appears throughout as the beloved disciple, in closest intimacy and in fullest sympathy with the Lord.569 The Son of Thunder and the Beloved Disciple. There is an apparent contradiction between the Synoptic and the Johannean picture of John, as there is between the Apocalypse and the fourth Gospel; but on closer inspection it is only the twofold aspect of one and the same character. We have a parallel in the Peter of the Gospels and the Peter of his Epistles: the first youthful, impulsive, hasty, changeable, the other matured, subdued, mellowed, refined by divine grace. In the Gospel of Mark, John appears as a Son of Thunder (Boanerges).570 This surname, given to him and to his elder brother by our Saviour, was undoubtedly an epithet of honor and foreshadowed his future mission, like the name Peter given to Simon.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The son revered his father as a future ancestor. His meticulous performance of the rites of filial piety created within his parent the holiness that would make him a heavenly being after death. The rites nourished the shen, the divine, numinous quality that made each human being unique. If the shen was strong, this sacred individuality would survive the death of the body. By treating his father with absolute reverence, therefore, the eldest son empowered him to fulfill his humanity. Each morning, he rose at dawn, dressed carefully in full ceremonial costume, and waited upon his parents, together with his wife. He could not belch, sneeze, cough, or yawn in his father’s presence. He never trod the same staircase as his father, never used his father’s bowl, staff, or cup. He mended and washed his parents’ clothes, prepared the eight ritually prescribed dishes, and waited on his parents while they ate, respectfully urging them to make a hearty meal. A son always addressed his father in a low, humble voice. If he believed that he was losing the Way, he should reprove him, but must express his views gently and pleasantly, with a modest expression. If his father persisted in wrongdoing, the son’s behavior must be even more courteous, and he must never express anger or resentment. At seventy years old, the father retired from public life. In this last phase, the son’s duty was to empathize with his every mood; he must be happy when his father was well, sad when he was ill, eat when his father had a good appetite, and fast when the old man was ailing.87 He thus learned the empathic virtue of shu (“likening to oneself”), which would become central to the Chinese Axial Age.