Trust

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 The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  The Bavli has been described as the first interactive text. 60 Its method replicated the process of study used by the rabbis themselves and thus compelled the students to engage in the same discussion and make their own contribution. The layout of each page was crucial: the portion of the Mishnah under discussion was placed in the centre, and surrounded by the gemara of sages from the distant and more recent past. The prophets and patriarchs of the Bible were not regarded as superior to the rabbis because they had participated in the original revelation. As R. Ishmael had already explained: ‘There is no anteriority or posteriority in scripture.’ 61 On each page there was also space for the student to add his own commentary. When studying the Bible through the Bavli, the student learned that nobody had the last word, that truth was constantly changing, and that while tradition was numinous and valuable, it must not constrict his own powers of judgement. The student must add his own gemara to the sacred page, because without it the line of tradition would come to an end. ‘What is Torah?’ asked the Bavli, ‘It is: the interpretation of Torah.’ 62 Torah study was not a solitary pursuit. R. Berachiah, a seventh-century Palestinian sage, compared rabbinic discussion to a shuttlecock: ‘words fly back and forth when the wise come into a house of study and discuss Torah, one stating his view, still another stating another view, and another stating a different view’. Yet there was a fundamental unity, because the sages were not merely voicing their own opinions: ‘The words of these and of the other sages all of them were given by Moses the Shepherd from what he received from the Unique One of the Universe.’ 63 Even while he was embroiled in a heated debate, the truly engaged student was aware that both he and his opponent were in some way participating in a conversation that stretched back to Moses and would continue into the future and that what they both said had already been foreseen and blessed by God. Even though they were now regarded as the enemies of Judaism, Christians were developing a similar spirituality. CHAPTER 3 Gospel We have no idea what Christianity would have been like if the Romans had not destroyed the temple. Its loss reverberates throughout the scriptures that comprise the New Testament, many of which were written in response to this tragedy. 1 During the Late Second Temple period, the Jesus movement had been just one of a multitude of fiercely competing sects. It had some unusual features, but, like several of the other groups, the first Christians regarded themselves as the true Israel, and had no intention of breaking away from Judaism. Even though we have little first-hand knowledge, we can make an educated guess about the history of the group during the forty years that had elapsed since Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  The Bavli has been described as the first interactive text. 60 Its method replicated the process of study used by the rabbis themselves and thus compelled the students to engage in the same discussion and make their own contribution. The layout of each page was crucial: the portion of the Mishnah under discussion was placed in the centre, and surrounded by the gemara of sages from the distant and more recent past. The prophets and patriarchs of the Bible were not regarded as superior to the rabbis because they had participated in the original revelation. As R. Ishmael had already explained: ‘There is no anteriority or posteriority in scripture.’ 61 On each page there was also space for the student to add his own commentary. When studying the Bible through the Bavli, the student learned that nobody had the last word, that truth was constantly changing, and that while tradition was numinous and valuable, it must not constrict his own powers of judgement. The student must add his own gemara to the sacred page, because without it the line of tradition would come to an end. ‘What is Torah?’ asked the Bavli, ‘It is: the interpretation of Torah.’ 62 Torah study was not a solitary pursuit. R. Berachiah, a seventh-century Palestinian sage, compared rabbinic discussion to a shuttlecock: ‘words fly back and forth when the wise come into a house of study and discuss Torah, one stating his view, still another stating another view, and another stating a different view’. Yet there was a fundamental unity, because the sages were not merely voicing their own opinions: ‘The words of these and of the other sages all of them were given by Moses the Shepherd from what he received from the Unique One of the Universe.’ 63 Even while he was embroiled in a heated debate, the truly engaged student was aware that both he and his opponent were in some way participating in a conversation that stretched back to Moses and would continue into the future and that what they both said had already been foreseen and blessed by God. Even though they were now regarded as the enemies of Judaism, Christians were developing a similar spirituality. CHAPTER 5 Charity Before the conversion of Constantine in 312, it seemed unlikely that Christianity would survive, as Christians were subjected to sporadic but intense persecution by the Roman authorities. Once they had made it clear that they were no longer members of the synagogue, the Romans regarded the church as a superstitio of fanatics, who had committed the cardinal sin of impiety by breaking with the parent faith. Romans were highly suspicious of mass movements that threw off the restraints of tradition. Christians were also accused of atheism because they refused to honour the patronal gods of Rome and thus endangered the empire. The persecutions were designed to stamp out the faith and could easily have done so.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  He has died for me. He has made his righteousness my righteousness.’ 17 But by ‘faith’ Luther did not mean ‘belief’ but an attitude of trust and self-abandonment: ‘Faith does not require information, knowledge and certainty, but a free surrender and a joyful bet on [God’s] unfelt, untried and unknown goodness.’ 18 In his lectures on Galatians, Luther expanded on ‘justification by faith’. In this epistle, Paul had attacked those Jewish-Christians who wanted gentile converts to observe the entire law of Moses, when, according to Paul, all that was necessary was trust ( pistis ) in Christ. Luther had begun to develop a dichotomy between Law and Gospel. 19 Law was the means God used to reveal his wrath and the sinfulness of human beings. We encountered the Law in the inflexible commands that we find in scripture, such as the Ten Commandments. The sinner quails before these demands, which he finds impossible to fulfil. But the Gospel revealed the divine mercy that saves us. ‘Law’ was not confined to the Mosaic law: there was ‘Gospel’ in the Old Testament (when the prophets looked forward to Christ) and plenty of daunting commandments in the New. Both Law and Gospel came from God, but only the Gospel could save us. On 31 October 1517, Luther nailed ninety-five theses on the church door in Wittenberg, protesting against the sale of indulgences and the Pope’s claim to forgive sins. The very first thesis pitted the authority of the Bible against sacramental tradition: ‘When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentence.’ Luther had learned from Erasmus that metanoia , which the Vulgate translated poenitentiam agere (‘do penance’), meant a ‘turning around’ of the Christian’s whole being. It did not mean going to confession. No practice or tradition of the Church could claim divine sanction unless it had the support of the Bible. In his public debate in Leipzig with Johann Eck, theology professor at Ingolstadt (1519), Luther made his controversial new doctrine sola scriptura (‘scripture alone’) explicit for the first time. How could Luther understand the Bible, Eck asked, without the popes, councils and universities? Luther replied: ‘A simple layman armed with scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without it.’ 20 This was an unprecedented claim. 21 Jews and Christians had always upheld the sacred importance of inherited tradition. For Jews, the oral Torah was essential to the understanding of the written Torah. Before the New Testament had been written, the gospel had been preached by word of mouth and the Christians’ scripture had been the Law and the prophets. By the fourth century, when the canon of the New Testament was finalized, the churches relied on their creeds, liturgies and the pronouncements of the church councils as well as upon scripture.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] “You just don’t like the Waddells,” Mama told Granny. She was standing on Aunt Alma’s porch, wearing a blue-and-white polka-dot blouse Glen had bought her. It showed off the color of her eyes, he’d said. From the look on her face anyone could see that she was making an effort to be patient with Granny. “Glen loves me, loves my girls. Don’t matter if his family is stuck-up and full of themselves. Glen’s not like that.” “You don’t know what that boy is like, Anney. You just don’t know.” “I know he loves me.” Mama spoke with conviction, certain that Glen Waddell loved her more than his soul and everything else would come from that. “I know enough,” she told Granny. “That boy’s got something wrong with him.” Granny turned to Aunt Alma for support. “He’s always looking at me out the sides of his eyes like some old junkyard dog waiting to steal a bone. And you know Anney’s the bone he wants.” “You just don’t think anybody’s good enough for Anney,” Alma teased. “You want her to go on paying you to keep her girls every day till she’s dried up and can’t imagine marrying again.” It was a continuation of a fight that had been dragging on all week. Now it was Sunday, and Glen was coming over to take everyone out to the lake for a picnic. Granny was refusing to come along even though Mama had packed chicken hash and Jell-O with her in mind. “Let it go, Anney, and help me with this camera.” Aunt Alma had a new Brownie and was determined to document every family occasion she could. “You can’t win a fight with Mama no way. Just leave her alone and let her come to her senses in her own good time.” When Glen arrived, it was the camera that coaxed Granny out of the house and onto the porch with the rest of us. But then it was Glen who didn’t want his picture taken. “I an’t no movie star,” he told Alma, and kept putting his hand up in front of his face when she pointed her camera at him. “It’s that new haircut,” Earle joked. “Glen don’t want people to know his ears stick out that far. I’m with you, Glen. We’re too ugly for photographs. Let the women and kids line up for ’em and leave us alone.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Her arms were so strong, so safe. Don’t let me go, I thought. Just please, don’t let me go. “What are you doing to this child?” I felt her turn slightly, her voice loud and insistent above me. “You tell me what right you got to be in here with her alone, and keeping me outside?” Sheriff Cole’s voice was patient. “We need to know what happened,” he said. “You can see what happened,” Raylene snapped. “Look at her. She’s hurt and scared and don’t need nobody hurting her any more. Were you gonna keep me away from her till you had her ready to jump out the window or say anything you wanted her to?” “Miss Boatwright, I’m sorry, but there’s been an assault. There has to be an investigation.” “She’s just twelve years old, you fool. Right now she needs to feel safe and loved, not alone and terrified. You’re right, there has to be justice. There has to be a judgment day too, when God will judge us all. What you gonna tell him you did to this child when that day comes?” “There’s no need—” he began, but she interrupted him. “There’s need,” she said. “God knows there’s need.” Her voice was awesome, biblical. “God knows.” The notebook snapped closed. I looked sideways out of Raylene’s embrace and saw Sheriff Cole glare at her and stuff his notebook back in his pocket. “You call me,” he said. “You call me when she’s ready to tell us what happened.” Aunt Raylene grunted contemptuously, and held me close as he stomped away. “My girl,” she whispered in that strong voice, and stroked my hair back off my face. “Oh, my poor little girl, you just lay still. We’ll get you home. Don’t you worry. Don’t you worry about nothing. I’ll get you home and safe.” Bastard Out of Carolina 22 T here was no stopping Aunt Raylene. When the doctor insisted I stay overnight, she planted herself in a chair by my bed and refused to move. She held my hand all night while I lay unsleeping and restless. My arm throbbed, and my mouth was so bruised I could only whimper. “I can’t give her anything,” the nurse told Raylene each time she checked on us. “I know,” Raylene nodded. “Just give me a straw, why don’t you?” She fed me sips of Coke and hummed quietly while I stared up at the ceiling. In the morning, the doctor felt all over the back of my head while Raylene glared at him from her chair. I was numb with exhaustion and pain, couldn’t even smile when he grumbled and signed the release forms. The nurse took me to the entry in a wheelchair.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  We needed such a high priest – one who is holy, one who has never hurt any man, one who is stainless, one who is different from sinners, one who has become higher than the heavens. He does not need, as the high priests do, daily first to offer sacrifices for his own sins and thereafter for the sins of the people. For he did this once and for all when he offered himself. For the law appointed as high priests men subject to weakness; but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appointed one who is a Son who is fully equipped to carry out his office forever. T HESE are the passages in which the writer to the Hebrews describes Jesus as a priest after the order of Melchizedek . Now, let us see just what he is trying to say when he uses that concept. We must begin by understanding the general position from which he starts. He starts with the basic idea that religion is access to God . It was to make that access to God possible that two things existed. First, the law . The basic idea of the law is that, as long as men and women faithfully observe its commandments, they are in a position of friendship with God, and the door to God’s presence is open to them. But they cannot keep the law, and therefore their fellowship with God and their access to his presence are interrupted. It was precisely to deal with that situation of estrangement that the second thing existed – the priesthood and the whole sacrificial system . The Latin word for priest is pontifex , which means a bridge-builder ; the priest was someone whose function was to build a bridge between men and women and God by means of the sacrificial system. People broke the law; their fellowship with God was interrupted and their access to God was barred; by the offering of the correct sacrifice, that breach of the law was atoned for, and so the fellowship was restored and the barrier removed . That was the theory. But, in practice, life showed that that was precisely what the priesthood and the sacrificial system could not do. There was no escaping the human estrangement from God which followed sin; and the problem was that not all the efforts of the priesthood and not all the sacrifices could restore that lost relationship. It is therefore the argument of the writer to the Hebrews that what is needed is a new and different priesthood and a new and effective sacrifice. He sees in Jesus Christ the only high priest who can open the way to God; and he calls the priesthood of Jesus a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek .

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

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) But when thou shalt have obtained the three loaves, that is, the food and knowledge of the Trinity, thou hast both the source of life and of food. Fear not. Cease not. For that bread will not come to an end, but will put an end to your want. Learn and teach. Live and eat. THEOPHYLACT. Or else, The midnight is the end of life, at which many come to God. But the friend is the Angel who receives the soul. Or, the midnight is the depth of temptations, in which he who has fallen, seeks from God three loaves, the relief of the wants of his body, soul, and spirit; through whom we run into no danger in our temptations. But the friend who comes from his journey is God Himself, who proves by temptations who has nothing to set before Him, and who is weakened in temptation. But when He says, And the door is shut, we must understand that we ought to be prepared before temptations. But after that we have fallen into them, the gate of preparation is shut, and being found unprepared, unless God keep us, we are in danger. 11:9–139. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 12. Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Having laid aside the metaphor, our Lord added an exhortation, and expressly urged us to ask, seek, and knock, until we receive what we are seeking. Hence he says, And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. The words, I say unto you, have the force of an oath. For God doth not lie, but whenever He makes known any thing to His hearers with an oath, he manifests the inexcusable littleness of our faith.

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

  We conclude, then, that the Synoptists prepared their Gospels independently, during the same period (say between A.D. 60 and 69), in different places, chiefly from the living teaching of Christ and the first disciples, and partly from earlier fragmentary documents. They bear independent testimony to the truth of the gospel. Their agreement and disagreement are not the result of design, but of the unity, richness, and variety of the original story as received, understood, digested, and applied by different minds to different conditions and classes of hearers and readers.901 The Traditional Order. There is no good reason to doubt that the canonical arrangement which is supported by the prevailing oldest tradition, correctly represents the order of composition.902 Matthew, the apostle, wrote first in Aramaic and in Palestine, from his personal observation and experience with the aid of tradition; Mark next, in Rome, faithfully reproducing Peter’s preaching; Luke last, from tradition and sundry reliable but fragmentary documents. But all wrote under a higher inspiration, and are equally honest and equally trustworthy; all wrote within the lifetime of many of the primitive witnesses, before the first generation of Christians had passed away, and before there was any chance for mythical and legendary accretions. They wrote not too late to insure faithfulness, nor too early to prevent corruption. They represent not the turbid stream of apocryphal afterthoughts and fictions, but the pure fountain of historic truth. The gospel story, being once fixed in this completed shape, remained unchanged for all time to come. Nothing was lost, nothing added. The earlier sketches or pre-canonical gospel fragments disappeared, and the four canonical records of the one gospel, no more nor less, sufficient for all purposes, monopolized the field from which neither apocryphal caricatures nor sceptical speculations have been able to drive them. Exoteric and Esoteric Tradition. Besides the common Galilaean tradition for the people at large which is embodied in the Synoptic Gospels, there was an esoteric tradition of Christ’s ministry in Judaea and his private relation to the select circle of the apostles and his mysterious relation to the Father. The bearer of this tradition was the beloved disciple who leaned on the beating heart of his Master and absorbed his deepest words. He treasured them up in his memory, and at last when the church was ripe for this higher revelation he embodied it in the fourth Gospel. Notes. The problem of the Relationship of the Synoptists was first seriously discussed by Augustin (d. 430), in his three books De Consensu Evangelistarum (Opera, Tom. III., 1041–1230, ed. Migne). He defends the order in our canon, first Matthew, last John, and the two apostolic disciples in the middle (in loco medio constituti tamquam filii amplectendi, I., 2), but wrongly makes Mark dependent on Matthew (see below, sub. I. 1). His view prevailed during the middle ages and down to the close of the eighteenth century. The verbal inspiration theory checked critical investigation.

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

  3. Prayer, in its various forms of petition, intercession, and thanksgiving. This descended likewise from Judaism, and in fact belongs essentially even to all heathen religions; but now it began to be offered in childlike confidence to a reconciled Father in the name of Jesus, and for all classes and conditions, even for enemies and persecutors. The first Christians accompanied every important act of their public and private life with this holy rite, and Paul exhorts his readers to "pray without ceasing." On solemn occasions they joined fasting with prayer, as a help to devotion, though it is nowhere directly enjoined in the New Testament.665 They prayed freely from the heart, as they were moved by the Spirit, according to special needs and circumstances. We have an example in the fourth chapter of Acts. There is no trace of a uniform and exclusive liturgy; it would be inconsistent with the vitality and liberty of the apostolic churches. At the same time the frequent use of psalms and short forms of devotion, as the Lord’s Prayer, may be inferred with certainty from the Jewish custom, from the Lord’s direction respecting his model prayer,666 from the strong sense of fellowship among the first Christians, and finally from the liturgical spirit of the ancient church, which could not have so generally prevailed both in the East and the West without some apostolic and post-apostolic precedent. The oldest forms are the eucharistic prayers of the Didache, and the petition for rulers in the first Epistle of Clement, which contrasts most beautifully with the cruel hostility of Nero and Domitian.667

• From An Anomalous Jew: Paul Among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (2016)

  234 The Apostle Paul and the Roman Empire Roman salvation in quality, and is naturally contrasted with what the imperial cult and its political benefactors had to offer. For Paul it is certainly true that “evangelical persuasion rather than political and military power is thus the means whereby the salvation of the world is now occurring.”!*° The gospel that reveals God’s righteousness calls for the response of faith and faithfulness. Both trust and trustworthiness can be implied by the noun pistis and by the wider context of Hab 2:4, which Paul cites. This entails faith in God and fidelity to God. This evangelical “faith” can be naturally contrasted with Roman fides. The goddess Fides, the deity of loyalty and fidelity, was understood to operate through Rome’s emperors. The emperor personified Roman faithfulness to its treaties and subjects but in return demanded re- ciprocal faithfulness from those over whom he ruled. The Res Gestae state that those subjugated by Rome have “discovered the good faith [fides/miottc] of the Roman people.’’** The Roman governor of Egypt, Tiberius Alexander (an apostate Jew), ordered “the legions and the multitude to take the oath of fidelity to Vespasian.”’*’ The “faith” of Roman subjects was somewhere be- tween fealty and slavery. Roman emperors kept faith with their subjects as long as the latter were obedient and subservient. For Paul, faith is not fealty but a believing in and belonging to the God who calls people to himself (Rom 9:25-26). Paul will go on to say that pagan Romans have “no fidelity, no love, no mercy” (Rom 1:31), yet these are the very qualities that the God of the Messiah possesses (Rom 5:8; 8:28-39; 9:15-18, 23; 11:30-32; 12:1; 15:9). Furthermore, the idolatry that Paul trenchantly criticizes in Rom 1:21-23 undoubtedly would include the imperial cults. The imperial cults were not stand-alone entities, being normally embedded within or beside local temples and shrines across the eastern Mediterranean. It is no surprise, then, that Paul can often present Christ as an alternative “Lord” to the general religious pluralism of the Roman age, with its many lords and gods (see 1 Cor 8:5-6, 10; 10:7, 14-22; Gal 4:8-10; 1 Thess 1:9). It was the “rulers of this age,’ the wicked false gods, who crucified the Lord (1 Cor 2:8). In a nutshell, in Rom 1 we have a natural juxtaposition between two com- peting reigns, the house of Caesar and the house of David, with two competing eschatologies: “Rome offered a long and powerful story of a divinely appointed city, nation and culture from which had emerged the divi filius himself, bring- ing peace and justice and world domination. Paul told the long and evocative 135. Jewett, Romans, 141. 136. Acts of Augustus 31-33.

• From The City of God

  We, therefore, who are called and are Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in Him whom Peter believed,--being edified by Peter's sermons about Christ, not poisoned by his incantations; and not deceived by his enchantments, but aided by his good deeds. Christ Himself, who was Peter's Master in the doctrine which leads to eternal life, is our Master too.