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 Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  the essential from the rubbishy and neglectable.[314] Inquiry concerning Hum. Understanding, sec. v. pt. 2 (slightly transposed in my quotation)[315] Note to Jas. Mill's Analysis, I. 394.[316] Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Müller, 11, 515-17. Hume also: " When, after the simple conception of anything, we would conceive it as existent, we in reality make no addition to, or alteration of, our first idea. Thus, when we affirm that God is existent, we simply form the idea of such a being as He is represented to us; nor is the existence which we attribute to Him conceived by a particular idea, which we join to His other qualities, and can again separate and distinguish from them. ... The belief of the existence joins no new idea to those which compose the ideas of the object. When I think of God, when I think of Him as existent, and when I believe Him to be existent, my idea of Him neither increases nor diminishes. But as 'tis certain there is a great difference betwixt the simple conception of the existence of an object and the belief of it, and as this difference lies not in the facts or compositions of the idea which we conceive, it follows that it most lie in the manner in which we conceive it." (Treatise of Human Nature. pt. iii. sec. 7.)[317] I use the notion of the Ego here, as common-sense uses it. Nothing is prejudged as to the results (or absence of results) of ulterior attempts to analyze the notion.[318] Griesinger, Mental Diseases, §§50, 98. The neologism we so often hear, that an experience 'gives us a realizing sense' of the truth of some proposition or other, illustrates the dependence of the sense of reality upon excitement. Only what stirs us is 'realized.'[319] The way in which sensations are pitted against systematized conceptions, and in which the one or the other then prevails according as the sensations are felt by ourselves or merely known by report, is interestingly illustrated at the present day by the state of public belief about 'spiritualistic' phenomena. There exist numerous narratives of movement without contact on the part of articles of furniture and other material objects, in the presence of certain privileged individuals called mediums. Such movement violates our memories, and the whole system of accepted physical 'science.' Consequently those-who have not seen it either brand the narratives immediately as lies or call the phenomena' illusions' of sense, produced by fraud or due to hallucination. But one who has actually seen such a phenomenon, under what seems to him sufficiently 'test-conditions,' will hold to his sensible experience through thick and thin, even though the whole fabric of 'science' should be rent in twain. That man would be a weak-spirited creature indeed who should allow any-blown generalities about 'the liability of the senses to be deceived' to bully him out of his adhesion to what for him was an indubitable experience of sight. a man may err in this obstinacy,

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  a night in New York, an afternoon in Newark, and ten days or more in Philadelphia, first in a certain hotel and next in a certain boarding-house, making no acquaintances, 'resting,' reading, and 'looking round.' I have unfortunately been unable to get independent corroboration of these details, as the hotel registers are destroyed, and the boarding-house named by him has been pulled down. He forgets the name of the two ladies who kept it. [317] The details of the case, it will be seen, are all compatible with simulation. I can only say of that, that no one who has examined Mr. Bourne (including Dr. Read, Dr. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Guy Hinsdale, and Mr. R. Hodgson) practically doubts his ingrained honesty, nor, so far as I can discover, do any of his personal acquaintances indulge in a sceptical view. [318] The Watseka Wonder, by E. W. Stevens. Chicago, Religio-Philosophical Publishing House, 1887. [319] My friend Mr. R. Hodgson informs me that he visited Watseka in April 1889, and cross-examined the principal witnesses of this case. His confidence in the original narrative was strengthened by what he learned; and various unpublished facts were ascertained, which increased the plausibility of the spiritualistic interpretation of the phenomenon. [320] See his highly important series of articles on Automatic Writing, etc., in the Proceedings of the Soc. for Psych. Research, especially Article II (May 1885). Compare also Dr. Maudsley's instructive article in Mind, vol. XIV. p. 161, and Luys's essay, 'Sur le Dédoublement,' etc., in l'Encéphale for 1889. [321] Bain mentions attention in the Senses and the Intellect, p. 558, and even gives a theory of it on pp. 370-374 of the Emotions of the Will. I shall recur to this theory later on. [322] "The first and most important, but also the most difficult, task at the outset of an education is to overcome gradually the inattentive dispersion of mind which shows itself wherever the organic life preponderates over the intellectual. The training of animals . . . must be in the first instance based on the awakening of attention (cf. Adrian Leonard, Essai sur l'Education des Animaux , Lille, 1842), that is to say, we must seek to make them gradually perceive separately things which, if left to themselves, would not be attended to, because they would fuse with a great sum of other sensorial stimuli to a confused total impression of which each separate item only darkens and interferes with the rest. Similarly at first with the human child. The enormous difficulties of deaf-mute—and especially of idiot—instruction is principally due to the slow and painful manner in which we succeed in bringing out from the general confusion of perception single items with sufficient sharpness." (Waitz, Lehrb. d. Psychol., p. 632.) [323] Elements, part I. chap. II. fin . [324] Lectures on Metaphysics, lecture XIV. [325] Nature, vol. III. p. 281 (1871). [326] If a lot of dots or strokes on a piece of paper be exhibited for a moment to a person

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  And, she adds, it means leaders must ask essential questions. “Most people will respond to a genuine and direct question. If you ask me what I think, it’s mighty awkward not to open my mouth.” Method 5: Assume Positive IntentTeam leaders can also teach their people that when debating or facing a tough issue with others in the group, it’s important to assume everyone brings positive intentions and wants to do what’s right for the organization as a whole—and they are just coming at things from a different perspective. In short, it’s okay to question someone’s facts or ideas, but not their motives. We’ll write about a Republican in Chapter 8 , to be fair, but we thought a terrific example of this idea was shared by Democrat Joe Biden in his 2018 eulogy of Republican John McCain. Biden began his talk with these words: “I’m a Democrat, and I loved John McCain. . . . I always thought of John as a brother, [and] we had a hell of a lot of family fights.” Biden noted that when he and McCain were junior senators, it was considered appropriate to challenge the opposition’s judgment but never to challenge their intentions. That, he said, eventually changed and partisanship emerged as the rule of the day. “All we do today is attack the oppositions of both parties—their motives—not the substance of their argument. The last day John was on the Senate floor he was fighting to restore what you call regular order, to treat one another again like we used to . . . [when we would watch] Teddy Kennedy and James O. Eastland fight like hell on civil rights and then go have lunch together, down in the Senate dining room.” Method 6: Have a PlanBefore their teams set out to tackle a challenge, we recommend leaders coach the conflict-averse to plan and then rehearse what they may say, again with a focus on using the facts they have assembled, e.g., you might help an employee express herself as such: “I’ve had to pull late nights for a week straight to hit the deadline because you haven’t gotten your share of research in on time.” Here, presenting the concern clearly, along with facts about the amount of work being done, lays a good base for a conversation about values and a solution rather than the problem itself. Another part of planning is planning to follow up, even if things seem to go well in a first conversation. After all, those involved may have additional thoughts, or they may replay the conversation in their minds and change their point of view, or they may confer with others and come to second-guess the outcome. What we all thought was a positive resolution can begin to deteriorate without follow-up.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  Such inclusion helps people feel like they are being brought into the inner circle to brainstorm solutions to challenges. Ambiguity either prolongs inevitable bad news or widens the trust gap. Or both. We were particularly affected by a conversation we had with Ryan Westwood, CEO of business management firm Simplus, who spoke about the link between anxiety and uncertainty. “There is an inherent distrust in leaders today,” he said. That is a powerful understanding, and we wish every manager knew how true it is. Westwood continued, “You have to prove that you can be trusted. When this pandemic hit, the first thing we did was cut the pay of the executive leadership, including myself. We communicated that early and it sent a message that we were willing to make sacrifices.” Still, three months into the crisis, the CEO and his team realized that they would have to make a few tough cuts. “We held an all-hands meeting with more than five hundred employees around the world, and I told everyone we’d tried to make it through without any layoffs, but we were going to have to, and it would affect about 3 percent of our people.” He explained why the cuts were absolutely necessary—showing the numbers—and Westwood outlined the plan for those who would be affected. “It was amazing how many messages I got later that said, ‘I never feel like I’m going to be blindsided here,’ or ‘I always feel like you’re going to be honest with me.’” The actual reduction in force was only 1 percent by the end because his team rallied and was able to minimize the impact. Openness, especially about delicate matters, is much too rare. As we consult with organizations, we find that many leaders come up short at helping employees honestly understand whether or not they have a solid future within the organization, or at what level their opportunities may top out. At one manufacturing plant, for example, the HR manager had worked for twenty years to receive the proper accreditations and certificates so that he might take over when the vice president of HR retired. When the day finally came and he sent in his application for the big job, he received a one-line email response from the CEO. It read, “We could not support you in this role.” There was no warning. No face-to-face candor. Just twenty years of work and then those eight words that would shape his, his coworkers’, and his family’s perception of the company forever. In contrast, in interviews we conducted at the American Express call centers, we were struck by how each member of Camaraza’s leadership team seemed compelled to be respectfully honest with employees about their development opportunities and career potential, even if they decided to leave because of that clarity. Asking someone to sail blindly into the future is never a good idea—for a team member or the organization.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Perhaps it will require more community assistance for single mothers and their children. Or maybe it just means we must learn to adjust our expectations concerning sexual fidelity. But this we know: vehement denial, inflexible religious or legislative dictate, and medieval stoning rituals in the desert have all proved powerless against our prehistoric predilections. In 1988, Roy Romer, then governor of Colorado, faced a feeding-frenzy of questions about his long-running extramarital affair that had become publicly known. Romer did what few public figures have dared. In the spirit of the Yucatán, he refused to accept the premise underlying the intrusive questions: that his extramarital relationship was a betrayal of his wife and family. Instead, he called an extraordinary press conference where he pointed out that his wife of forty-five years had known about and accepted the relationship all along. Romer confronted the tittering reporters with “life as it really happens.” “What is fidelity?” he asked the suddenly silent gaggle of reporters. “Fidelity is what kind of openness you have. What kind of trust you have, which is based on truth and openness. And so, in my own family, we’ve discussed that at some length and we’ve tried to arrive at an understanding of what our feelings are, what our needs are, and work it out with that kind of fidelity.” 21 The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon In a sky swarming with uncountable stars, clouds endlessly flowing, and planets wandering, always and forever there has been just one moon and one sun. To our ancestors, these two mysterious bodies reflected the female and the male essences. From Iceland to Tierra del Fuego, people attributed the Sun’s constancy and power to his masculinity; the Moon’s changeability, unspeakable beauty, and monthly cycles were signs of her femininity. To human eyes turned toward the sky 100,000 years ago, they appeared identical in size, as they do to our eyes today. In a total solar eclipse, the disc of the moon fits so precisely over that of the sun that the naked eye can see solar flares leaping into space from behind. But while they appear precisely the same size to terrestrial observers, scientists long ago determined that the true diameter of the sun is about four hundred times that of the moon. Yet incredibly, the sun’s distance from Earth is roughly four hundred times that of the moon’s, thus bringing them into unlikely balance when viewed from the only planet with anyone around to notice. 22 Some will say, “Interesting coincidence.” Others will wonder whether there isn’t an extraordinary message contained in this celestial convergence of difference and similarity, intimacy and distance, rhythmic constancy and cyclical change. Like our distant ancestors, we watch the eternal dance of our sun and our moon, looking for clues to the nature of man and woman, masculine and feminine here at home.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  During the previous year he had left the diplomatic service, not owing to any 'unpleasantness' (he never had any 'unpleasantness' with anyone), and was transferred to the department of the court of the palace in Moscow, in order to give his two boys the best education possible. In spite of the striking contrast in their habits and views, and the fact that Lvov was older than Levin, they had seen a great deal of one another that winter, and had taken a great liking to each other. Lvov was at home, and Levin went in to him unannounced. Lvov, in a house coat with a belt and in chamois leather shoes, was sitting in an arm-chair, and with a pince-nez with blue glasses he was reading a book that stood on a reading-desk, while in his beautiful hand he held a half-burned cigarette daintily away from him. His handsome, delicate, and still youthful-looking face, to which his curly, glistening silvery hair gave a still more aristocratic air, lighted up with a smile when he saw Levin. 'Capital! I was meaning to send to you. How's Kitty? Sit here, it's more comfortable.' He got up and pushed up a rocking-chair. 'Have you read the last circular in the Journal de St. Pétersbourg? I think it's excellent,' he said, with a slight French accent. Levin told him what he had heard from Katavasov was being said in Petersburg, and after talking a little about politics, he told him of his interview with Metrov, and the learned society's meeting. To Lvov it was very interesting. 'That's what I envy you, that you are able to mix in these interesting scientific circles,' he said. And as he talked, he passed as usual into French, which was easier to him. 'It's true I haven't the time for it. My official work and the children leave me no time; and then I'm not ashamed to own that my education has been too defective.' 'That I don't believe,' said Levin with a smile, feeling, as he always did, touched at Lvov's low opinion of himself, which was not in the least put on from a desire to seem or to be modest, but was absolutely sincere. 'Oh, yes, indeed! I feel now how badly educated I am. To educate my children I positively have to look up a great deal, and in fact simply to study myself. For it's not enough to have teachers, there must be someone to look after then, just as on your land you want labourers and an overseer. See what I'm reading'—he pointed to Buslaev's Grammar on the desk—'it's expected of Misha, and it's so difficult. . . Come, explain to me . . . Here he says . . . ' Levin tried to explain to him that it couldn't be understood, but that it had to be taught; but Lvov would not agree with him.

• From The City of God

  A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given in his name for baptism, and had been prohibited the day before his baptism from being baptized that year, by black woolly-haired boys who appeared to him in his dreams, and whom he understood to be devils, and when, though they trod on his feet, and inflicted the acutest pain he had ever yet experienced, he refused to obey them, but overcame them, and would not defer being washed in the laver of regeneration, was relieved in the very act of baptism, not only of the extraordinary pain he was tortured with, but also of the disease itself, so that, though he lived a long time afterwards, he never suffered from gout; and yet who knows of this miracle? We, however, do know it, and so, too, do the small number of brethren who were in the neighborhood, and to whose ears it might come. An old comedian of Curubis [1619] was cured at baptism not only of paralysis, but also of hernia, and, being delivered from both afflictions, came up out of the font of regeneration as if he had had nothing wrong with his body. Who outside of Curubis knows of this, or who but a very few who might hear it elsewhere? But we, when we heard of it, made the man come to Carthage, by order of the holy bishop Aurelius, although we had already ascertained the fact on the information of persons whose word we could not doubt.

• 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.

• 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 The City of God

  417 Lecture 20—Judgments, Last and Otherwise (Book 20) vast and frequent as to make that general pattern insufficiently visible. ›The proper response is humility. In the mysteries of human affairs, Augustine insists that God’s judgment is still present, even when it can’t be observed. We know that God's final judgments are just from the moral framework of the story of the cosmos that the Christian churches offer us and within which we set experience of the world. ›The point is not to care about things in this life too much, not because they don’t matter, but because they are obscure. We have to see that judgment is God’s task, not ours; we will await the judgment of God in patience and learn to see life as a trial and a training ground for that. God’s Judgment „For Augustine, God’s judgment is part of God’s very being, so that part of what it means to affirm God is to affirm a self- conscious moral order to the cosmos. We will have access to God’s knowledge and God’s judgments only at the Last Judgment. „Thus, we can unequivocally affirm that judgment is real, even as we possess only highly equivocating glimpses of that judgment itself. For Augustine, this confidence is warranted on scriptural grounds. Jesus spoke of the Last Judgment in all four gospels. „We can even know that Christians can experience two kinds of regeneration, keyed to the two resurrections: the regeneration of the soul via baptism and the regeneration of the body at the Last Judgment. We already have a kind of visible proof in the way that baptism both reflects and intensifies serious moral and spiritual change in some people. 418 Books That Matter: The City of God „For Augustine, the question of offering proofs or evidence to a skeptical audience is of decidedly secondary interest. His conviction, which is pretty general across Christian theologians, is that propositional argument is not the most powerful means of proclaiming the Gospel; rather, the witness of vital and vibrant Christian lives, lived out in community for others, is the best witness. The Nature of the Apocalypse „This point also bears on his immediate concern about how Christians should think about the end of time. The temporal duration of our age is immaterial. We always have enough time to do God’s will or to refuse it. Besides, in the true present of the presence of God’s eternity, all times are co-present. The Last Judgment

• From The City of God

  Chapter 2. --The Opinion of Plotinus the Platonist Regarding Enlightenment from Above. But with these more estimable philosophers we have no dispute in this matter. For they perceived, and in various forms abundantly expressed in their writings, that these spirits have the same source of happiness as ourselves,--a certain intelligible light, which is their God, and is different from themselves, and illumines them that they may be penetrated with light, and enjoy perfect happiness in the participation of God. Plotinus, commenting on Plato, repeatedly and strongly asserts that not even the soul which they believe to be the soul of the world, derives its blessedness from any other source than we do, viz. , from that Light which is distinct from it and created it, and by whose intelligible illumination it enjoys light in things intelligible. He also compares those spiritual things to the vast and conspicuous heavenly bodies, as if God were the sun, and the soul the moon; for they suppose that the moon derives its light from the sun. That great Platonist, therefore, says that the rational soul, or rather the intellectual soul,--in which class he comprehends the souls of the blessed immortals who inhabit heaven,--has no nature superior to it save God, the Creator of the world and the soul itself, and that these heavenly spirits derive their blessed life, and the light of truth from their blessed life, and the light of truth, the source as ourselves, agreeing with the gospel where we read, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John; the same came for a witness to bear witness of that Light, that through Him all might believe. He was not that Light, but that he might bear witness of the Light. That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" [376] a distinction which sufficiently proves that the rational or intellectual soul such as John had cannot be its own light, but needs to receive illumination from another, the true Light. This John himself avows when he delivers his witness:"We have all received of His fullness. " [377] [376] John i. 6-9. [377] Ibid. 16.

• From The City of God

  At Uzali, too, a colony near Utica, many signal miracles were, to my knowledge, wrought by the same martyr, whose relics had found a place there by direction of the bishop Evodius, long before we had them at Hippo. But there the custom of publishing narratives does not obtain, or, I should say, did not obtain, for possibly it may now have been begun. For, when I was there recently, a woman of rank, Petronia, had been miraculously cured of a serious illness of long standing, in which all medical appliances had failed, and, with the consent of the above-named bishop of the place, I exhorted her to publish an account of it that might be read to the people. She most promptly obeyed, and inserted in her narrative a circumstance which I cannot omit to mention, though I am compelled to hasten on to the subjects which this work requires me to treat. She said that she had been persuaded by a Jew to wear next her skin, under all her clothes, a hair girdle, and on this girdle a ring, which, instead of a gem, had a stone which had been found in the kidneys of an ox. Girt with this charm, she was making her way to the threshold of the holy martyr. But, after leaving Carthage, and when she had been lodging in her own demesne on the river Bagrada, and was now rising to continue her journey, she saw her ring lying before her feet. In great surprise she examined the hair girdle, and when she found it bound, as it had been, quite firmly with knots, she conjectured that the ring had been worn through and dropped off; but when she found that the ring was itself also perfectly whole, she presumed that by this great miracle she had received somehow a pledge of her cure, whereupon she untied the girdle, and cast it into the river, and the ring along with it. This is not credited by those who do not believe either that the Lord Jesus Christ came forth from His mother's womb without destroying her virginity, and entered among His disciples when the doors were shut; but let them make strict inquiry into this miracle, and if they find it true, let them believe those others. The lady is of distinction, nobly born, married to a nobleman. She resides at Carthage. The city is distinguished, the person is distinguished, so that they who make inquiries cannot fail to find satisfaction. Certainly the martyr himself, by whose prayers she was healed, believed on the Son of her who remained a virgin; on Him who came in among the disciples when the doors were shut; in fine,--and to this tends all that we have been retailing,--on Him who ascended into heaven with the flesh in which He had risen; and it is because he laid down his life for this faith that such miracles were done by his means.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 32. --Of Abraham's Obedience and Faith, Which Were Proved by the Offering Up, of His Son in Sacrifice, and of Sarah's Death. Among other things, of which it would take too long time to mention the whole, Abraham was tempted about the offering up of his well-beloved son Isaac, to prove his pious obedience, and so make it known to the world, not to God. Now every temptation is not blame-worthy; it may even be praise-worthy, because it furnishes probation. And, for the most part, the human mind cannot attain to self-knowledge otherwise than by making trial of its powers through temptation, by some kind of experimental and not merely verbal self-interrogation; when, if it has acknowledged the gift of God, it is pious, and is consolidated by steadfast grace and not puffed up by vain boasting. Of course Abraham could never believe that God delighted in human sacrifices; yet when the divine commandment thundered, it was to be obeyed, not disputed. Yet Abraham is worthy of praise, because he all along believed that his son, on being offered up, would rise again; for God had said to him, when he was unwilling to fulfill his wife's pleasure by casting out the bond maid and her son, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called. "No doubt He then goes on to say, "And as for the son of this bond woman, I will make him a great nation, because he is thy seed. " [940]How then is it said "In Isaac shall thy seed be called," when God calls Ishmael also his seed? The apostle, in explaining this, says, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called, that is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God:but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. " [941]In order, then, that the children of the promise may be the seed of Abraham, they are called in Isaac, that is, are gathered together in Christ by the call of grace. Therefore the father, holding fast from the first the promise which behoved to be fulfilled through this son whom God had ordered him to slay, did not doubt that he whom he once thought it hopeless he should ever receive would be restored to him when he had offered him up. It is in this way the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews is also to be understood and explained. "By faith," he says, "Abraham overcame, when tempted about Isaac:and he who had received the promise offered up his only son, to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called:thinking that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead;" therefore he has added, "from whence also he received him in a similitude. " [942]In whose similitude but His of whom the apostle says, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all? " [943]And on this account Isaac also himself carried to the place of sacrifice the wood on which he was to be offered up, just as the Lord Himself carried His own cross. Finally, since Isaac was not to be slain, after his father was forbidden to smite him, who was that ram by the offering of which that sacrifice was completed with typical blood? For when Abraham saw him, he was caught by the horns in a thicket. What, then, did he represent but Jesus, who, before He was offered up, was crowned with thorns by the Jews?

• From The City of God

  Chapter 18. --Of the Repeated Address of God to Abraham, in Which He Promised the Land of Canaan to Him and to His Seed. Abraham, then, having departed out of Haran in the seventy-fifth year of his own age, and in the hundred and forty-fifth of his father's, went with Lot, his brother's son, and Sarah his wife, into the land of Canaan, and came even to Sichem, where again he received the divine oracle, of which it is thus written:"And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, Unto thy seed will I give this land. " [904] Nothing is promised here about that seed in which he is made the father of all nations, but only about that by which he is the father of the one Israelite nation; for by this seed that land was possessed. [904] Gen. xii. 7. Chapter 19. --Of the Divine Preservation of Sarah's Chastity in Egypt, When Abraham Had Called Her Not His Wife But His Sister. Having built an altar there, and called upon God, Abraham proceeded thence and dwelt in the desert, and was compelled by pressure of famine to go on into Egypt. There he called his wife his sister, and told no lie. For she was this also, because she was near of blood; just as Lot, on account of the same nearness, being his brother's son, is called his brother. Now he did not deny that she was his wife, but held his peace about it, committing to God the defence of his wife's chastity, and providing as a man against human wiles; because if he had not provided against the danger as much as he could, he would have been tempting God rather than trusting in Him. We have said enough about this matter against the calumnies of Faustus the Manichaean. At last what Abraham had expected the Lord to do took place. For Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who had taken her to him as his wife, restored her to her husband on being severely plagued. And far be it from us to believe that she was defiled by lying with another; because it is much more credible that, by these great afflictions, Pharaoh was not permitted to do this.

• From The City of God

  We must further notice that some of those sufferers may have conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides so long as the body is inviolate, and did not understand that the purity both of the body and the soul rests on the steadfastness of the will strengthened by God's grace, and cannot be forcibly taken from an unwilling person. From this error they are probably now delivered. For when they reflect how conscientiously they served God, and when they settle again to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise desert those who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid and when they consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is chastity, they are shut up to the conclusion that He could never have permitted these disasters to befall His saints, if by them that saintliness could be destroyed which He Himself had bestowed upon them, and delights to see in them. [82] Rom. xi. 33. Chapter 29. --What the Servants of Christ Should Say in Reply to the Unbelievers Who Cast in Their Teeth that Christ Did Not Rescue Them from the Fury of Their Enemies. The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a consolation of its own,--a consolation which cannot deceive, and which has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs of earth can afford. They will not refuse the discipline of this temporal life, in which they are schooled for life eternal; nor will they lament their experience of it, for the good things of earth they use as pilgrims who are not detained by them, and its ills either prove or improve them. As for those who insult over them in their trials, and when ills befall them say, "Where is thy God? " [83] we may ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or maintain they ought to be worshipped; for the family of Christ is furnished with its reply:our God is everywhere present, wholly everywhere; not confined to any place. He can be present unperceived, and be absent without moving; when He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for us an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should deign to speak with you even about your own gods, much less about our God, who is "to be feared above all gods? For all the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens. " [84] [83] Ps. xlii. 10. [84] Ps. xcvi. 4, 5.

• 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 Martin Luther (2016)

  We have just Luther’s side of the friendship, because it is only his letters that have survived—carefully cataloged and reverentially annotated, often in Greek, by Spalatin.10 As the sheer number of Luther’s letters indicates—more than four hundred—this was perhaps the central relationship in his life between 1518 and 1525: He wrote more letters to Spalatin than to anyone else, even though they saw each other regularly. To start with, their correspondence opened with the elaborate formulae of affection and regard that were the staple of humanist epistolary rhetoric, but increasingly Luther’s letters became less carefully written and dispensed with flattery, coming straight to the point. Spalatin became the sounding board for some of Luther’s most radical ideas; it was Spalatin and then Johannes Lang whom he first told, in 1519, about his growing conviction that the Pope was the Antichrist, “or at least his apostle.”11 Perhaps he preferred to try out his new theological insights with Spalatin because he was not a theologian; his letters to Lang and Wenzeslaus Linck, his brothers in the order, were often more defensive and less exploratory. He also knew when to circumvent him. As we have seen, at Leipzig he refrained from consulting Spalatin, pretending that he had not known where to find him; and at Augsburg, too, he had avoided asking his advice, even though it was Spalatin who had set up the meeting with Cajetan in the hope of reaching a compromise. In the months leading up to Worms, however, Luther wrote to Spalatin several times a week, sometimes even daily. By mid-January 1521 Spalatin and the Elector had arrived in Worms, as the Diet began its formal meeting. Luther and Spalatin could therefore consult only by letter. The Lutheran matter soon took center stage. On February 13, Ash Wednesday, the papal nuncio Jerome Aleander gave a three-hour speech in Latin, in which he set out Luther’s heresies and insisted that he be condemned.12 The choice of date was highly significant, for Ash Wednesday is the day of repentance before Easter, and penance was closely linked with the need to proceed against heretics. Aleander compiled a list, which he sent to Spalatin, setting out the propositions that he demanded Luther recant, most of them taken from On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. There was still room for compromise: The papal emissary Miltitz was hopeful.

• From The City of God

  In conformity with this opinion, Porphyry-- expressing, however, not so much his own views as other people's--says that a good god or genius cannot come to a man unless the evil genius has been first of all propitiated, implying that the evil deities had greater power than the good; for, until they have been appeased and give place, the good can give no assistance; and if the evil deities oppose, the good can give no help; whereas the evil can do injury without the good being able to prevent them. This is not the way of the true and truly holy religion; not thus do our martyrs conquer Juno, that is to say, the powers of the air, who envy the virtues of the pious. Our heroes, if we could so call them, overcome Here, not by suppliant gifts, but by divine virtues. As Scipio, who conquered Africa by his valor, is more suitably styled Africanus than if he had appeased his enemies by gifts, and so won their mercy. [414] AEn. , vii. 310. [415] AEn. , iii. 438, 439. Chapter 22. --Whence the Saints Derive Power Against Demons and True Purification of Heart. It is by true piety that men of God cast out the hostile power of the air which opposes godliness; it is by exorcising it, not by propitiating it; and they overcome all the temptations of the adversary by praying, not to him, but to their own God against him. For the devil cannot conquer or subdue any but those who are in league with sin; and therefore he is conquered in the name of Him who assumed humanity, and that without sin, that Himself being both Priest and Sacrifice, He might bring about the remission of sins, that is to say, might bring it about through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, by whom we are reconciled to God, the cleansing from sin being accomplished. For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the divine compassion; through His indulgence, not through our own power. For, whatever virtue we call our own is itself bestowed upon us by His goodness. And we might attribute too much to ourselves while in the flesh, unless we lived in the receipt of pardon until we laid it down. This is the reason why there has been vouchsafed to us, through the Mediator, this grace, that we who are polluted by sinful flesh should be cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh. By this grace of God, wherein He has shown His great compassion toward us, we are both governed by faith in this life, and, after this life, are led onwards to the fullest perfection by the vision of immutable truth.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  One of his first acts after he became district vicar in 1515 was to appoint his old companion and fellow monk Johannes Lang to be prior at Erfurt. 24 A humanist and close friend of Luther, Lang had followed him from Erfurt to Wittenberg in 1511. Sending him back not only helped a friend; it also stamped Luther’s authority on his former community, a mere two years after the bitter correspondence about the doctorate. Lang was about Luther’s age, and his appointment at barely thirty marked the arrival of the new generation of “Staupitz’s boys.” Luther was aware that Lang’s task would not be easy—he knew there would be “grumblings among the brothers”—and he advised him to keep a budget, noting down all income and expenditure, so that he could work out “whether the convent is more of a monastery than a tavern or inn”—a strategy not likely to smooth his friend’s path. 25 Meanwhile, Wenzeslaus Linck, another of Staupitz’s protégés, had been made prior of the monastery at Wittenberg: He would become one of Luther’s lifelong friends. A new circle of friends beyond as well as inside the Augustinian order solidified around him. Georg Spalatin—secretary, librarian, and later confessor to Friedrich the Wise—was one of the most important, as he made the Reformation possible by securing the Saxon ruler’s protection. In the years up to 1525 he became Luther’s most frequent correspondent, and the interlocutor to whom he revealed his daily preoccupations and deepest anxieties. Their friendship began by the circuitous route common among humanist circles: Spalatin knew Johannes Lang, and had him secure an introduction to Luther. As the Elector’s librarian, Spalatin was responsible for the university library and also advised on university policy, so the two men had to work together. 26 Spalatin had unlimited access to the Elector and all correspondence ran through him: He had Latin, whereas the Elector was truly comfortable only in German. 27 This was an era in which individuals were much more important than the formal offices they held and in which politics was intensely personal, so those who had access to a ruler wielded enormous power themselves. Not only did Spalatin give Luther an opening to Friedrich and his court; he also introduced him to a circle of Nuremberg humanists, which provided essential support in the early years of the Reformation. Although Staupitz had long had a group of admirers in Nuremberg, it was Spalatin who introduced Luther to Christoph Scheurl, the powerful civic secretary of the city and a brilliant legal mind, who had also spent time at Wittenberg’s law faculty. This connection to the wealthy south of Germany took Luther for the first time out of the narrow horizons of a world bounded by Erfurt, Mansfeld, and Wittenberg.

• From The City of God

  [449] Homine assumto, non Deo consumto. [450] Quo itur Deus, qua itur homo. Chapter 3. --Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by the Divine Spirit. This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves. For if we attain the knowledge of present objects by the testimony of our own senses, [451] whether internal or external, then, regarding objects remote from our own senses, we need others to bring their testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and we credit the persons to whom the objects have been or are sensibly present. Accordingly, as in the case of visible objects which we have not seen, we trust those who have, (and likewise with all sensible objects,) so in the case of things which are perceived [452] by the mind and spirit, i. e. , which are remote from our own interior sense, it behoves us to trust those who have seen them set in that incorporeal light, or abidingly contemplate them. [451] A clause is here inserted to give the etymology of proesentia from proe sensibus. [452] Another derivation, sententia from sensus, the inward perception of the mind. Chapter 4. --That the World is Neither Without Beginning, Nor Yet Created by a New Decree of God, by Which He Afterwards Willed What He Had Not Before Willed. Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible, the greatest is God. But, that the world is, we see; that God is, we believe. That God made the world, we can believe from no one more safely than from God Himself. But where have we heard Him? Nowhere more distinctly than in the Holy Scriptures, where His prophet said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. " [453]Was the prophet present when God made the heavens and the earth? No; but the wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was there, [454] and wisdom insinuates itself into holy souls, and makes them the friends of God and His prophets, and noiselessly informs them of His works. They are taught also by the angels of God, who always behold the face of the Father, [455] and announce His will to whom it befits. Of these prophets was he who said and wrote, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. "And so fit a witness was he of God, that the same Spirit of God, who revealed these things to him, enabled him also so long before to predict that our faith also would be forthcoming.