Hegel on the specifically Jewish experience of "the universal fatum of the Roman world", "the fate that crushed down the gods and all genial life in its hard service"

"Here, then, misery is not the stupid immersion in a blind fate, but a boundless energy of longing."

"“Das Elend ist also hier nicht Stumpfheit in einem blinden Fatum, sondern unendliche Energie der Sehnsucht.”

     Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, [Lectures on] The philosophy of history III.iii.2 ("Christianity"), trans. J. Sibree; GBWW,1st ed. (1952), vol. 46, p. 305; Karl Hegel manuscript, 2nd ed., 1840, p. 392.

"before the Islamic conquests practically every liturgical innovation in Christendom began in the East, despite the persistent myth that Eastern liturgies have come down from apostolic times unchanged."

     Robert F. Taft, "'Communion' from the tabernacle—a liturgico-theological oxymoron," Worship 88, no 1 (January 2014):  9 (2-22).

"Conservatism should be a defense of government against its abuse by liberals."

     Roger Scruton, "The good of government," First things no. 244 (June/July 2014):  36 (33-38).  "the liberal mind-set . . . believes that only the wealthy are accountable, since only they are truly free" (37).  "All goods, in liberal eyes, are unowned until distributed" (37).  "On the liberal view, therefore, government is the art of seizing and then redistributing the good things to which all citizens have a claim" (37).

Qualificatio theologica, or A condemnation writ in Blood

"And so it was, then, that by a unanimous and most just vote they condemned, deposed and anathematized him for being a violator and adulterer and for being responsible for the harshest of persecutions and countless offenses against the churches of God.  And their decision was in agreement with the vote of condemnation which had originally been made against him with great accuracy and canonical, i.e. conciliar, judgment by Nicholaus the pope.  Moreover, when they put their signatures on the decree of deposition, they did not merely sign in ink, but—horror of horrors (and I have heard this confirmed by those who do know)—they actually dipped the pen in the very blood of the Savior [(Ὑπογράφουσι δὲ τῇ καθαιρέσι, οὐ ψιλῷ τῷ μέλανι τὰ χειρόγραφα ποιούμενοι, ἀλλά (τὸ φρικωδέστατον), ὡς τῶν ειδότων ἀκήκοα διαβεβαιουμένων, καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τοῦ Σωτῆρος τῷ αἵματι βάπτοντες τὸν κάλαμον)].  This was the way in which they excommunicated and condemned Photius and all those who had been ordained by him."

     Nicetas David:  The Life of Patriarch Ignatius:  text and translation by Andrew Smithies, with notes by John M. Duffy, Dumbarton Oaks texts 13, Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae 51 (Washington, DC:  Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2013), chap. 63, pp. 88-91.
     Now that's what I would call a "theological note"!
     I was put onto this by Robert F. Taft, "'Communion' from the tabernacle—a liturgico-theological oxymoron," Worship 88, no 1 (January 2014):  9 (2-22), citing "Nicetas David Paphlagon (late ninth to early tenth century), Vita Ignatii archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani, Mansi[, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio] 16:264-65 = PG 105:545CD."  Running a search on the Greek (above), I see that PG 105:488-574 has also been keyed in here.
     Taft cites two historians who "view the story with skepticism" (J. A. G. Hergenröther, Photius, Patriarch von Konstantinopel, 3 vols. (Regensburg:  Georg Joseph Manz, 1867-1869), 2:109 ff.; and F. Dvornik, The Photian schism:  history and legend (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1948), 149n4), but concludes that, though possibly apocryphal, "it would not have been invented had it been considered unthinkable at the time."
     Dvornik, who "comments on the 'tallness' of this anecdote" (Smithies-Duffy, 154n159), does little more than cite (the in his opinion usually over-credulous) Hergenröther, who says (I do not reproduce all of Hergenröther's footnotes):

Although many examples could in this way [(hiefür = hierdurch)] be also now cited (for example Baronius on the condemnation of the Monothelite Pyrrhus [(references to this and further examples in the footnote)]), nevertheless Nicetas does not appear to have been by his sources well-informed, since neither the Greek nor the Latin Acts contain any trace of this [event]; all other witnesses know nothing of it; and there is, in the whole course of the proceedings, no suitable place into which such an event [(Faktum)] could be inserted.  In the seventh session as well as in the two following no official documents were signed; only at the conclusion of the tenth session did those present, the emperor along with the prelates, sign [anything], and those signatures were meant to endorse [(bezogen sich auf)] the entire proceedings.  It is not improbable that, in accordance with similar events in Byzantium, for example what [(nach dem, was)] Photius himself is supposed to have done [(gethan haben soll)] in 866 [(vol. 1, p. 585, where 
Hergenröther's comment is that 'Wir würden gerne diese Angabe verwerfen und einen solchen Mißbrauch des Heiligsgten für unblaublich halten'!)], such a rumor developed and was believed by many, from whom Nicetas, too, heard the [story].  [But] the statement appears at least dubitable.

Obschon nun auch hiefür manche Beispiele angeführt werden können, wie denn Baronius die Verdammung des Monotheliten Pyrrhus anführt, so scheint doch Niketas von seinen Gewährsmännern nicht gut unterrichtet worden zu sein, da weder die griechischen noch die lateinischen Akten davon eine Spur enthalten, alle anderen Zeugen davon nichts wissen und im ganzen Verlauf der Verhandlungen sich keine passende Stelle findet, an die ein solches Faktum zu setzen wäre.  In der siebenten Sitzung sowie in den zwei folgenden wurden keine Aktenstücke unterschrieben; erst am Schluße der zehnten Sitzung unterzeichneten die Anwesenden, der Kaiser mitten unter den Prälaten, und diese Unterschriften bezogen sich auf die sämtlichen Verhandlungen.  Es ist nicht unwahrscheinlich, daß nach ähnlichen Vorkommnissen in Byzanz, nach dem, was Photius 866 selbst gethan haben soll, ein solches Gerücht sich bildete und Viele daran glaubten, woher es auch Niketas erfuhr; mindestens erscheint die Angabe als zweifelhaft.

Mendelson on "The secret Auden"

"By refusing to claim moral or personal authority, Auden placed himself firmly on one side of an argument that pervades the modern intellectual climate but is seldom explicitly stated, an argument about the nature of evil and those who commit it.

     "On one side are those who, like Auden, sense the furies hidden in themselves, evils they hope never to unleash, but which, they sometimes perceive, add force to their ordinary angers and resentments, especially those angers they prefer to think are righteous. On the other side are those who can say of themselves without irony, 'I am a good person,' who perceive great evils only in other, evil people whose motives and actions are entirely different from their own. This view has dangerous consequences when a party or nation, having assured itself of its inherent goodness, assumes its actions are therefore justified, even when, in the eyes of everyone else, they seem murderous and oppressive.

     "One of many forms this argument takes is a dispute over the meaning of the great totalitarian evils of the twentieth century: whether they reveal something about all of humanity or only about the uniquely evil leaders, cultures, and nations that committed them. For Auden, those evils made manifest the kinds of evil that were potential in everyone. . . .

     "In 'September 1, 1939,' he dismissed the fantasy that anyone’s private life could be innocent of the evils that so obviously drove public life. Individual persons know subjectively—as if looking in a mirror—that they treat others as objects to be used, just as nations do:

Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

He observed to friends how common it was to find a dedicated anti-fascist who conducted his erotic life as if he were invading Poland."

     Edward Mendelson, "The Secret Auden," The New York review of books 61, no. 5 (March 20, 2014):  6 (4-7).

Plenitude of being

"existence [(esse)] taken simply insofar as it includes in itself every perfection of existing, is more eminent than life and all subsequent things, for thus existence itself has in it all the subsequent [perfections]. . . . But if existence be considered insofar as it is participated in by this thing or that, which does not receive the full perfection of existing but has imperfect existence—something true of the existence of any creature—then it is manifest that existence with a superadded perfection is more eminent.  Hence Dionysius says that the living are better than the existing, and the understanding than the living."

"esse simpliciter acceptum, secundum quod includit in se omnem perfectionem essendi, praeeminet vitae et omnibus subsequentibus, sic enim ipsum esse praehabet in se omnia subsequentia. Et hoc modo Dionysius loquitur. Sed si consideretur ipsum esse prout participatur in hac re vel in illa, quae non capiunt totam perfectionem essendi, sed habent esse imperfectum, sicut est esse cuiuslibet creaturae; sic manifestum est quod ipsum esse cum perfectione superaddita est eminentius. Unde et Dionysius ibidem dicit quod viventia sunt meliora existentibus, et intelligentia viventibus."

     Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.2.5.ad 2, trans. McInerny.


"Being is not a minimal perfection, simple existence, the fact of not being nothing, but . . . an intensive perfection that includes virtually all other other perfections."

     Serge-Thomas Bonino on "The Christian rectification of Neo-Platonism by Dionysius [the Areopagite]," in "Influence du Pseudo-Denys sur la conception thomiste de l'«esse»," Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 94, no.3 (July-September 1993):  271 (269-273).

"The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent reality."

     J. G. Ballard, as quoted by Zadie Smith, in "On 'Crash'," The New York review of books 61, no. 12 (July 10, 2014):  12.
     I'm not sure I would agree with everything Ballard himself meant by that, of course.

"'let fire come out of the bramble'"

"'The Hebrews say that God appeared to Moses in a bush [(buisson) rather than a tree (arbre)] in order that the Jews might not be able to sculpt of it an idol.'"

     Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) on Ex 3:2 according to Gilbert Dahan in L'exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, XIIe-XIVe siècle, Patrimoines christianisme (Paris:  Les Editions du Cerf, 1999), 381-382.  Dahan cites p. 151 of his own "Les interprétations juives dans les commentaires du Pentateuque de Pierre le Chantre," in The Bible in the medieval world:  essays in memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. K. Walsh & D. Wood (Oxford:  1985), pp. 131-155.

Man-in-waiting

When I consider how my light is spent,
     E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
     And that one Talent which is death to hide,
     Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
     My true account, least he returning chide,
     Doth God exact day labour, light deny'd,
     I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
     Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
     Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
     And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
     They also serve who only stand and waite.

     John Milton, Sonnet 19 (On his blindness).  As I would read it:

When I consider [1] how my light is spent,
     E're half my days, in this dark world and wide[;]
     And [2] that one Talent which is death to hide,
     Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul [be] more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
     My true account, least he returning chide[:]
     'Doth God exact day labour, light deny'd[?],'
     I fondly ask[.]  But patience[,] to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
     Either man's work or his own gifts[.  W]ho best
     Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best[.  H]is State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
     And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
     They also serve who only stand and waite.

"For if such holy song | Enwrap our fancy long, | Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold".

For if such holy Song
Enwrap our fancy long,
     Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold. . . .

     John Milton, "The hymn" 14, "On the morning of Christ's nativity."
     "But wisest Fate says no, | This must not yet be so".  For the cross, the resurrection of those who have fallen asleep, and the judgment stand between us and "our bliss | Full and perfect" (stanzas 16-18).