The historical roots of our ecological crisis

"the text of Genesis (1, 26) which seems to legitimate the exploitation of nature was never interpreted in this sense by either Jews or Christians before the advent of the modern project[.] . . . [T]hat project is [therefore] more the cause than the consequence of the meaning erroneously ascribed to the biblical verses."

     Rémi Brague, citing the 1989 Cornell University Press monograph depicted, in Moderately modern, trans. Paul Seaton (South Bend, IN:  St. Augustine's Press, 2019), 123.  "Genesis" is italicized in the original, but not for emphasis.  "Not only would Christianity be responsible for the delay in the development of the sciences and technology, but it also would be responsible for the exact opposite, the excessive developments of the two, by handing the earth over to the disordered appetites of man, whom the Bible would consider as its master. . . .  In this way Christianity performs the feat, here with progress as in other ways, of being false in every respect.  It is guilty of everything, but also its contrary."

The life-giving Word of God

      "When the life-giving [(ζωοποιὸς)] Word of God dwelt in human flesh, he changed [(μετεσκεύασεν)] it into that good thing which is distinctively his, namely, life [(τὸ ἴδιον ἀγαθὸν, τουτέσι τὴν ζωὴν)]; and by being wholly united to the flesh in a way beyond our comprehension, he gave it the life-giving power [(ζωοποιὸν ἀπέδειξε)] which he has by his very nature.  Therefore, the body of Christ gives life [(ζωοποιεῖ)] to those who receive it.  Its presence in mortal men expels death and drives away corruption because it contains within itself in his entirety the Word who totally abolishes corruption."

     St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarii in Iohannem 4.2 at 354b-c (Jn 6:51), ed. Pusey (1872), vol. 1, p. 520, ll. 3 ff., as translated for the Office of Readings at Saturday, Third Week of Easter.

"the words by which secularization is designated are themselves secularized words."

la-croix.com

"the process of secularization was first of all semantic; the words by which secularization is designated are themselves secularized words."

"les mots par lesquels la sécularisation se désigne sont eux-mêmes des mots sécularisés."

     Rémi Brague, Moderately modern (South Bend, IN:  St. Augustine's Press, 2019), 87.  I have not consulted the original, Modérément moderne (Paris:  Flammarion, 2016).  I back-translated until I turned the quote up on the Web.