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"over the past 200 years we liberals have, ironically, played a major role in ushering in an age of immuration."
Clive Stafford Smith, "Prisoners of conscience," Times literary supplement no. 5940 (February 3 2017): 5 (3-5).
Smith gives two examples: an early 18th-century one, and a late 20th-century one in which he himself "played a relatively significant role": Thus, "The quantum of misery that we achieved, albeit inadvertently, was almost unfathomable." "my plan, back in 1984, can reasonably be said to have helped 100,000 additional people to find themselves condemned, perhaps for thirty-four years in prison—a grand total of 1.24 billion days of misery."
"So here we are: conservatives and liberals alike view the mass incarceration experiment as an expensive failure, and the legal system is simply not up to the task of sorting out who did what. The result is increasing levels of desolation for millions. We have some work ahead of us."
Most sacred fire,
that burnest mightily
In liuing brests,
ykindled first aboue,
Emongst th'eternall spheres
and lamping sky,
And thence pourd into men,
which men call Loue;
Not that same, which doth
base affections moue
In brutish minds,
and filthy lust inflame,
But that sweet fit, that doth true beautie loue,
And choseth vertue for his dearest Dame,
Whence spring all noble deeds and neuer dying fame:
Well did Antiquitie a God thee deeme,
That ouer mortal minds hast so great might,
To order them, as best to thee doth seeme,
And all their actions to direct aright;
The fatall purpose of diuine foresight,
Thou doest effect in destined descents,
Through deep impression of thy secret might, . . .
Edmund Spenser, The faerie queene III.iii.1-2.
CCC 1392. "Communio carnis Christi resuscitati, «Spiritu Sancto vivificatae et vivificantis»".
"The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the announcement of the Passion scandalized them: 'This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?' The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division."
CCC 1336, on the Eucharist.
St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV.xviii.5, as trans. Roberts & Rambaut, ANF 1, 486. CCC 1327:
Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.
This appears on p. 205 of vol. 2 of the 1857 edition ed. W. W. Harvey (where it is Adv. haer. IV.xxxi.4), as follows (I have not yet checked SC):
Ἡμῶν δὲ σύμφωνος ἡ γνώμη τῇ εὐχαριστίᾳ, καὶ ἡ εὐχαριστία
βεβαιοῖ τὴν γνώμην.
Nostra autem consonans est sententia Eucharistiae, et
Eucharistia rursus confirmat sententiam.
The immediate context here is an insistence, against the gnostics, on "the hope of the resurrection [of the flesh] to eternity": "our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible", but "partake of life".
"O God, who willed that your Word should take on the reality [(veritatem)] of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man, may merit to become partakers even in his [(ipsius)] divine nature. Who lives and reigns. . . ."
"Deus, qui Verbum tuum in utero Virginis Mariae veritatem carnis humanae suscipere voluisti, concede, quaesumus, ut, qui Redemptorem nostrum Deum et hominem confitemur, ipsius etiam divinae naturae mereamur esse consortes. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, . . ."
Collect for the Annunciation of the Lord, Roman Missal. This one does not appear as such in either Bruylants or Corpus orationum, though the latter considers it a pastiche of
- Corpus orationum 1518=Bruylants 320 (the collect for the Annunciation in the EF, below): Deus, qui de beatae Mariae virginis utero verbum tuum, angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti, praesta supplicibus tuis, ut, qui vere eam genitricem dei credimus, eius apud te intercessionibus adiuvemur.
- Leo the Great, Ep. 123, 2:
- [Leo the Great,] I. Tr. 21, 3:
"ipsius" ("of his") is the emphasis on the human reditus side of the marvelous exchange corresponding to the "vertitatem" ("reality" or "integrity") of the Incarnation on the side of the divine exitus. The corresponding collect in the Extraordinary Form was more mediatorily Mariological in focus:
O God, who didst will that Thy Word should take flesh, at the message of an Angel, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant to Thy suppliant people, that we who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her interecession with Thee. Through. . . .
Deus, qui de beatae Mariae Virginis utero Verbum tuum, Angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti; praesta supplicibus tuis; ut, qui vere eam Genitricem Dei credimus, ejus apud te intercessionibus adjuvemur. Per. . . .
Previous ICEL "translation":
"God our Father, your Word became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. May we become more like Jesus Christ, whom we acknowledge as our redeemer, God and man. We ask this through. . . ."
"God becomes and is man. His condescension to us, His being as we are, is an event. It is actuality [(ist Ereignis, ist Wirklichkeit)]. It is the act of the One who is free and able to do this. It is the powerful execution of His eternal resolve. It is a triumphant and indisputable and irrevocable fact [(Geschehnis)]. But man, on the other hand, only wants to exalt himself, only wants to be as God. He can never do it. He does not have the freedom or power. He may determine on it for long enough, but nothing will ever come of it. He will always fall back on himself and still be man. It is not paradoxical or absurd that God becomes and is man. It does not contradict the concept of God. It fulfills it. It reveals the glory of God. But it is certainly paradoxical and absurd that man wants to be as God. It contradicts the concept of man. It destroys it. Man ceases to be a man when he wants this. It does not involve any alteration in God for Him to become a creature. Even as such He is still the Creator [(Gott verändert sich nicht, indem er Geschöpf wird; er bleibt ja auch als solches der Schöpfer)]. But it does require an alteration in man—and one that is not given to him—to become God [(Der Mensch aber müßte—und eben das ist ihm nicht gegeben—sich selbst verändern, um Gott zu werden)]. He cannot hope and he need not concern himself that this will finally be attained. For his own good it is provided that he cannot pass his own limits, try how he will. The only result of his attempts is the revelation of his impotence [(die Offenbarung seiner Ohnmacht)] to do so, and, because he ought not to do so, the revelation of his shame [(die Offenbarung seiner Schande)]."
Karl Barth, CD IV/1, 418-419, underscoring mine. =KD IV/1, 464-465. In KD, as reproduced in the Digital Karl Barth Library, there are these words in bold, though CD does not emphasize them in any way. In order to get them all in, I have modified Bromiley's translation ("only wants to exalt himself and to be as God") ever so slightly at just that one point.
Heiko Oberman later argued that, of the two phrases in my header, only the second, i.e. Infinitum capax finiti, is faithful to the theology of Calvin ("Extra dimension in the theology of Calvin," Journal of ecclesiastical history 21, no. 1 (January 1970): 61 (43-64); see, four years earlier, "Die 'Extra'-dimension in der Theologie Calvins," in Geist und Geschichte der Reformation: Festgabe Hanns Rückert zum 65 Geburtstag, 323-356 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1966)).
