"wherever it is certain that something essential for salvation is impossible, it is also certain that there really exists a supernatural possibility."

"Là où il est certain qu’une chose indispensable au salut est impossible, il est certain qu’il existe réellement une possibilité surnaturelle."

     Simone Weil, "Theory of the sacraments," in Gateway to God, ed. David Raper with the collaboration of Malcolm Muggeridge and Vernon Sproxton (London:  Collins, Fontana Books, 1974), 65.  I was put onto this by Claire Wolfteich, "Attention or destruction:  Simone Weil and the paradox of the Eucharist," Journal of religion 81, no. 3 (July 2001):  368 (359-376).  For the original French, see Simone Weil, "Théorie des sacrements," Pensées sons ordre concernant l’amour de Dieu, Collection espoir (Gallimard, 1962), 136.
     And the "supernatural possibility" here is, of course, the purification of the soul that a simultaneously passively and actively faith-ful reception of the Eucharist—which is "the absolute spiritual good in terms of the flesh [(le bien absolu par rapport à la chair)]" (66/136; for "Human nature is so arranged that a desire of the soul has no reality within the soul until it has passed through the body by means of actions, movements, and attitudes" (65/135))—is, thanks to "an agreement [(convention)] established by God" (66/137), capable of effecting.

Pseudo-Melanchthon?

"In the afternoon began the preliminary skirmish over the rules of the tournament.  The first question was whether to have stenographers.  Eck said no, because taking them into account would chill the passionate heat of the debate.  'The truth might fare better at a lower temperature,' commented Melanchthon."

     Roland Bainton, Here I stand:  a life of Martin Luther (New York and Nashville:  Abingdon Press, 1950), 112, ll. 17-18 (chap. 6, "The Saxon Hus," under "The Leipzig debate").
     Bainton's endnotes make it clear that he is working with the Walch edition of Luther's Schriften, though he does not give his source for these words in particular, but only l. 13 on the one hand, and l. 24 on the other.  Clyde Leonard Manschreck, writing in 1958 (Melanchthon:  the quiet reformer, pp. 46 and 323), uses Bainton's very words, does not place them within quotation marks, and cites CR 1, 91 (I am indebted to Dan Graves for reminding me to follow up on that use of the aphorism).  And Gregory B. Graybill, writing in 2015 (The Honeycomb Scroll: Philipp Melanchthon at the Dawn of the Reformation, p. 181), uses Bainton's very words, does not place them within quotation marks, and cites MBW 59 =CR 1, 91, both of which would 1) match Walch, vol. 15, no. 394 (col. 1219 in this printing of [1880]-1910), i.e. the letter of Melanchthon to Oecolampadius dated 21 July 1519 and 2) fall right into the middle of the other Walch passages cited by Bainton on both sides of ll. 17-18.  Yet Melanchthon isn't (at that very point, at least) nearly so aphoristic.  Indeed, the word "truth" does not occur, whether in the original Latin or in Walch's German translation:

First Eck pleaded [(caussatus est)] with those who had been designated prefects of the disputation by the most illustrious prince George, the duke of Saxony, patron of humane learning, contrary to what had been agreed ([namely] that [the disputation] seem/be seen to be [governed] by the law of disputants), [that] it not be written down [(ne dictaretur)], that the inflammatory force/violence of those who, about to fight [(pugnaturi, FAP-NMP)], dispute in words [might not] gradually cease to boil [(defervere)] by reason of the pause[s] for writing [(per stili moram)]; [since] in the attack spirits [might] rise, [but] in the delaying [(contando < cunctando < cunctor?  Walch:  Zaudern) might] give way.  For that reason I do not know whether [that] could be seen from [the perspective of] 'theological simplicity', given that [(ubi, when)] nothing must stand out to such a degree that everything seems [to be] said as an attack or impetuously or in an intemperate spirit [(nihil tam praestandum est, quam ut ne quid impetu, ne quid temere, ne quid immodico animo dictum videatur)].  And that in studies of literature [(studiis literarum)] and above all in the business of piety [(negocio pietatis)] I think nothing either more important or more wholesome in the close combat/encounter [(congressu familiari)] of the learned and good [than] when [(ubi)] opinion/proposition [(sententia)] is compared with opinion/proposition by gentle and tranquil and minimally pertinacious spirits, [and] when [(ubi)] it is neither disgraceful to be conquered nor praiseworthy to conquer; so that I consider scarcely anything more pernicious than these popular debates in which [(ubi)] the concern for victory cannot but raise a clamor against [those on the opposite side], however well-intentioned [they be (ubi non potest quantumvis bonis non obstrepere victoriae cura)].

MBW 59 =CR 1, 91, trans. Steve Perisho, with input from Dr. Owen Ewald.
     Unless someone can point me to some other report on the preliminaries of the Leipzig Disputation (but I have searched those gathered in vol. 15 of the Walch edition used by Bainton, Neue revidirte Stereotypausgabe (St. Louis, MO:  Concordia Publishing House, 1899), cols. (802) 844-1259 (1377), for occurrences of "Wahrheit" without turning up a match that stood out to me), the phraseology should therefore be attributed to Bainton, not Melanchthon, despite the fact that Bainton employed quotation marks.  Indeed, Graybill wrote on 9 August 2016 to confirm that he "chose not to use quotation marks around that specific phrase because [he] did not find a direct quotation to that effect", and that though "[Bainton's] use of quotation marks is curious," "it's more likely [his] summary rather than Melanchthon's quotation."
     The editor of MBW 59 (in MBW T1) references, at this point (following Melanchthon himself), in addition to Gregory of Nazianzus' De moderatione in disputationibus servanda (MPG 36, cols. 174-212), and the translations of that by Melanchthon and Oecolampadius, two of the adages discussed at length by Erasmus, namely I.iii.7 ("Quot homines, tot sententiae", "So many men, so many opinions", CWE 31, pp. 240-241) and IV.i.1 ("Dulce bellum inexpertis", "War is a treat for those who have not tried it", CWE 35, pp. 399-440).  But neither of them seem to lie directly behind the Bainton rendition.
     This would not be the only point at which Bainton interjected his own personality into Here I stand.

I have been baptized (Ego sum baptizatus)!

1531 June 4, Predigt am Trinitatissonntag, WA 34.1, p. 504a, ll. 9-11 (cf. also b, ll. 19ff.:  "ego et omnes Christiani sunt baptizati In hoc uno deo et in his nominibus"):  "Habes ergo hic ij gute stuck contra Satanam:  non dispute tecum, ut me treibts, ut Euangelium, ut verbum dei uberlege, sed sum baptizatus in nomine patris u. da bey bleib, tam diu duravit."  This one does not seem to be included in the first installment of LW.

1535-1545, Lectures on Genesis 48:21, WA 44, p. 720, ll. 28 ff.:  "we encourage fearful hearts in this manner:  'Believe that you have been baptized into Christ.  I absolve you from your sins in the name of Christ, who died for you and rose again, and said:  "Because I live, you will live also"'" (LW 8, trans. Paul D. Pahl, p. 189).

1542 February 18, TR 5658a, WA TR 5, p. 295, ll. 27-30:  "Alioquin illae cogitationes sunt diabolicae de praedestinatione.  Ficht dich die cogitation an, so sprich:  Ego sum filius Dei, sum baptizatus, credo in Iesum Christum pro me crucifixum, Iaß mich zu friden, du Teufel!  Tum illa cogitation te deseret."  This one is not included in LW 54.

In any case, the "inkwell" or "inkpot" story is a myth.  Cf.

• Roper, Lyndal.  Martin Luther:  renegade and prophet (New York:  Random House, 2017), 186-187 (without support).
• Oberman, Heiko Augustinus. "Luther against the devil." Christian century 107, no. 3 (January 24, 1990): 75-79, which refers to “later” references to the inkwell story separately from the following Luther-quotation (which I have not yet tracked to source):  "'The only way to drive away the Devil is through faith in Christ, by saying:  ‘I have been baptized, I am a Christian’” (see p. 105 (?) of the Oberman biography (Luther:  man between God and the devil) from which this is excerpted.
• Hendrix, Scott A.  http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-34/legends-about-luther.html, which calls the “inkwell” story in particular a kind of true myth.
• Etc.

"it is not that the myth of Thoth concerning the supreme god and the treacherous scribe anticipates the positive truth of grammatology, but rather that grammatology just repeats (identically) the myth of Thoth."

     John Milbank, Theology and social theory:  beyond secular reason, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA:  Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 312, on Derrida (about whom I myself know next to nothing).  Milbank's point (throughout this chapter, and indeed the book) is that the latter ontological "conjecture" is every bit as plausible as the former.

"'embraced the executioner, and kissed the gore on his hands'"

Cavalieri (1584).
New York Public Library.

     "In the silence after Campion's death, broken only by the sound of weeping and groaning, [Fr. Ralph] Sherwin came up onto the cart.  Sherwin's actions on the scaffold help highlight by contrast how little theatre, and how much ritual, there had been in Campion's behavior.  Sherwin

embraced the executioner, and kissed the gore on his hands.  The crowd was very much moved by this, and there was a general murmur which dragged from the official in charge permission for this next victim to say what he wanted.

In fact, Sherwin, like Campion, was interrupted repeatedly by Sir Francis Knollys with the request that he 'come to the poynt, and confess your treason'; Sherwin finally expressed impatience with Knollys, and said, 'Tush, tush, you and I shall answere this before an other Judge', and even Knollys was prompted to admit that [Sherwin] was 'no contriver or doer of this treason, for you are no man of armes, but you are a traytor by consequence'.  The state's attempt to persuade the public that these Oxford scholars were traitors has descended to the point where Knollys, the Treasurer of the Royal Household, has to admit that the second scholar is only a 'traytor by consequence'.  This new legal category did not convince the crowd, who cheered him, saying 'Well done, Sherwin!  God receive your soul!' as the noose was put on this neck,and 'the noise lasted  quite some time' and did not 'die down even when he was dead'."

     Gerard Kilroy, Edmund Campion:  a scholarly life (London and New York:  Ashgate, Routledge, 2015), 341-342, quoting More, Historia missionis (1660), 134.
     "the gore on [the executioner's] hands" was of course that of Campion, who had just been disembowled and quartered (albeit—thanks to the forceful last-minute intervention of Lord Charles Howard—after he was dead).
     The burden of this book is to show that Campion was entirely innocent of the charge of treason.
     Impressively, the Protestant martyrologist John Foxe was indefatiguable in his intercession on Campion's behalf (331-332, and and one point later in the book as well).

An "age-old prejudice" (the last acceptable one)

Bayerische StaatsBibliothek

     "As for our jovial Christian kin, delegates to the Council of Mâcon in 585 submitted for discussion a book by Alcidalus Valeus entitled Paradoxical Dissertation in Which We Attempt to Prove that Women are not Human Creatures.  Paradoxical?  In what way?  We do not know if the attempt was successful; i.e., if Alcidalus won over his readers.  But the Christian hierarchy was already sympathetic to his point of view:  we need only recall Paul of Tarsus and his countless [(innombrables)] misogynistic pronouncements.  In any case, the church’s age-old prejudice against women remains to this day an undeniable fact [(une sinistre actualité)]."

     Michel Onfray, Atheist manifesto:  the case against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, trans. Jeremy Leggatt (New York: Arcade Pub., 2007), 104.  "age-old prejudice" is not in the original French of the Traité d’athéologie (2005), but only "la prevention de l’Église à l’endroit des femmes" (though the utterly unfounded ahistorical scorn is quite evident).  See Adeline Gargam and Bertram Lançon, "La querelle sur l’âme des femmes aux XVIe-XVIIIe siècles:  sources et retombées historiographiques d’une mystification (VIe-XXIe siècles)," Revue d’ histoire ecclésiastique 108, no. 3/4 (2013):  655 (626-658), underscoring mine.

     The Disputatio nova contra mulieres qua probatur eas homines non esse

• was first published in 1595 (Bayerische StaatsBibliothek:  "1195 [i.e. 1595]"), not the sixth century (!) (630);
• was translated for a second time into French by Charles Clapiès as the Paradoxe sur les femmes, où l’on essaie de prouver que les femmes ne sont pas des creatures humaines in 1766 (643), but Paradoxe was never turned into the adjective paradoxale nor coupled with the two descriptors the book bore in Latin (disputatio and dissertatio) (655n1);
• was only falsely attributed to Valens Acidalius (656); and
• referenced an extremely obscure provincial synod that may or may not have been held in Mâcon and whose easy brief passing refutation of the opinion of an obviously embarassingly ignorant single bishop has been transformed into an important and hard- (in the sense of only very narrowly-) won canonical decision (656).

As for "the latent misogyny of Paul, it is neither frequent nor maledictory, but very ordinary and, for a Roman citizen of the 1st century, rather moderate" (655n131).

     "the persistence of the legend of Mâcon, although long since as deflated as a [punctured] balloon historically [speaking], is an indication of the 'evidentiary' force that a 'received idea' can have [(la force d'évidence que peut avoir historiquement une idée reçue)], and demonstrates that since the time of the Reformation it is on the terrain of sexism that the offensives directed against Catholicism are [always] launched [(se portent)], as if one sees in [sexism] its Achilles' heel" (656).

"Tradition thus includes, but is also wider than, the truths enumerated in magisterial promulgations".

Dialogos Institute

"If theology is not to be reduced to religious studies or even intellectual self-abuse, we must aim to embrace the Word of God as it has revealed itself and proclaim what we have first received (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:1-11)."

"To the extent that what the church means in her profession of Christ's descent has not been sufficiently defined, if we are to proclaim what we have received, we must look to sacred tradition and profess, examine, defend and develop what it reveals."

     Alyssa Lyra Pitstick in response to Paul J. Griffiths, "Is there a doctrine of the descent into hell?" Pro ecclesia 17, no. 3 (Summer 2008):  257-268, in "Response to Webster and Lauber," Scottish journal of theology 62, no. 2 (2009):  211, 215-216 (211-216).  By "sacred tradition" Pitstick means, in this case, "expressions of faith other than definitions (liturgy, art, the consensus of theologians, etc.)" (215).