Caveat Christianus

"Malebranche has managed to do precisely the opposite of what the early Church did with a comparable situation of Neoplatonism. The early Christians read pagan philosophers at great length and with cautious respect and sympathy, and through so lengthy an acquaintance learned which elements were supportive of Christian revelation and which could be reinterpreted in terms of that revelation; they then used these elements to construct so profound a system as that of the great Augustine and so religious a synthesis as that of the Alexandrian mystics. Malebranche took up the neo-Confucian ideas during his vacation conversation with the exiled bishop of Lyonne, after a series of interchanges felt himself master enough of the six errors about the existence and nature of god which that ancient culture embraced, and set himself 'to rectify the false idea they have of the nature of God.' Few things exhibit the casual arrogance of the Western clerical world more than the events of that sad and needless time: Maillard de Tournon sent to the Middle Kingdom with no knowledge of its language or respect for its culture; Malebranche confident of his crusade against the neo-Confucianists because 'it seems to me that there are many correspondences between the impieties of Spinoza and those of the Chinese philosopher.' Never mind the Jesuits' protest in the Mémoires de Trévoux, or the attempts of centuries of cultural interchange reaching one of their finest expressions in Lieibniz! The matter can be handled in a short essay whose data is culled from the conversations of a vacation."

     Michael J. Buckley, S.J., At the origins of modern atheism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987): 152-153.

Aquinas on so many things

"that which acquires perfect goodness by many aids and activities is more noble than that which acquires an imperfect goodness through fewer means, or by itself. . . ."

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences, q.1 a.1 ad3. "illud quod acquirit bonitatem perfectam pluribus auxiliis et motibus, est nobilius eo quod imperfectam bonitatem acquirit paucioribus, vel per seipsum. . . ." One might even call this, it seems to me, the "Catholic" principle par excellence. For in Catholicism and those Christian traditions most indebted to it, these "many aids and activities" are multiplied, reduplicated, collected, and (unselfishly) "hoarded" without embarrassment almost ad infinitum. (And yet the one true God is only all the more glorified thereby.)

Mattson on My many selves

"I am as ready as Booth to speak of inner conflict--St. Paul's 'old man' at war with the 'new man'--but am less impressed with the redemptive possibilities in making my vices a whole country of old men."

Craig E. Mattson reviewing My many selves: the quest for a plausible harmony, in "Keeping company with Wayne Booth--a review essay," Christian scholar's review 38, no. 2 (Winter 2009): 298. "Put differently, Booth failed to convince me that there will always be another voice to be heard in the quest for self-knowledge. Someday we will be know even as we are known." I have not read the book in question, or any Booth, for that matter.

Anderson on the debate over Proposition 8

"Regardless of the name given to it, the state’s promotion of any pairing of adults as the functional equivalent of marriage would eliminate in law and weaken in culture the ideal that children should be raised by their married, natural parents. The public meaning and purpose of marriage would be ended; marriage would be redefined as merely a private relationship of consenting adults, and parenthood as merely a legal status applied to those who choose to take responsibility for a child. The social function marriage plays in society — providing children with their natural mother and father — would be lost. . . .
     "No matter what, the law will teach. Either it will teach that marriage exists as a natural institution with the public purpose of joining one man and one woman as husband and wife, ready to become father and mother to their children; or it will teach that marriage (or whatever we now call it) is just a creation of the state meant to recognize adults’ private sexual choices and fulfill their desires. Neither option is neutral. And, contra Kmiec, neither is sectarian. But, for children and for society, only one is sound."

     Ryan T. Anderson, "Preserving marriage in substance, not just name: the Prop 8 debate is not a clash between civil liberties and religion," National review online, 11 March 2009, italics mine. "be[ing] raised by [one's] married, natural parents"—even just that—has taken, of course, many forms. But Anderson is still basically right, it seems to me.

"die innere Bereitmachung der Kirche—notfalls auch für das Blutzeugnis"

Source

"the inner making-ready of the Church—for even martyrdom if necessary"

     Ignaz Zangerle (1905-1987), "Zur Situation der Kirche," Der Brenner 14 (1933-1934): 67-68. Inner, i.e. mystical, supra-juridical: that getting ready, that girding-up so consistent with what the Church is at heart and out of sight, i.e. to the eyes of faith alone. Note the place (Austria) and time.

Pseudo-Epiphanius on Holy Saturday

"Arise, O work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image.  Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person . . . now I myself am united to you, I who am [the] life."

Ἀνάστα, πλάσμα τὸ ἐμὸν, ἀνάστα, μορφὴ ἡ ἐμὴ, καὶ κατ᾿ εἰκόνα ἐμὴν γεγενημένη.  Ἔγειρε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν·  σὺ γὰρ ἐν ἐμοὶ, κἀγὼ ἐν σοὶ, ἓν καὶ ἀδιαίρετον ὑπάρχοεμν πρόσωπον· . . . ἀλλ᾿ ἰδοὺ αὐτὸς ἐγὼ ἡνώθην σοι ἡ ζωή.

     Dindorf, p. 27, ll. 12, ff. =PG 43, col. 461B-C =Pseudo-Epiphanius, Homilia in diuini corporis sepulturam (In Sabbato magno, Homily for the Great and Holy Saturday, Ancient homily on Holy Saturday, The Lord's descent into Hades, On the burial of the divine body, Homily on the burial of Jesus, etc.), as quoted out of the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday by Jean-Pierre Batut, "Praying to the Father through the Son in the Spirit: reflections on the specificity of Christian prayer," trans. Michelle K. Borras, Communio: the international Catholic review 36, no. 4 (Winter 2009): 642 (623-642).  This is CPG 3768 (vol. 2 (1974), pp. 333-334) =BHGⁿ 808e =PG 43, cols. 440-464.  See also here.  CPG 3768 lists no complete English translation (ditto Adam C. McCollum), though there there is a French translation of the Versio palaeo-slauica in A. Vaillant, L’homélie d’Épiphane sur l’ensevelissement du Christ:  Texte vieux-slave, texte grec et traduction française (Zagreb:  1958), which has been placed online.  But see The Lamentations of matins of Holy and Great Saturday; and also An homily on the burial of the Divine Body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on Joseph of Arimathaea, and on the Lord's descent into Hades which, after his saving passion, wondrously ensued on the Holy and Great Saturday (Boston:  Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Brookline, MA), 1981).  See also the English-language excerpts in de Lubac's Catholicism (New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1958)), pp. 251 ff.  According to Vaillant (p. 8), writing in 1958, the best modern edition is that ed. Wilhelm Dindorf (who did not think that the labor associated with the creation of a truly critical edition would be worth the while, but nevertheless emended the text reproduced in PG 43 at some points):  Epiphanii episcopi Constantiae opera (Leipzig, 1859-1862), vol. IV, pt. 2, Pseudo-Epiphanii homiliae, pp. 9-29, and Annotationes, pp. 90-101.

"[Dindorf, p. 9, l. 16:] Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh [(ὁ Θεὸς σαρκὶ ἵπνωσε)] and has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began.   God has died in the flesh [(ὁ θεὸς, ἐν σαρκὶ τέθνηκε)] and hell trembles with fear.  He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him—He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . . [Dindorf, p. 27, l. 5:] 'I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . . [Dindorf, p. 27, l. 9:] I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell [(σοὶ δὲ διακελεύομαι, ἔγειρε ὁ καθεύδων·  οὐ γάρ διὰ τοῦτό σε πεποίηκα, ἵνα ἐν Ἅδῃ κατέκῃ δέσμιος)]. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.  Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image.  Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. . . . Rise, let us leave this place.  The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise.  I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven.  I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. . . .'"

     Ancient homily for Holy Saturday, as quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church #635 (PG 43, 440A, 452C, 461B-C, 464A (440-464)). This homily appears also in the Office of readings for Holy Saturday, Liturgy of the hours, vol. 2, pp. 496-498, and Christian prayer, pp. 1987-1988. Quasten (vol. 3, p. 395) lists it among the spurious works of St. Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315-403), and de Lubac (Catholicism (New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1958), pp. 251 ff.) provides excerpts under the heading Pseudo-Epiphanius.  For an online English translation of the Greek provided by Vaillant, go here.

Sterne on "attitudes" surely as much emotional as physical

"When my uncle Toby first mentioned the grenadier, my father, I said, fell down with his nose flat to the quilt, and as suddenly as if my uncle Toby had shot him; but it was not added that every other limb and member of my father instantly relapsed with his nose into the same precise attitude in which he lay first described; so that when Corporal Trim left the room, and my father found himself disposed to rise [again] off the bed—he had all the little preparatory movements to run over again, before he could do it. Attitudes are nothing, madam—'tis the transition from one attitude to another—like the preparation and resolution of the discord into harmony, which is all in all.
     "For which reason my father played the same jig over again with his toe upon the floor—pushed the chamber-pot still a little further within the valance—gave a hem—raised himself up upon his elbow—and was just beginning to address himself to my uncle Toby—when. . . ."

     Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., IV.6 (GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 342). Applied as much to the rise out of an emotional as out of a physical state (as much to the extrication of oneself from a funk, just for example), I find this to be both true to experience and extraordinarily perceptive.