"Eckhart, Brethren of the Free Spirit" http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/communalism2.htm from Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century (1974), ch. 4
Context: St. Francis is not only the most attractive of all the Christian saints, he is the most attractive of Christians, admired by Buddhists, atheists, completely secular, modern people, Communists, to whom the figure of Christ himself is at best unattractive. Partly this is due to the sentimentalization of the legend of his life and that of his companions in the early days of the order. Many people today who put his statue in their gardens know nothing about him except that he preached a sermon to the birds, wrote a hymn to the sun, and called the donkey his brother. These bits of information are important because they are signs of a revolution of the sensibility — which incidentally was a metaphysical revolution of which certainly St. Francis himself was quite unaware. They stand for a mystical and emotional immediate realization of the unity of being, a notion foreign, in fact antagonistic, to the main Judeo-Christian tradition.
“I am that I am” — the God of Judaism is the only self-sufficient being. All the reality that we can know is contingent, created out of nothing, and hence of an inferior order of reality. Faced with the “utterly other,” the contingent soul can finally only respond with fear and trembling.
“And of all the infinite universe of humanity, these people are the most guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and duplicity, the most obedient and faithful to their native masters and to the Spanish Christians whom they serve.”
History of the Indies (1561)
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Bartolomé de las Casas 21
Spanish Dominican friar, historian, and social reformer 1474–1566Related quotes
The Human: Science versus Humanism (p. 3)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)
Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 4, Definition of Entopia, p. 38
History of the Indies (1561)
Source: 1790s, The Age of Reason, Part II (1795), Chapter III: Conclusion.
“Of all graces, faith honours Christ the most; of all graces, Christ honours faith the most.”
On faith - "Reflections On Prophet TB Joshua At 46" http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/113095 "American Chronicle" (August 5 2009)
“We Germans are the most universal, the most European people of Europe.”
Ibid
Die europäische Triarchie (The European Triarchy)
Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening
“But such their power who rule with tyrant sway,
Whom most they loath the people most obey.”
Book XXXVII, line 774
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)
“But such their power who rule with tyrant sway,
Whom most they loath the people most obey.”
Ma 'l populo facea come i più fanno,
Ch'ubbidiscon più a quei che più in odio hanno.
Canto XXXVII, stanza 104 (tr. J. Hoole)
Orlando Furioso (1532)